The Depressing Experience of Writing about American Fantasy-Productions in 2025
Notes from a dissertation
The title of my dissertation is “Tropical Fantasy-Productions: Filipino diasporic novels in the USA from 2010 to 2024”. Many of the novels written by Filipinos in America discuss, and go against, American fantasy-productions, which are basically American colonial and neo-colonial narratives about the Philippines and Filipinos. I finished writing the whole thing last year, but I am in the midst of revising it and will be defending it to a panel this semester.
While revising it, and seeing all the changes that Trump has done in less than a month as President of the USA, I could not help but exclaim to one of my professors that all of our Filipino articulations against American imperialism are true. His quick reply was, “Oh, yes!” American imperialism is alive and well in 2025.
I used to think that these articulations were more or less academic exercises when it came to analyzing literature. But today’s events show just how disturbingly true Filipino and Filipino American observations are when it comes to American fantasy-productions that seem benign (for example the white savior) and reveal themselves to be racist in nature (to think one can save an entire race means infantilizing the race and portraying is as uncivilized).
Every day, my illusions about the USA are stripped, which are underlined by the fact that I am still in the middle of revising my dissertation. But I guess all the subtle messages found in American fantasy-productions are displaying themselves in full force: of a USA that works on white supremacist logic; of imperialism, expansionism, and racism.
With Trump, America shows its true darkness.
And he is only beginning.