Maintaining a Filipino-American blog is harder than it seems. Sure I could write about Apl D and Charice, but that’s not the purpose of this blog. I wouldn’t want young Filipinos dropping by the net in search of their culture to come across the same things ..or those that are already mainstream.

The way I see it, second generation Filipinos - who have literally exploded in numbers in North America - are beginning to search for their identity. I suppose most would learn of being a filipino from their parents, and if not them it; their Kuya’s and Ate’s. But that is often not the case, or rather, it’s often not enough.

It’s not a surprise to find Filipinos adapting to whatever environment they’re exposed to. Some of us dance to hiphop, some of us ride the Harley, some of us jam to rock, most of us play basketball (and are good at it!). And yet, inspite of how different we can be from each other, there is some sort of undistinguished commonality that makes us truly Filipino. What that is, I’ve yet to find and judging from my internet rounds, there seems to be a lot of that as well.

Apart from the lumpia, the pancit and the balut, the question of Who am I and What is a Filipino seems to lurk in younger generations without the proper answers. I was sarcastically asked this a long time ago - What is a Filipino? - and I answered Everything you need to know about being a Filipino is in the national anthem. It was a tight answer that left my questioner to shush, but deep inside I was asking to myself What the hell is in our national anthem?

I think the answer lies from understand our culture. The blacks, the hispanics, the chinese, the japanese - each of them have something on the table that they can truly call theirs. Maybe we should include the kulintang in our music. Maybe we should create movies that talk dont make Filipinos look so delinquent. I could probably tell young Filipinos to create art that depicts who we are, but then as with all other chances lost in the air in hopes that someone else would do it, I’d rather really tell myself to write about it.

I have realized in the past month that there wasn’t enough resources to look into with regards to various aspects of our culture. I do know that several Filipinos have tried but most have gradually died down. This could be due to a lack of insight, the same problem that I’ve come across in the past month - a lack of resources, an ocean that hinders the digging of the facts, a homeland that conceals their stories from the world, a people that wouldn’t patronize themselves.

And how do we counter this? With more initiative. After all, we already know what is Filipino. It’s just up to us to show them.

Note: I did not edit this; I just went on my keyboard and stormed. there may be some discrepancies in grammar and content. I hope I made my point.