What are some of the things that you love about being Filipino?
Definitely the food and the community. Community is a really big part of our culture. You have several generations living in the same house at once, and then you have the Filipino churches, and everyone there is your uncle or aunt. You're never really alone because you have such a big community around you.
What are some of the traditions that you remember growing up?
We have so many family gatherings. It was never just my mom, dad, and me; it was my grandparents, then my aunts and uncles, then other “aunts and uncles” who are not really related. So definitely big family gatherings, especially during the holidays. I also learned how to cook Filipino food from my maternal side, because my mom is the Filipino one. Learning about my culture from my mom and grandma is definitely not necessarily a tradition, but it's something that I grew up doing. Being Filipino American, especially third generation, it's very hard to have certain traditions just because we're so Americanized. You still have elements of the Filipino culture, but being half Filipino you have these two cultures which leads to some sort of identity crisis. Being Filipino American is like a subculture. It's very hard to find a balance of not being too Americanized and not being too Filipino, but being in the middle.
How was it coming to Andrews and being a part AFIA? How has it introduced you to new perspectives of being Filipino?
Back at home in Southern California, I never went to a Filipino church. All the people in AFIA hung out and grew up together, and I never had that. So coming to Andrews was like culture shock for me. All of a sudden I was surrounded by so many Filipinos like me, half white half Filipino. I was like, “oh my goodness, I've never had this before.” So it was really nice to be immersed in my culture with people in my generation who are Filipino American.You have people who have immigrant parents, and then you have people like me where the US is all they've ever known. So you kind of make your own culture, as well as relying on the mother culture of just being Filipino and then mix it all together to create this huge melting pot of Filipino culture with different influences. So you have people bringing their own cultures into the bigger category of Filipino culture. Then that adds to a sense of community where it doesn't matter if you're full Filipino. Even if you're not Filipino you're still part of the Filipino community. So coming to Andrews, to me, was a culture shock because I've never been surrounded by so much of my Filipino culture.
How has it been planning events during Filipino American History Month, especially during this crazy year? How has AFIA tried to influence the Andrews campus with Filipino culture?
It was definitely extremely hard. Last year we did Filipino calligraphy, which was the language before colonization, and we had a more hands-on experience learning Filipino folk songs. Having experienced that my freshman year under the previous cultural Vice President and then taking on this role and having to deal with COVID in my position is hard. I had to think, “how can I still make this interactive and entice people to come when they can't really do things hands-on and we have to do it on zoom?” Then I focused on Filipino American history. It's important to know about culture, but it's also important to keep the history alive, because it's not as talked about as the food or the dress. I was like, “well, why don't we talk about people who are relevant to college students, especially to what's going on?” So we decided to do short courses.
The first short course we did, I was a little intimidated, because I thought that not a lot of people would come since they couldn’t show up physically. I thought they’d have their cameras off on zoom and I'd just be talking to a bunch of black boxes. So then I decided to just pick certain Filipino American icons, who are kind of relevant to us in the sense that we're college kids, and a lot of the Filipino community are STEM majors. Plus, considering all the injustice that's going on in our society today, I wanted to focus on the questions: “how did the Filipino Americans step up and fight those injustices? How did they work with other minorities and how did they band together? How can we follow their example and be present for people who are going through these injustices.” So I decided to focus on Dr. Fe Del Mundo. She was the National scientist of the Philippines and the first woman to get admitted to Harvard. And then we focused on a war hero, the first Filipino American to win a medal of honor.
This last short course we're doing is on a man who was working for social justice reform alongside Cesar Chavez. I thought that was really cool, because September is Hispanic Heritage Month and October is Filipino American History Month. What better way to show that we struggled together and that we've grown together as a culture? He was a migrant field worker, and he saw all of this injustice going on in the workplace for the Filipinos and the Hispanics, in addition to all of the other minorities. He knew that it wasn't right and that they had to work together, because if we are disconnected, they're not going to listen to us. We have to see each other struggle and acknowledge that we're going through the same thing. We are only stronger when we work together. I think a lot of people think that the Philippines is “underdeveloped.” Many people have left the Philippines to come here and start a new life, to find something better and make a name for the Philippines and show others that we were much more than our country. It's the people who are the resource, and we have the power to make our country great. So I was hoping, long story short, that by telling these inspiring stories I could inspire others to power through their struggle because you're so much more than your struggle, and you're so much more than your culture. But those things together, they do make you who you are. You are in control. So I'm just hoping that people take that away from the short course, and you don't have to be a Filipino American to relate to that and resonate with these people's stories.
What ways do you recommend that other people become allies of Filipinos and fight alongside them in their struggle in America? How can we fight for justice together as one united people?
The biggest advice I would give is to just listen, to be there for others and be empathetic. We all struggle, and we're all God's children, and he calls us to listen and to be there for others. For example, we're Filipinos and we’re a community. We have to extend that community to our brothers and sisters, because yes, we are the Filipino community, but the bigger picture is that we are the family of God. And how can we see other minorities struggle, and how can we see all this injustice going on and then not do anything about it? You don't have to go out and protest to be an ally. You can use your voice, you can vote, you can talk to other people. But the biggest piece of advice I can give is to follow the golden rule, to treat others the way you want to be treated and to just remember that we're all God's children. We're just one big community. When Jesus comes again it's not going to be the Filipino community or the African American community. We're all a part of God's community.
The Student Movement is the official student newspaper of Andrews University. Opinions expressed in the Student Movement are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the editors, Andrews University or the Seventh-day Adventist church.