Saling-Pusa Tayo [We Are Saling-Pusa]: Toward Being and Teaching Filipinxs on Indigenous Lands

Abstract

Filipinxs in the United States/Turtle Island are both racialized “others” and settlers on Indigenous lands. This study asks the two following questions: What does it mean to be Filipinx on Indigenous Lands? How do Filipinxs navigate the world? My co-researchers and I employed a Projects in Humanization, relational approach to exploring these questions within and beyond multiple Filipinx-themed undergraduate seminars I facilitated between 2017 and 2021. Our focus for the first question was elucidating Filipinxness in terms of group identifications (e.g., Filipinx, brown, Catholic). Our focus for the second question involved highlighting actions and commitments that we related to Filipinxness. I employed a constructivist, grounded theory approach to develop a theory of the saling-pusa, or “informal member,” as both ontological and pedagogical tool that involves refusal and desire. I propose that Filipinxs as saling-pusa on Indigenous lands lean into liminality as a strength and a place of radical possibilities toward being ourselves, teaching within and outside our communities, and solidarities with Indigenous peoples and other groups marginalized by systemic injustices.