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Victoria Reyes is a fifth year student double majoring in International Studies and Psychology with a minor in Asian American Studies. Her senior thesis explores the lives of Filipina women who married American military personnel and later moved to America. She has been awarded the prestigious Fulbright Scholarship to continue her research next year in the Philippines, and plans to pursue graduate school in the field of ethnic studies.

What specifically do you research?

My current research project is my senior thesis titled “Filipina Military Brides Negotiating Assimilation and Cultural Maintenance within a Bicultural Setting”. I am interviewing women who married military personnel while in the Philippines and then traveled to live in the United States. I’m looking at how they construct an ethnic identity in this bicultural setting and how they negotiate between the pressures of assimilation and cultural maintenance.

Next year, through the aid of the Fulbright Scholarship, I will conduct research in the Philippines that extends my thesis. I will be looking at women in the Philippines who used to be involved with military men but did not marry and remained in the Philippines. I plan to explore the stigmas that have been associated with them and also the prevailing migration and gender ideology of these women. It’s kind of the reversal of my thesis here at Ohio State.

How did you find this research topic?

I took a class on the history of Asian-American women taught by Professor Judy Wu, and for the final research project I interviewed my grandmother who is a military bride. I interviewed her for two hours, and her story was very compelling to me. Not only did it have personal meaning to me, but it also connected my many interests of the politics, economics, and social movements of transnational migration and also the effect of colonialism from a historical aspect and international relations. I had a difficult time finding an advisor because the few Asian American Studies professors here are so involved. I eventually found my advisor through a Sociology class I took about social stratification. I went to talk to her about ideas for an advisor and she offered to help me. That’s how I’ve come to take a sociological stance on my project while also maintaining an interdisciplinary approach.

I received a fellowship from the Office of Minority Affairs called the World Service Project Fellowship, and I participated in the Philippines Studies Program specifically for Filipino Americans to go and take language classes and live University of the Philippines. I attended that program, and also on the side, I researched at the university library and got in contact with the Center for Women Studies there and talked to different faculty members. The center’s director paired me with an assistant, and she really helped me contact people. I did some interviews with some organizations, and in fact, the connection I made for the center for Women Studies solidified my application for the Fulbright.

What advice would you give to current undergraduates who want to get involved in research?

Do what interests you. Be involved, talk to faculty. Bounce off ideas with faculty members you’ve had in class or through student organizations. Faculty members can really help narrow down or raise more questions that lead to ideas of even more interest to you. It’s funny because my research project was originally going to be in English, comparing Filipina and Hawaiian literature and reclamation of the feminine in terms of pre-colonialism that was more egalitarian than today. But when I went to the Philippines this past summer to start my research, I learned that my idea that women use a pre-colonial past for their identity was false. So I went back to my grandmother to focus on that. Really bounce out ideas because sometimes your ideas don’t pan out. Talk to a lot of people.

How have you benefited from your research experiences?

This research project in particular has really helped me focus. It has forced me to be more disciplined in my interests. I’ve discovered that I have all these interests, but I cannot tap them all at once. I have to be clear, concise, and disciplined. I used my scholarships to travel to interview women living all over the United States, and I visited the Filipino Historical Society in Seattle. I also will have the opportunity to present my research at the Filipino American National Historical Society conference in Hawaii this July.

I rediscovered my love for intellectual debate while I was in the Philippines, and I found that my interests lean more towards social science in nature than English. Thus, my thesis has been based on a whole series of experiences from learning my grandmother’s story to a research project in my history class to going over to the Philippines and talking with organizations there. This experience has really stimulated my passion for research now and in the future.

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