From: sedayao@sousa.intel.com (Jeff Sedayao)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.filipino
Subject: Re: FIL-AMS
Date: 28 Jan 93 00:06:29 GMT
Reply-To: sedayao@argus.intel.com
Distribution: usa
Organization: Intel - Information Technologies

In article <1ju4l5INNbp0@darkstar.UCSC.EDU>, rayr@ucscb.UCSC.EDU (The Tribe Of Quest [INFPMBTI]) writes:
> 
> Ah...couldn't keep quiet either.  Actually, I was going to post 
> something about this subject but couldn't bring it up.  Here goes:

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

>   IMO, there is little Filipino culture to speak of - it seems to 
> me that being Filipino boils down to lumpia (loo-pia) and 
> tinikling.  Perhaps we have to build on that.  If we had a strong 
> culture, I would think that we would be more united.  There are 
> large concentrations of Filipinos in Daly City, Hercules, and 
> Vallejo yet we don't have many elected officials. Why?

Come now.  Culture is more than food and dance.  There are distinctly
Filipino religious attitudes, values, and styles of interpersonal
relationships.  Take, for example, a joke like this:

Q.  When is a Filipino fetus viable?
A.  When it graduates from college.

If you get that joke, you probably have some grasp of some Filipino
ways other than lumpia and tinikling. 

I have always amazed how some Filipinos and Fil-Ams seem to like put down 
Filipinos and Filipino culture.  Sure, it's not perfect but it is not
all crap either.  One Fil-Am classmate (from my private college) is a news
bureau chief in Manila.  She wrote an article for our alumni magazine about
how the Philippines was a strange and violent place packed with strange and
violent people.  The article was very negative.  I thought it notable that
she did not mention that she was Filipino and spoke Tagalog fluently.  I guess
the colonial mentality lives on.

The question of why there aren't many Filipino elected officials is 
an interesting question.  Doesn't Hercules have a Filipino mayor now?

> sedayao@sousa.intel.com (Jeff Sedayao) writes:
> >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'm in UC Santa Cruz.  It's public.  I would say that there are 
> a lot of confused young Filipinos out there (including me).  I 
> don't know enough Philippine history - I don't really know what 
> Jose Rizal did and why he's so great; I don't know who the 
> Katipuneros (KKK?) are; I don't know why the capital is in Luzon 
> and why Tagalog is the national language instead of say, Cebuano 
> or Visaya...

I don't think you are that confused.  You have at least heard of 
Jose Rizal and KKK.  You do know that Tagalog is the national language
and know of other Filipino languages.  From your discussions above,
you do know about local Filipino populations and their problems (e.g.
lack of elected officials.)  I compare you to another of my classmates
from my private school, whose discussions of things Filipino were on 
this level:  "Don't you hate it when everyone thinks your father is a
doctor just because you are Filipino?  MY dad is an architect!"

[rest deleted]

> -----
> ray
> rayr@ucscb.ucsc.edu
> Bakit kumokuot ang ulo mong ganyan?
> Oh, and I ain't related to Lolo Fidel :)

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