Depicting Dangerous Intercourse

Abstract

This chapter covers the imperial fictions produced by American expatriates and Filipino writers. For American expatriates, representations of sexual relations between colonizer and colonized likewise espoused the idea that intercourse was dangerous, primarily for the sanctity of white racial purity and the moral constitutions of white men. On the other hand, Filipino writers consistently wrote about interracial intercourse as symptomatic of the uneven relations between the United States and the Philippines. The chapter notes “Hanggang pier lang” as a contemporary pejorative that reflected the US imperial presence in the Philippines. Imperial fiction that depicted dangerous intercourse in the American colonial Philippines highlights the discursive strategies used by Filipinos and Americans alike to control the direction of the United States–Philippines relationship.