Prior to conducting research for her debut novel, Jessica Hagedorn had never encountered the term ‘dogeaters.’ Although the Filipino author had been born and raised in Manila, her knowledge of the Philippines’ relationship with its former colonizer, the United States, had been limited at best. She first found the word, with all the ugliness and cultural shame tied to it, in a historical text titled Little Brown Brother: How the United States Purchased and Pacified the Philippines. The text detailed how American soldiers coined the derogatory term for Filipinos, painting them as uncivilized and savage. “So I wrote down ‘dogeaters’ because the word haunted me,” Hagedorn said in an interview with The Nation. “[T]he idea was to flip the word on its head and use it as a defiant title.”
In part due to its title, Dogeaters instantly became a novel that polarized readers around the world. “A lot of Filipinos were upset about that title,” Hagedorn said in an interview with BOMB Magazine. Many Filipino readers refused to read the novel solely based on the title, with Filipino critics such as N.V.M. Gonzalez even describing the title as a clear “offense” to Hagedorn’s base readership. “[It] got me in a lot of trouble with the communities,” Hagedorn said in an interview with Alta Journal.
Interestingly, reception for Dogeaters was significantly different in the United States, where it was first released. It was almost as if American critics — who were just starting to see the rise of Asian American literature — had no idea how to feel about Hagedorn and her unflinchingly Filipino novel. Some American critics chose to focus on Hagedorn’s writing, praising her for her “considerable wit and originality.” Others attempted to address the Filipino chaos that Hagedorn captures in Dogeaters, describing it as “a spicy stew of a novel.” A few critics pushed back against the novel’s Filipino-ness and Hagedorn’s decision to pepper Tagalog slang into her characters’ dialogue. One early New York Times review complained that it was a “pity” that Hagedorn’s editor did not limit the author’s desire to include her mother tongue’s vocabulary. “The exoticisms become tiresome,” the reviewer claimed.
Despite its controversial reception, Dogeaters clearly made an impact on contemporary literature. In the same year it was published, Dogeaters was recognized as a finalist for the National Book Award for Fiction. In 1991, the novel won the National Book Award. More recently, on November 13, 2024, Dogeaters was published as a Penguin Modern Classic, a status that is reserved by the publishing company Penguin Random House for novels that are considered timeless.
A portrayal of a culturally divided PH
There’s a lot happening in Dogeaters all at once. Hagedorn’s world quickly becomes a confusing blur of names and stories, making it difficult for readers to find meaning in the chaotic throng — however, Hagedorn seems to be hiding intentionality in her chaos.
Set during 1950s-1960s Philippines, Dogeaters acts as a time capsule that continues to resonate with readers today, especially those who experienced firsthand the political turbulence of former President Ferdinand Marcos’ early presidency. Hagedorn attempts to capture the messiness of that period, when the country was just beginning to find its footing as a sovereign nation. She rapidly switches between narratives, not minding when a character arc is half-baked or incomplete. Some chapters focus exclusively on Rio Gonzaga, a child of Manila’s privileged Spanish upper-class and a semi-autobiographical stand-in for Hagedorn herself. Other chapters center around Joey Sands, the greatest hustler/DJ in Manila and the novel’s drug-addicted antihero. Even more chapters introduce characters such as the failed actor/assassination scapegoat Romeo Rosales, the violently murderous General Ledesma, and the beauty-queen-turned-tortured-refugee Daisy Avila, among others.
Hagedorn’s chaos creates an image of a country with a deeply concerning identity crisis. Although the Philippines had gained independence from the United States in 1946, it continued (and still continues) to have a strange, fanatical relationship with the Western power. As Senator Avila, the novel’s representative of an ideal, benevolent leader, aptly puts it, “We Pinoy suffer collectively from a cultural inferiority complex. We are doomed by our need for assimilation into the West and our own curious fatalism…” Hagedorn devotes most, if not all, of the novel to capturing the Filipino obsession with all things American. The novel opens with Rio and her cousin Pucha gushing over the stars of a Rock Hudson movie. Andres Alacran, the Spanish owner of the nightclub CoCoRico, comments “Basta puti” when remarking on romantic partners. Joey Sands dreams of being saved by an American girl who will marry him and grant him his green card. Hagedorn puts our cultural inferiority complex directly under the bright, unforgiving spotlight. She forces us to ask the question, Why do we so badly need America’s cultural stamp of approval?
Hagedorn’s Dogeaters is a relentless portrayal of a culturally divided Philippines. There is nothing pristine, neat, or remotely savory about the country’s never-ending struggle to discover itself, and Hagedorn so effortlessly demonstrates this turmoil in a novel that continues to feel relevant, despite being published more than thirty years ago. The similarities between the world of Dogeaters and our world today are uncanny — both worlds grapple with political instability, class inequality, and an obsession with its post-colonial worth. The Philippines as a country is a complicated work in progress, one that must grapple with its own history and identity.
