American Developmentalism and Hierarchies of Difference in R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's

Abstract

This article examines the ways that R. Zamora Linmark's Rolling the R's (1995) explores the production of gendered, sexual, and spatial hierarchies of difference. Filipino American writing is often examined in relation to assimilation narratives. Reyes argues that reading Filipino American writing in the historical and theoretical framework of American developmentalism reveals the ways that Filipino American subject formation navigates the local and global forces of Americanization, U.S. imperialism, and transnational capitalism. Through a close reading of Linmark, Reyes shows how the tensions between these forces manifest as hierarchies of difference, which inevitably are lived through as hierarchies of power.