Description
Book SynopsisVernadette Vicuña Gonzalez follows the life of Filipina vaudeville and film actress Isabel Rosario Cooper, who was the mistress of General Douglas MacArthur to explore the contours of empire as experienced on the scale of personal relationships.
Trade Review“Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez crafts a gorgeous and meticulous portrait of one of the most intriguing women of the twentieth century, Isabel Rosario Cooper. Woven out of ghosts of texts and archival fractures and gaps,
Empire's Mistress is a replete mystery tale, a feminist biography, a Hollywood story, an intimate study of Philippine-U.S. relations, and a masterful work of postcolonial noir. Above all,
Empire's Mistress is a haunting, by which afterlives of empire address our contemporary dilemmas about how to articulate, frame, and center unspoken lives to tell history accurately. A deeply satisfying work of exhumation,
Empire's Mistress makes complex history live, and I'm grateful for Gonzalez's unflinching, refractive, and always revelatory gaze on that history.” -- Gina Apostol, author of * Insurrecto *
“Imaginatively tracing the life of Isabel Rosario Cooper in and through the elisions and silences of the archives, Vernadette Vicuña Gonzalez makes a significant contribution to rethinking the process of archival research when it involves marginalized subjects whose existence appears sporadically in the historical accounts of others. A compelling read.” -- Vicente L. Rafael, author of * Motherless Tongues: The Insurgency of Language amid Wars of Translation *
"Gonzalez’s book is part- excavation, part-celebration of Cooper, that puts the story of MacArthur and his mistress into a new context, and not necessarily in a sordid way. Gonzalez is mindful at all times that Cooper was a daughter of colonization. That is why you read this book, to see another small-scale, personal perspective of the U.S. Philippines relationship where colonial mentality is more than a massive headache." -- Emil Guillermo * Philippine Inquirer *
“
Empire’s Mistress is a dynamic text at the cutting edge of transdisciplinary research and will appeal to lay readers looking for a juicy noir tale and to scholars of women’s history, twentieth century US–Philippines political relations, and postcolonial and cultural studies. Gonzalez’s writing against the archival grain is a pleasure to read.” -- Thea Quiray Tagle * Philippine Studies *
“
Empire’s Mistress is a clever reflection of both the disjointed American imperial archive and the non-linear life Cooper had invented for herself. . . . Gonzalez not only engages in interdisciplinary analyses and methodologies to study the archive, but beautifully interweaves multiple genres—academic prose, poetry, playwriting, and art—to speculate a historical narrative that dances on the fine line between fiction and non-fiction.” -- Kristin Oberiano * Western Historical Quarterly *
“[Gonzalez] insists on a speculative archival reading that allows Cooper to move from being the object of the possessive to a framing that makes her a different kind of subject . . . ultimately centering and valuing the intimate knowledges formed and passed between women who experience the violence of empire.” -- Rachel Yim * Women & Performance *
“Gonzalez is . . . especially lively when she is highlighting her personal discovery of archival documents. . . . Her glimpses into early Manila and the colonial life of American soldiers who married Filipina women was fascinating, and the best-researched part of this tale.” -- Kirby Pringle * Historical Journal of Film, Radio and Television *
“
Empire’s Mistress is a work of art—figuratively and literally—that unearths the engrossing life of Isabel Rosario Cooper. . . . It is an archetype of how archival research should be repurposed.” -- Luis Zuriel P. Domingo * Sojourn *
“Vernadette Gonzalez’s
Empire’s Mistress offers a welcome correction to the common practice of colonial subjects being written out of history. . . . It constitutes a fascinating account of a minor biography intersecting with a major biography and historical events as seen from the colonized periphery.” -- Delia Malia Konzett * Pacific Affairs *
Table of ContentsArchival Detritus, Fabrications, Second Takes, and Other Provocations
1. This Is Not a Love Story 1
2.
Death Certificate, Partial 13
3. A General and Unruly Wards 15
4.
The Flower of Cathay, Excerpts 28
5.
Misapprehensions 30
6. The Farm Boy and the Unbiddable Wife 32
7.
The Delicate Moonbeam 48
8. "Dimples": Innocence (Colonial Kink) 49
9.
Stage Presence 67
10.
Letters Lost at Sea, Imagined, Excerpts 69
11. The New Filipina, Kissing 72
12.
Gossip: Fiction and Nonfiction 86
13.
"It Girl" Meets General 89
14.
Recipe for the Douglas 93
15. The Washington Housewife, the Hollywood Hula Girl, and the Two Husbands: Reinventions 94
16.
Out of Place 111
17. 1st Filipina Nurse, Geisha, Little Sergeant, Javanese Nurse, Uncredited 112
18.
Lolita's Lines 127
19. Bit Parts: Racial Types, Ensemble 128
20. Caged Birds 149
21.
For Future Archives, Apocrypha, and Fictions 160
22.
Death Certificate, Entire 165
23. The Suicide 167
24.
Last Review 170
Acknowledgments 173
Notes 177
Filmography (with Roles) 199
Bibliography 203
Index 215
