They like you...

Benjamin's and Bhabha's theories both emphasize mankind's desire to mimic whether he imitates somebody else or coerces another person to imitate him. Bhabha theorizes that the colonial power attempts to mold its conquered colony in its own image. However, there is "an ambivalence (almost the same, but not quite) [which] does not merely 'rupture' the discourse, but becomes transformed into an uncertainty which fixes the colonial subject as a 'partial' presence" (127). Thus, the conqueror uses mimicry to assert authority over the conquered. Benjamin, on the other hand, talks about the significance of the mimetic faculty and its decisive role in man's "compulsion to become similar and to behave mimetically"(720).

Perhaps the biggest difference between the two theories is that Benjamin talks about man alone and how he creates similarities which develop through time (in the form of language) while Bhabha covers how colonial powers wield mimicry to "civilize" their colonies.

Indeed, such mimicry is portrayed in the chapter "They Like You, Because You Eat Dog". This chapter is essentially a list of Filipino stereotypes such as eating dogs, olive skin and yellow teeth, gardening, working three full-time jobs, and speaking broken English. Bhabha would identify this as discriminatory identities constructed across traditional cultural norms and classifications" (130). It is because of these stereotypes that the Filipinos in Hawaii try to adapt to American culture, hence are branded copycats who "want to be just like them". In a sense, American culture frowns upon many of the things Filipinos do such as eating dogs, cockfighting, and just the fact that they come from a third-world nation. And even if the Filipinos try to mimic being American by listening to American music and speaking English, they are almost American, but not quite. The final question "will they like you more?" addresses this issue of whether or not the mimicking Filipinos would be accepted as Americans.