Staging Diaspora, Dramatizing Activism: Fashioning a Progressive Filipino Canadian Theatre in Toronto, 1974–2001

Abstract

During the 1980s and 1990s, Toronto became home to a thriving Filipino Canadian theatre community, which had significant roots in earlier left-wing political groups organizing from afar against the Marcos dictatorship in the Philippines. The most prominent company, the Carlos Bulosan Cultural Workshop (CBCW), used dramatic works to highlight a range of issues facing Filipinos in Canada, from the exploitation of domestic workers to employment discrimination, gender-based violence to neo-colonial and neo-liberal economic regimes. This article traces the history of that company, from its origins in Toronto’s 1970s anti-Marcos activist circles to its 1990s stage explorations of Philippine colonial and revolutionary histories. It contends that the CBCW’s activist and theatrical labour, by fostering a transnational critical political consciousness, should complicate assimilation-oriented analyses of immigration and incorporation in Canada. It asserts that the group’s efforts at forging diasporic connections across time and space, along with its attempt to politicize Toronto’s Filipino populace, provided an implicit rebuke to reigning Canadian constructions of multiculturalism and “ethnic” arts. Finally, it situates the company’s history as a demonstration of the important role of artistic and representational means in political struggles waged by Filipinos and other racialized communities in late twentieth-century Canada.