pinoy/pinay

know your roots.

my friend marc from university of massachusetts (umass) hit me up on facebook and told me about an event at boston university called "kamayan 2008". it was a celebration of filipino culture to help unify the filipino community here at the different colleges in boston. i've been to so many PCN's (philippine culture night) that i'm not that excited to see filipino cultural dances too much anymore although they are awesome and i love tinikling haha... but every time im at a culture night/event like that it makes me proud to be who i am.

there was a spoken word piece in the middle of the event by Archipelag-a, a spoke word group from Brown University. they spoke of the struggle that filipinos have when they come from the philippines to america to start a new life. and how sometimes filipinos sacrifice their culture just to fit in with the "american ways". they spoke about how it hurts us 1st generation filipino-americans and how we lose our culture. we need to know where we came from, and not forget about the past and what filipinos have been through. one thing that stuck with me was when they were talking about their filipino moms and how they say "look ahead forget about the philippines forget about the revolution forget about all that just be a doctor, have money in one hand and a baby in the other", and their reaction was "sometimes to look ahead, we must look back".

"give me your philippines, give me your past, then i will give you your american dream"

no need to suck up to the white man to be successful. you can have success in so many different ways, why give up who you are just to live the "american dream". we're all immigrants, we are all from different places, we are all american. you can't lose that piece of where you came from, don't let ur culture be lost in the world where there is ignorance and racism and hatred.. you are who you are, be proud of it.

and in that case, i'm proud to be Filipino-American.

and speaking of which, it brought more thoughts to my mind about Filipino and Asian-Americans and how we have not broken into mainstream entertainment and media. but i believe we can do it. we just need to stick together, and we need to just keep getting better. i promise, this is our time-- if we truly believe in ourselves. like i said before, charice pempengco, arnold pineda (journey), jabbawockeez, ramiele malubay-- they're putting us on the map. hopefully you'll see us in the lights soon.

i must say i had a great day today. met 10 new friends at the Kamayan 2008 event including marc for the first time. we ate in downtown chinatown. they are awesome people. for some reason i've been super anti-social since i've been here, with only 20 or less friends that i would really consider my actual friends. but today made me happy, and i was actually smiling a whole lot tonight. these new friends made me like boston a little more in the short time i hung out with them. very welcoming and down-to-earth.

finally. =]

last night was interesting tho, pablo and some of our friends went to some party on symphony street. left after 30 mins but fun i guess walking over there and what not. love my roommate pabs.


shoutouts to andrew, sylvia, and jessica. jam sessions in the classrooms at berklee! love yall!
-AJ