From: sedayao@sousa.intel.com (Jeff Sedayao)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Re: FIL-AMS
Date: 21 Jan 93 18:45:33 GMT
Reply-To: sedayao@chopin.intel.com
Organization: Intel - Information Technologies

In article <1993Jan21.080737.6533@schbbs.mot.com>, R11334@waccvm.corp.mot.com (Cycle-Time-Sys Sh-Shuy) writes:


> Here's an interesting article I saw on the paper today.  Some portions have
> been deleted:

They have a skewed sample.  Stanford, as an elite, expensive
private school, has a different set of Filipino Americans than a public school
would.  Drastically different.  I know this from experience, having attended
a private college and a public one.  If they visited U.C. Berkeley (just across
the bay), I suspect they would get some very different answers.

> STANFORD, California - To talk about Filipino culture is to painstakingly
> wring out details of a complicated society where traditions are closely
> linked with a Spanish colonial heritage and whose popular culture is
> unmistakably American influenced.

> One would think that there is no Filipino culture to speak of, in the first
> place.  This is the reason they have earned the monicker 'brown Americans'.
> Filipinos are so exposed to American culture that culture shock ranges from
> negligible to zero when they come to the United States.

I was born here in the state, but from my experiences with friends, relatives,
and others who have immigrated here, culture shock exists and is not negligible.

> For most Filipino-American students in Stanford University who grew up
> here, the so-called problem of "cultural identity" among children of
> immigrants has been resolved.  Or it never existed at all.

> They consider themselves Americans.  "I am an ethnic American and being of
> an ethnic minority is a facet of my being an American," declared Julius
> Paras, president of Pilipino-American Student Union based at Stanford.  "I
> am more American than I am Filipino."  "I am definitely more American than
> Filipino," said Laurie Anne Dee, a sophomore in Florida.  "I know my
> lifestyle is different from my cousins in the Philippines.  I have accepted
> that I am an American."  Paras, however, said he knows he will never
> realize the ultimate American dream - to become President of the United
> States -because he was not born here.

> Filipino-Americans consider themselves Americans but they do not totally
> belong to the country as Americans do.  They cannot consider themselves
> Filipinos because their only link to the Philippines are their parents, who
> in fact did not encourage them to talk and act Filipino.  They know that in
> the Philippines, the only thing they have in common with the people,
> including members of their extended families, is the color of their skin.

I would not say this for all Fil-Ams born here.  I am not even sure that this
applies to the majority.  There are a number of reasons that the Filipinos do 
not teach their Fil-AM kids to speak Tagalog.  I know some parents were 
discouraged (wrongly, in my opinion) by American teachers from speaking to 
their children in Tagalog.  Some Filipinos are more comfortable in English
than in Tagalog.  One reason my mother did not teach me Tagalog is that she
doesn't speak it very well.  She is from Mindanao, and she only learned
Tagalog here in the US!

> Paras said the cultural framework of Filipino-Americans is something that
> will always crop up, notwithstanding the fact that they consider themselves
> Americans.  "There will really be no complete resolution," he said.
> "Throughout our lives, we will be faced with this question."

> [end of article]

> Nice, huh ?  How about changing the name of this newsgroup to
> SOC.CONFUSED.FILIPINOS ?  or maybe REC.TRAVEL.PI  (as in "pee-eye").  After
> all, vacations, travel and tourist spots are favorite topics.

-- 
Jeff Sedayao
Intel Corporation
sedayao@chopin.intel.com
..!uunet!intelhf!chopin!sedayao
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino