To Be Filipino... hmm.. what does it mean

I was reading the blog Eric posted and it just made me think of how I was when I was younger.

Growing up I always wondered what it meant to be Filipino. Not to knock my parents.. but growing up I never had any one I could look up to and say yeah that's what it means. Maybe it was because of the culture gap between my parents and I or it was the history books I read. Growing up as an Asian American was very confusing! Was I Chinese.. Japanese.. Korean.. all I know was I was labeled as an ORIENTAL on the east coast.

Who was I suppose to look up to aside my parents? It seemed like every race had a figure that meant something, from George Washington to Martin Luther King and MLK was probably the one person I looked up to the most.. why??? because he was a man of color who stood up for what was right... I think this was a reason why I grew up wanting to be black.. just because my "heros" were black!

Why?? Well when you read history books, there's nothing in there that talks about Filipinos and their contributions to American society. We never hear about people like Carlos Bulosan, the man who helped create Labor Unions for the migrant work force in California. We never hear about the Watsonville riots, though we read about the Watts riots all the time.

Is this ignorance on the part of American society.. no not necessarily, you can't blame them on that. It's up to us, filipinos, to make sure that it gets into the history books.

Until college I never knew what it really meant to be filipino. Until college, the only thing I knew was:
1) We like to party
2) We have big families
3) Everyone is a cousin or relative
4) Someone is in the US military
5) We have spanish last names (most of us that is)

I laugh when I think about my youth. When I was younger, I would never claim filipino. I'd always say like Guamanian or Hawaiian or something like that.. why.. because it seemed cool at the time.. cuz I didn't want to classify myself as a Filipino... I wanted to be something else... I thought I was black for awhile.. maybe that had something to do with watching Black Comedies when i was a child growing up on the East Coast.. or maybe it had to do something with me always hanging out with the black kids at school...

What really put me in check was when I got into college and joined the Filipino club and then became active in groups like FYC (Filipino Youth Coalition). These things opened my eyes... and soon enough I started learning about Filipino history and the things Filipinos have done in the past.. The struggles... The contributions... The sacrafices....

Everything I looked for was there.. role models.. history.. etc.. .etc.. and from that moment I was proud to be filipino.. I was proud to say I'm FILIPINO.. PERIOD!!.. It's sad to think it took me that long to come around.. but maybe I was looking for something to fufil my inside...

But what really made me be proud to be Filipino.. my reason on what it means to be Filipino.. was when all my cousins started having kids... To me that's when I really became proud to be Filipino.. that's when I started looking at the bigger picture... when i realized, it's not about the role players outside or the history of the Filipino that make you who you are, or make you Filipino. It's the people that surround you on a daily basis that make you who you are... FAMILY... and to me.. what makes me a Filipino and what it means to be a Filipino .. MY FAMILY... they are the people I look up too.. the people I will not let down.. the people I make sacrafices for... if it were not for My Family I would not be the person I am today... Then another thing I realized... What better role person to have than to have that person in your family...

I know that when the kids were all born, I told myself..

"you're gonna be around these kids alot.. better make sure you set a good example.. be a role model in their life..."

Okay okay.. so the kids are nothing but monsters around me... I can't help it.. they bring the child out in me! =P

I am very proud of my history and background... but had it not been for my family, I would never have known what it meant to be Filipino. For me, the key to being Filipino starts with the family.

Okay enough blabbering from me.. (we're a mafia, we just don't know it)