Mistaken for an Empire by Christine Imperial

Mistaken for an Empire by Christine Imperial

As an adult, Imperial] attempted what no one else had done: translating 'The White Man's Burden'] into Tagalog. These efforts led Imperial to reflect on her many (often disorienting) moves between the U.S. and the Philippines as well as the pain that translating the poem, alongside her own fractured experiences, represented.Kipling's 'burden, ' Imperial suggests, is far more nuanced than many believe.An intriguing and provocative book.-Kirkus

Born in postcolonial Philippines into a family-and country-with a complicated history, Christine Imperial learns from a lifetime of experiences that there is no easy path to understanding or belonging. Setting out to renew her relationship to Tagalog, the language she had previously distanced herself from, she contends with the meaning of her dual Philippine/US citizenship along with the conditions surrounding it, reflecting on imperialist and class systems and the history of her birth country. Beginning with an attempt to translate into Tagalog Rudyard Kipling's The White Man's Burden-Kipling's ode to American imperialism after the US takeover of the Philippines-Imperial reflects on and writes against Kipling's poem as she unspools her fractured family's story.

Reckoning with both the anguish and promise of hybridity, Mistaken for an Empire expands into an exploration of the author's relationship to English and Tagalog, history, family and state, origin and belonging. By interrogating the many intricacies of individual and national identity and the legacies that shape them, Imperial grapples with the tangled nature of allegiance, whether it be to family, to country, or to self.

SKU	Unavailable
ISBN 13	9780814258637
ISBN 10	0814258638
Title	Mistaken for an Empire
Author	Christine Imperial
Series	21st Century Essays
Condition	Unavailable
Binding Type	Paperback
Publisher	Ohio State University Press
Year published	2023-04-07
Number of pages	256
Cover note	Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary.