Filipino Immigration Gender

Ngai investigates the ways in which gender shaped the experiences of Mexican and – more specifically – Filipino immigrants. She argues that immigration policies and a labor shortage in agriculture in the U.S. West and Southwest fostered gendered labor migration. Due to the fact that Mexicans did not fall under the immigration quotas and Filipinos were colonial subjects of the U.S., these two immigrant groups entered the United States through “‘loppholes’ in an otherwise globally restricted immigration policy” (94). More importantly, the U.S was responsible for recruiting laborers from these two groups to work in U.S. farm fields. However, the recruitment of workers was not gender blind. Able-bodied men were the ones who were recruited