This book describes how Filipino exiles and immigrants in the United States played a crucial role in the grassroots revolution that overthrew the fourteen-year dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. A member of one of the major U.S.-based anti-Marcos movements, the author tells the story of how small groups of Filipino exiles—short on resources and shunned by some of their compatriots—overcame fear, apathy, and personal differences to form opposition organizations after Marcos's imposition of martial law and learned to lobby the U.S. government during the ... More

This book describes how Filipino exiles and immigrants in the United States played a crucial role in the grassroots revolution that overthrew the fourteen-year dictatorship of former president Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines in 1986. A member of one of the major U.S.-based anti-Marcos movements, the author tells the story of how small groups of Filipino exiles—short on resources and shunned by some of their compatriots—overcame fear, apathy, and personal differences to form opposition organizations after Marcos's imposition of martial law and learned to lobby the U.S. government during the Cold War. In the process, the author draws from multiple hours of interviews with the principal activists, personal files of resistance leaders, and U.S. government records revealing the surveillance of the resistance by pro-Marcos White House administrations. The first full-length book to detail the history of U.S.-based opposition to the Marcos regime, it provides valuable lessons on how to persevere against a well-entrenched opponent.