Grounded on a political and a historical background between the United States and the Philippines, this article analyzes the literary resistance and the narrative of masculinity on American Son by Filipino American writer, Brian A. Roley. As a matter of history, the US tried to adhere to its own interests and a dignity as a powerful nation for displaying imperialistic aspect. In contrast, the Philippines was colonized by the US and Spain for 400 years. Accordingly, national relations between these two countries have intensified ever since the Philippines strived hard to be freed from the US, the former colonial ruler of the Philippines.
The Philippine male immigrants who have lost their own masculinity in the US transfigure them into the feminized masculinity by force. This article places the most emphasis on how to embody a restoration of their masculinity as a symbol of resistance in this narrative. Tomas and Gabe, the protagonists of the work, were born between a white father and a filipino mother. In American society, they have to tolerate racial discriminations and contempts applied only to the Philippine immigrants. Furthermore, in the home, they make a great effort to guard their home which has been collapsed for an absence of a parental role. To recover their lost masculinity and break through this situation, Tomas uses a violent mexican gangster’s identity. His wildness gives a bad influence on Gabe who is an obedient child. Gabe breaks from the previous appearance and exposes himself to extreme brutality rather than Tomas
Philippine immigrants who are represented by characters in this story excessively abandon themselves to material values in capitalism. By extension, they hope for assimilating into the mainstream society in the US. But it is hard to overcome a threshold of exclusion, and they remained as social minorities. Consequentially, the brothers’ brutal masculinity is not a way of life but a survival method. The problem is that the masculinity that they choose is only related with criminals and not satisfied with anything such as assimilation, economic growth and the recovery of masculinity. That’s why masculinity need to be redefined out of the past perspective in which masculinity is identified with criminal violence. It is a debatable question whether pursuing the radical masculinity can be a way for Gabe and Tomas to be free from the decolonizationed situation.
This article focuses on a change of Gabe’s personality and psychology because this is simply not an adolescent defiance, but a form of resistance which assumed a violence and a conversion of decolonization. It also discusses the reappearance of masculinity as a way of responding against the oppression that Philippine immigrants go through and at the same time, suggest it as expanding boundaries of the minorities literature in the US.