Crip Colony

“Through a comparative reading of primarily Spanish-language texts, Sony Coráñez Bolton reframes our understanding of race and empire. The book reveals how discourses of mestizaje and ability/disability deeply informed Spanish and US imperialisms in the Philippines. Vibrant and insightful, Crip Colony ultimately imagines a new framework for hemispheric disability studies.” - Denise Cruz, Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Columbia University

“By attending to the ways in which mestizaje theory operated in the Philippines, Sony Coráñez Bolton reorients scholarship on mestizaje away from its primary focus on the Americas while demonstrating how the theory is conceptually dependent on disability. This indispensable book reframes how scholars in disability studies, Asian American studies, and beyond engage with questions of disability, empire, coloniality, and mestizaje.” - Julie Avril Minich, author of Accessible Citizenships: Disability, Nation, and the Cultural Politics of Greater Mexico

"Coráñez Bolton's original analysis of Filipino mestizaje bridges the gulf between American hemispheric studies and Asian American studies, which have heretofore existed in silos." - Bassam Sidiki, Critical Inquiry

“Sony Corañez Bolton’s Crip Colony is a theoretically sophisticated contribution to the current surge in Filipinx American studies scholarship.”

"In this stunning theoretical and archival work, Sony Coráñez Bolton dives into the interstices of global colonial strategies and postcolonial projects by re-examining culturally significant Philippine images and narratives using the lenses of race, disability, and queerness. It is a monumental feat that begins with something small: a childhood memory of his mother using three languages— Spanish, English, and Tagalog—that lets him map out his own positionality as a mestizo Filipinx American professor of Spanish."

"Crip Colony accomplishes and articulates a critical remapping of the Philippines and other spaces. Advocating for Filipinx and Latinx bodies to refuse disabling imperial diagnoses, this book contributes to postcolonial, disability, and Filipinx studies and will influence related fields for years to come."

"Suffice to say, Crip Colony will make a lasting contribution to Philippine, American, and what we could call global Latinx studies. Coráñez Bolton certainly sets the highest standard for the study of modern Spanish-language Philippine literature." - Paula C. Park, Philippine Studies

"The contribution of Crip Colony that speaks the most to me is how it shows the ableist mandate of 'benevolent rehabilitation' that still underlies anticolonial calls for sovereignty, autonomy, and development. . . . A humbling, monumental, and exciting intellectual contribution that proposes new critical vocabularies and that opens the door widely for future scholarship and reflection." - Laura J. Torres-Rodríguez, Journal of Latin American Cultural Studies

"The key intervention Crip Colony makes is in its deployment of theoretical insights from disability studies to excavate the ableist logics underpinning the Filipinx colony. . . . The use of disability studies in a Southeast Asian context— in the case of Crip Colony, colonial Philippines—is thus a welcome addition to the field." - Kuansong Victor Zhuang, Journal of Asian Studies