This website serves as a creative and organized outlet that has helped me discover my own cultural identity. Very often do I reflect on what it means to be “Asian-American” let alone “Filipina-American”. To live in America, as a child of immigrants and as an underrepresented youth in what seems to categorize me in the second largest Asian-American subgroup in the United States (oh, the irony) has generated a lot of personal and cultural meaning to me.
With that said, I hope this website will also help my generation understand his/her own identity. As an Asian-American and Filipina, it is so easy to grow up wanting to reject our own culture in a society where we are limited to American values and media. We grow up studying American history and studying the Western values that brainwashes us to forget about the internal struggles and ongoing challenges that our community faces.
The Filipino Student Association ’14-’15: A group of driven and passionate leaders dedicated to the inclusion and representation of Filipin@-American students at the University of California, Santa Cruz.
By evaluating the model minority stereotype, this website will critique the common preconceptions of Asians that hinder our abilities to thrive in any other career or creative talent. I hope to empower my generation to be proud of our cultural heritage and to embrace the opportunities and resources that we need to take charge of.
We do not have to be a stereotype. They are only reinforced if we allow them to be.
I am more than a stereotype. I am a mediamaker and a student activist.
In addition, I will mainly focus on being “Filipino-American” and explore topics that I didn’t even know existed because they were never talked about. I hope to learn more about the historical struggles that my people have faced and how these issues have led to contemporary struggles. I want to create a dialogue with other Filipinx-Americans and to be an outlet and a voice for our concerns.
Filipin@-American Issues 