>*Warning, long ass reply follows:
>
>What I think my man TREND is trying to get at here is knowing
>our Culture better. It's gonna be pretty hard to deny you're
>"Filipino" strictly based on the way you act or how much you
>know of your "people." You can still be Filipino without
>knowing your culture, is a Scottish person that grew up in
>North Dakota not Scottish because he doesn't speak his native
>language or eat Scottish foods? (*insert Rex Navarrette
>Scottish/Filipino joke here.)
>
>I think I can speak for all of us (at least most of us who are
>a little older) when I say that we've all been through that
>point of our lives when we've wondered about our origins and
>our history as a people. Most of us that's grown up here in
>the US has probably worked through some difficult identity
>issues, we've never been fully embraced by the majority of
>minorities here and we definitely haven't been accepted by the
>white population either. Most minorites still view us as part
>of the Asian stereotypical "model Minority" when in fact we're
>quite different from the majority of Asian races out there
>(despite of and probably because of our mixed origins from
>various different Asian and non-Asian races) and we're also
>not quite accepted in some circles as "Asian." I know alot of
>Filipinos that have been guilty of this association too,
>they're quick to respond that they're "Filipino" and not
>Asian, probably because of said stereotype.
>
>So for quite some time most of the Filipinos that grew up here
>in America haven't had a singular identity to attach to, and
>it doesn't help that we haven't really had many significant
>Filipino-American role models around (big ups to Ernie Reyes
>Jr. and Q Bert for holding it down!) Some of us compensate
>for this by isolating ourselves with only Filipino friends,
>going to the "Filipino Association" parties and forming our
>identity with just being Filipino in America. Some of us go
>through the motions of discovering other circles, trying
>different things - hanging with the punk rock kids,
>breakdancing with the hip hop crowd etc. and in the process of
>finding acceptance here we tend to neglect and even deny alot
>of our Filipino Culture. We start to tell our parents to not
>talk Tagalog in front of company or hide our Filipino dishes
>from our friends (*see The Debut) and we start to hide
>anything ethnic about us in our search for acceptance. Sooner
>or later we all start to realize that we are what we are, and
>our Culture is slowly dying because of our neglectance. I
>don't think I need to tell you guys that there's a severe lack
>of information on our history and Culture prior to outside
>colonization, and our verbal history is almost nil. I've seen
>this urge to find out about our roots swell up inside of me
>and a few others around me and I think that's the point I've
>been trying to get at in this long ass reply.
>
>It's interesting because I see parallels in this with the
>Afro-centric movement of Hip Hop in the early 90's. It
>differs in the fact that there was more information available
>to the black community about their history, and the fact that
>they had Hip Hop. They had a public, unifying forum to pull
>together all the people across the Nation to this Afro-centric
>view. Hip Hop brought them all together at roughly around the
>same time to help them all re-discover their roots, but we
>never had that unifying force for us. We never had a
>significant presence in Hip Hop, or in any other Media for
>that matter, and that coupled with the lack of avenues for
>discovering our Culture basically led to all of us pretty much
>coming to the same conclusions on our own at different times.
>But I think alot of us still fall through the cracks because
>of this lack of organization. There's still many of us out
>there that never bother to take that search despite the
>growing need for it inside of them. And I also think that
>alot of us get caught up with trying to be "too Filipino"
>without knowing what that actually is. We need to strive to
>know more about us and our history while not being too
>ethnocentric at the same time. Being proud you're Filipino
>and Knowing you're Filipino are two seperate things that can
>co-exist at the same time, but if we take it too far we run
>the risk of it becoming racist instead of it becoming a
>celebration of our culture (*see the Natzis.)
>
>Sorry to ramble but this shit has been on my mind for awhile
>and I never really had anywhere to get it off my chest. Love
>it or hate it it's here. I think for future reference (and
>for future Filipino History Months) we should strive to
>organize and make a group effort of celebration, maybe meeting
>up across the nation as groups of young Filipino-Americans
>discovering and spreading the knowledge of our culture. I
>think we can all agree that we need a seperate forum from our
>parents' gatherings to meet and socialize and organize as
>Filipino-Americans. Let's have our Filipino-centric
>movement,but let's make it never end (and please no rope
>necklaces with Philippine Island-shaped medallions.)
>
>Peace.
>
sigh *tucks away her philippines shaped pendant inside her blouse*

gO PACQUIAO!