Part 1
Despite being a Filipino American, and the first in my immediate family to be born in America, I have felt very disconnected from Filipino culture. I was raised Catholic, which is a core aspect of Filipino customs and traditions, however I no longer practice the religion as I used to. I understand Tagalog, but I cannot fluently speak it, and a majority of my cousins are not even able to do both. Growing up in San Jose, California, where most of my peers were children of immigrants as well, I have just accepted that as a norm, and rarely questioned why my family had left their own families and lives in the Philippines to move to the United States. That was until I moved to Los Angeles to study film at the University of Southern California, where I was exposed to more people outside of the bubble I had grown up in.
While I was aware that a majority of people in the United States have generations of ancestors who have been living in this country, it never was a prevalent thought for myself growing up. I watched as my older brother struggled applying to, and staying in, university because not only did the public high school we attended not properly prepare us for higher education, but our parents attended college in the Philippines, and were not as familiar with the application process in the U.S. at the time. Meanwhile, as I continue to attend USC, I learn that many of my peers’ parents have either attended USC themselves, or other top universities in America. As my brother and I were being raised, my parents were going through the growing pains of living in a new country, and they occasionally still do, to this day. I never genuinely questioned why my parents would move to America with all the hardships they had to face as they adapted to a new culture. They always just told me and my brother that they came here for better opportunities.
What better opportunities did the U.S. have compared to the Philippines? And why the U.S.? These are questions that I had only recently begun to ask myself. My history classes growing up never touched upon the Philippines, unless it was to mention the Spanish colonization that had occurred, or the Bataan region’s involvement in the Second World War. Even as a student in my last semester as a Cinema and Media Studies major, I have never taken a class that educated me about Philippine cinema. I ended up taking the opportunity to ease myself into learning more about the Philippines by first educating myself about its movies. Little did I know, doing so would answer a few of the questions that I had been asking myself.
As I first scratched the surface of learning about Philippine cinema, something I noticed was how many of the books and articles I had been collecting covered the topic of American colonization and how it influenced the stories being told through Philippine films. I was only vaguely aware of America’s relationship with the Philippines, however watching and reading about various films had educated me more on the subject. It was interesting to see how American colonization even had its influence on Philippine cinema.
I will begin by discussing a more recent Filipino film I had viewed as it deals with matters that touch upon second generation immigrants, such as myself, and their relationship with their Filipino American identity. The Filipino American film The Flip Side (2001) tells the story of three second generation siblings as they try to navigate their own identities. While it is not the most well-written film I have seen, it does present events that resonate with my upbringing and what I have seen from other Filipino Americans around me. Darius, the sibling who is interested in learning more about Filipino culture, is interested in it in a sort of disconnected way, as he obsesses over its history and wears a loin cloth around his home – something Filipinos in the modern day would probably not really relate to. His sister, Marivic, has a high-pitched almost valley-girl accent, and obsesses over Eurocentric beauty standards, as she dreams for a nose job. Darius’s brother, Davis, obsesses over utilizing African American Vernacular English (which makes most of his scenes hard to watch), listens to hip-hop music, and spends his time trying to dunk. Marivic and Davis adopt identities that they believe would help them assimilate into American culture. The siblings barely even know Tagalog, despite it being their parents’ first language, as a part of this assimilation.
Watching this film made me reflect on things I may have done to try and fit into American society. I have done things such as putting extra effort into changing my voice and accent around certain people to hide the slight Filipino accent I have from growing up with parents whose first language is Tagalog. I rarely ever eat Filipino food, unless it is with my family. I get a little self-conscious when I do something and another Filipino American would comment, “You’re so Filipino!” In José B. Capino’s Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Philippine Cinema, he mentions how:
“...the problem of assimilating into multicultural America lies with the ostensibly inferior cultural heritage and identity scripts from their parental homeland…To furnish themselves with a usable ethnic identity, even an inferior one, they must eviscerate Filipinoness or identify with it through self-loathing” (Capino 166).
There is a negative relationship to Filipino culture instilled within Filipino Americans, which this film helped me realize, however it did not really answer why that is, and where it truly stems from.
Why are so many Filipino Americans leaving their lives and loved ones in the Philippines to move to America? The Philippine film Hopefully, Once More (Sana maulit muli, 1995), provides insight into a first-generation Filipina’s experience living in a new country, while her long-time boyfriend continues to live in the Philippines. The two face hardships in their relationship as they go on to live very different lives. This film has its feminist moments as it shows Lea Solonga’s Agnes liberate herself from a shy, timid young woman to an outgoing real estate agent. During this, her boyfriend, Jerry, undergoes changes to his own character, becoming more empathetic and emotionally available to Agnes – both favorable traits. In the end of the film, she makes the decision to return to the Philippines to be back with Jerry, and her appearance is shown to be reminiscent of her younger, demure self from the beginning of the film, while he regains the same masculine behavior.
Agnes’s liberation was only obtainable by her moving to America. While some people may find the ending of this film heartwarming as the lovers rekindle their strained relationship, it is hard to ignore the way Agnes resubmits herself to the patriarchal society she had spent most of the film fighting through. The film depicts Agnes as her “...American dream fetches both material and spiritual rewards. Her success pressures her Filipino lover to change his macho ways and teaches him to put her first” (Capino 133). This can be interpreted as a means of persuasion of the American dream, instilling a positive notion within Filipinos when it comes to life in America. It provides some insight as to why postcolonial immigration occurred. My parents have undergone hardships with immigration. My father, who was the first of my immediate family to come to America, had spent years with prolonged periods of time away from my mother and my newly born brother, until they were finally able to immigrate to the U.S. when my brother was four years old. This was one of the many sacrifices that were made in the pursuit of my family’s American dream.
I find it ironic that postcolonial immigration was produced not too long after the Philippines had gained independence from the United States in 1946. Although this independence was granted, many Filipinos ended up fleeing their homeland to settle and find better opportunities in America. The Flip Side and Sana maulit muli provide insight into two separate generations’ relationship with America and their ethnic identity. These films helped me gain an understanding of myself as a Filipino American, and of the motivations behind the decisions my parents made as they immigrated to the United States. While I did not strongly reject Filipino culture, it was not something that I would wear on my sleeve, and it was interesting to see that this is common amongst other Filipino Americans. My parents coming to America for better opportunities was something that I had always been aware of but reframing it to viewing this as their pursuit of the American dream helps me better understand the reasons behind why they made all the sacrifices that they did. Upon making these realizations, it now encourages me to want to look into what the Philippines was like under American colonization as well as during its postcolonial period.
Works Cited
Capino, José B. Dream Factories of a Former Colony: American Fantasies, Philippine Cinema. University of Minnesota Press, 2010.
Lamasan, Olivia M., director. Sana Maulit Muli. ABS-CBN Film Productions, 1995.
Pulido, Rod, director. The Flip Side. 2001. YouTube.
Part 2
I chose to write an autobiographical reflection because I felt that it was most appropriate based on the thoughts that had accumulated as I progressed through Writing Project 2. During Writing Project 2, I had begun to unveil a part of my identity that I had not really put much thought into. Growing up, I was aware of my ethnicity, the culture I practiced, and that most of my family members from my generation and prior were all immigrants. However, it was just a norm for me, and like most norms, you tend to not question it. After moving to Los Angeles, and away from my family, I was exposed to people of various different backgrounds and being a child of first generation immigrants was no longer the norm. Upon reading all the material in Writing Project 2, I began to not only learn more about Philippine cinema, but more about my own identity through the history of my family’s homeland. Duke University’s Thompson Writing Program classifies an autobiographical reflection as something that “requires you to consider events and experiences in your life and analyze them in the context of topics or themes relevant to a particular course or academic subject,” and I feel that the realizations I have made in Writing Project 2 would best be expressed in this format.
An autobiographical essay asks you to, “Think about how your narrative ties into the particular subjects and questions examined in the course…” and I have done so by relating my own experiences to the stories being told in the films I watched. I first provided some context about my upbringing, so that the topics I later discuss are easier to digest for my audience. I then go on to talk about the Filipino-American film, The Flip Side – the first “subject” I “examine”. Watching how the characters of this film behave, and the story that is being told, leads to me reflecting upon my own experiences and how I relate to the film. I discuss particular moments in my life, rather than sharing my entire life story, since “An effective autobiographical sketch will generally not be a fact-laden chronology of your life.”
Additionally, for the Filipino film, Hopefully, Once More, I provide context for the audience by briefly summarizing the events of the film. I then provide my analysis of the film based on what I thought about the way the characters had progressed throughout the story, supporting it with a reading I was familiar with from Writing Project 2. Since autobiographical reflections should “...concentrate on drawing insights and lessons from particular events and experiences in your personal history,” I discuss how this particular film had provided some insight into why my parents felt the need to move to the United States and leave their life and loved ones in the Philippines. I provide the event of my father moving to the U.S. and spending much time away from my mother and brother (during his formative years) and how it relates to the idea of the pursuit of the American dream, as shown in Hopefully, Once More.
I wrote this essay to be informative not only to others who may be in my position as someone whose identity has been scattered as being a part of a family of immigrants, but also to people who are not aware of Americans who grew up with a different background. I believe one of the most efficient ways to provoke some sort of sympathy and to get a message across is through film and storytelling. An autobiographical reflection is the genre I feel like is closest to narrative storytelling, which is why I chose to utilize it to discuss the topics I wanted to cover. Discussing films within my essay was my way of recommending my audience to look into stories that I relate to, so that they could gain a better understanding of my topic.
I end my essay by mentioning subject matter that I am interested in looking into, that relates to everything I had just discussed. While this may not be a criterion that falls under the genre of an autobiographical reflection, I am hoping that mentioning this would provoke my audience to further think about the topics I had discussed, and what else may be involved with the questions that I continue to ask myself. There is only so much I could touch upon in an autobiographical reflection when it comes to postcolonial immigration in the Philippines. While I can relate the social, political, and economic climate of the Philippines over the years to the reason why my family decided to flee to America, I had only planned to scratch the surface of postcolonial immigration, and how it is displayed on film in this essay. It would not be very autobiographical as well, as these would be events that had occurred way before I was born, with several degrees of separation from my own lived experiences. Further discussion about the Philippines is for another time.