The Filipino Worker and the Affective Limits of Early Twentieth-Century Liberalism and Nationalism in the Philippines and the United States

This article examines the affective structure of political and racial exclusion faced by Filipino workers in the early twentieth century, tracing it through the discourses of liberalism and nationalism. The nationalist elite guiding the nascent Filipino nation cast themselves as necessary moral leaders over the masses. American colonials, meanwhile, viewed the native population as lacking the industry required for self-governance, and the white labor movement in the United States regarded Filipino migrant workers as an unassimilable, backward race, unfit for republican modern citizenship. This article argues that these exclusionary rhetorics were foundational to early twentieth-century nationalism and liberalism, shared both by the Filipino elite and the Americans.