| Summary/Abstract |
My research focuses on how Filipina/os respond to stigmatisation in Canada and the United States and how those responses are impacted by neoliberal ideology and perceptions of multiculturalism. The research uses in-depth interviews of 58 Filipina/o students in Toronto and Los Angeles to analyse the cultural repertoires available to them that enable or constrain a sense of belonging. Canada offers federally funded multicultural policies toward immigrant settlement and ethnic institutions, compared to the informal approach to multiculturalism in the United States. Nonetheless, the interviewees report that Filipina/os experience stigmatisation on a group level despite efforts to ‘fit in.’ I argue that the dual forces of Western neoliberalism and past colonisation in the Philippines influence tendencies toward either a decolonisation discourse that criticises social structures or a neoliberal discourse that focuses on agency. Perceptions of multiculturalism affect which tendency Filipina/os rely on to mobilise destigmatisation strategies.
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