Filipeanut-American

Once upon a time I made a blog about Filipino culture. Or at least I thought it was about Filipino culture. I even started making rap music about it soon after that, thinking I knew what I was talking about.

But I was wrong =(.

What I was really blogging and rapping about was a Filipino-American’s point of view of a society I knew nothing about. So I stopped writing and rapping and started listening for a change. I love how life works that way, you’re doing one thing thinking you’re in the right direction and then you try something completely different and it gets even better.

For a more candid take on what I’ve been hearing so far can be found from a few Filipino-Filipinos contributing answers to my ultimate question:

“What do you dislike about Filipino-Americans?” (Click here to read some of the answers.)

Here are some quotes that stuck out to me the most:

• “The moment they get off the plane in Manila, they instantly lose their pinoy pride and become either black (“bling-bling homie”) or white (“i’m stoked, dude”) when conversing with a local–and essentially spend the rest of their vacation making sure the locals know that they are NOT like them.”
• “Filipino-Americans are way too cliquish.”
• “If you don’t fit any of the stereotypes then you are definitely ‘WHITE WASHED’ and can forget about calling yourself Filipino…..”
• “Filipinos are amazing writers, I wish more Filipino-Americans would appreciate their literary heritage.”
• “THEY USE TISSUE PAPER, WHICH IS MORE EXPENSIVE THEN USING RUNNING WATER.”
• “and i dont even want to get into how many fil-ams got onto the pacquaio bandwagon when the getting was good. and while i understand everyone loves a winner, and he makes u proud to be filipino, barely any fil-ams (except ones that knew boxing) knew (or cared) that he had a less successful brother who’s a boxer as well or knew (or cared) about another successful fighter who came before pacman… luisito espinosa.”