#fil-am

[filipinosamflynn]

FILAM HISTORY MONTH IS HERE!!! RUN AWAY BEFORE I... I TRANSFOR...!

[rjchang122]

[joshualunacreations]

There's a PR push to celebrate the new romance between Chelsea Handler and Filipino American comedian Jo Koy. But Handler has a history of being racist and using her dating life with men of color as a shield from facing repercussions—and Koy seems happy to let her do it again.

Handler used this tactic in the Black community. Her response to backlash was to create content that talks around her racism without truly addressing it—and still profit from it. Ironically her "acknowledgement" of anti-Black racism is how I got exposed to her anti-Asian racism.

In 2016's Chelsea Does Racism, Handler claims to be "egalitarian" with her jokes about race. But it’s clear she’s made choices on which groups to appear empathetic to and which groups she feels safe to dismiss with a laugh—such as Asian men. And she's unapologetic about it.

Fast forward to Handler and Koy’s media tour touting themselves as a power couple. This matters because Jo Koy is currently being celebrated as major Fil-Am rep with his soon-to-be released studio film, Easter Sunday. Proudly pairing with an anti-Asian racist sends a message.

Jo Koy was not only the most frequent guest on her past show over the years (meaning he knows who she is), but invited her to play a role in Easter Sunday. This serves to rehabilitate her image, bring her into Fil-Am/AsAm spaces and let her profit from it. Handler's recent IG video says it all: She wants a Kardashian empire, where Filipinos are swapped in for Black people as accessories to her whiteness. She's talking like a textbook sexpat yet repeatedly describes Filipinos and Black people as infiltrators.

Jo Koy's decision to partner with Handler makes more sense knowing he's guilty of peddling anti-Asian stereotypes too. In one special, Koy publicly body shames his son—ignoring his pleas not to. This is the same special that got Steven Spielberg to greenlight Easter Sunday.

You can guess the elevator pitch for Easter Sunday: "Think Crazy Rich Asians, but take out the rich so they're just crazy." White-mixed Asians like Jo Koy are granted more humanity than monoracial Fil-Ams due to the legacy of colonization, and Koy seems to be leaning into that.

Jo Koy is hardly the only example of an Asian with media power choosing whiteness over the AsAm community. Far more often, the pattern consists of white men partnered with Asian women (a legacy of racist U.S. policies like the Mixed Marriage Policy) For ex, AsAm Chloe Bennet—who's half-white like Jo Koy—proudly defended Logan Paul after he mocked and exploited a dead Japanese man. Yet Bennet is centered in campaigns about anti-Asian hate. Asians who hurt their community aren't punished by white Hollywood—they're rewarded.

The legacy of the MMP is so strong that white men feel entitled to speak on Asian issues in AsAm spaces⁠—and Asians with media power let them. This causes severe harm, as seen by the erasure of AAPI men from hate crime data and narratives.  Back to the film Easter Sunday, there are no Fil-Ams credited on the creative team. I'm all for pan-Asian progress, but not at the expense of specific ethnic groups. It's the first studio film to center on a Filipino American family. This pattern of erasing Fil-Ams in AsAm spaces needs to stop too.

Overall, Easter Sunday is supposed to be a "first," but with so much racism embedded in its creation, I don't feel like celebrating. The idea of seeing either Jo Koy or Chelsea Handler on a red carpet for a major Fil-Am milestone is awful. It's a win for them—not us. If you enjoy my work, please pledge to my Patreon or donate to my Paypal. I lost my publisher for trying to publish these kinds of essays, so your support keeps me going until I can find a new publisher/lit agenthttps://twitter.com/Joshua_Luna/status/1134522555744866304https://patreon.com/joshualunahttps://www.paypal.com/paypalme2/JoshuaLunaComics

[filipeanut]

Another gift idea for your pamangkids, especially those growing up abroad: “Flip your Story!”

This is a large set of story cards covering various Filipino words to help stoke imaginations young and old. I illustrated 54 story cards for the set, which also comes with game ideas, Tagalog vocab audio, a drawstring bag, and an activity book.

Get it at Fil-Am Learners:

https://filamlearners.com/product/flipyourstory

[mangoesandstuff]

Mickey and friends celebrate Filipino American History Month and share a chicken adobo recipe

Art by Bianca Austria

[tribalbarrelman]

This haircut is pretty outrageous.

[consplayspace]

Why I Love Writing Plays #25: REPRESENTATION

I proudly wear the Filipino American Playwright Identity because I grew up not seeing a lot of people who looked like me or shared my same background represented anywhere else. I went to a conference while in college called, Know History, Know Self... No History, No Self. And in one of the workshops, the attendees talked about representation in media. Back then, I didn't see many fil-ams on tv as opposed to now. And I think from that workshop, I made it my vow to write more parts for Fil-Am actors to represent the lives of our stories.

Pictured: a short play titled, REMEMBERING THEM, about the power an old barber shop chair to bring back the memories of the manongs who sat in it.

[venusinorbit]

California-based DJ Javier, a visual artist and designer, announced that his collection with Vans is now live worldwide.

The shoe company said that he is a multi-disciplinary artist known for his bold artwork.

“We partnered with him on a pack of silhouettes that honors his roots and intertwines Filipino symbolism with SoCal culture,” it said on an Instagram post.

“SoCal” is short for Southern California, famous for its homegrown surf and skateboard culture.

Javier has designed three footwear, namely a slip-on, high sneakers and Vans slides.

Each design element shows his Filipino culture such as the Filipino flag checkerboard, the carabao (water buffalo), the sampaguita, the rice field worker and the “Nipa Hut.”

[leche-flandom]

Some folks might say that I'm not Filipino "enough," but how come when they handed me the mic to answer questions at jury duty recently, my first instinct was to start singing Celine Dion like this was videoke night, hmmmMMMMmmmMMMmmmmm?

[rachelannc]

Rue the Band live at San Diego Filipino Cinema's Magic Hour 2021

Rue plays a gig! 🇵🇭🎵 We hit the road yesterday to play for SD Filipino Cinema’s Magic Hour to open up their festival highlighting Filipino filmmakers for Filipino-American History Month. It was an honor to be a part of this (and even witness Maestro Michael Dadap playing the beautiful Philippine rondalla music I grew up dancing to). From the long drive, an out of tune guitar, a gifted bottle of…

[filipinosamflynn]

...Filipino American History Month is only a few days away...

[popcornbutterfly]

WHEN WE DANCED

[altruisticenigma]

I am thinking about

Changing my name to

✨ Miérkules ✨

After the Tagalog/Kapampangan word for “Wednesday” which on my birth day/month/year I was born on a Wednesday, and I want some sort of my name to reflect my culture 🇵🇭

So if anyone sees this, I am going by Miérkules or Miér for short. May change the spelling later on ✨

[filipeanut]

I enjoyed illustrating this jeepney for Mahal BBQ, based in Washington DC.

They recently launched, making bbq food items like chicken with tanglad (lemongrass) marinade, bibingka cornbread, cream corn with skyflakes, longganisa, and more... American-style bbq with Filipino flavors by Chef Jerome Grant.

I also designed their logo, which I share in my latest blog post: https://filipeanut.art/logo-and-illustration-for-mahal-bbq/

[soakedmatches]

Tabo

The green paint towards the bottom of the walls was chipped and ebbed away from water damage, revealing gray concrete. Petrichor wafts in from the metal grates of the window, but no drops fall quite yet. Your phone sits next to you on the mattress, silenced. You stare blankly at the ceiling, ignoring the burning in your eyes.  

Your mother knocks softly on the door. "Can you help me with the laundry?" she asks. You purse your lips and take a breath, trying to expel heaviness. It remains, unmoved, a boulder.

Without a word, you slip on your flip-flops and follow her to the yard.

The washing machines here don't work like they do in the States. Instead of a washing machine and dryer, you have one machine, a faded pink and white. One half of it tumbles aggressively, beating the dirt out of your clothes, and the other half spins the water out like a salad spinner.

Mom hands you clothes and you slip them onto the hangers.

"Someone I know back home died today," you tell her. "I'm sad." The statement feels reductive, but you can't manage to translate emotions into words. Rocks sit inside your lungs, knocking your ribs like mallets to a xylophone. The cacophony swells inside your skull, leaving your mouth dry despite the humidity.

 "Oh," she says. "I'm sorry." And it's enough to quell the ache just a little longer.

She hands you another shirt. You slip it onto the hanger and place it on the line. While you walk back to her, you stop by the puppy in the back. You give her a scratch on the head, pinching your eyebrows together at the bugs hiding in her fur. You mention it to your mother briefly. She says she'll take care of it.

Once you finish with the laundry, you slip into the bathroom. The faucet drips slowly into a twenty-gallon bucket as the edges of tiles prod into your heels. 

You look at yourself in a small, plastic mirror. You've never had larger bags under your eyes. It barely looks like you. 

You grab the tabo and swish it around the big bucket before taking it, full, to the sink. You cup water in your palms and bring it to your cheeks, rubbing off any sweat or humidity you've gathered. You grab talcum powder, a pile in your hand distributing to whichever bits of skin incessantly stick together.

Then, you take a deep breath, counting.

Inhale for four.

Hold for five.

Exhale for seven.

You repeat this for a while. You breathe out some of the muck. When you open your eyes and see yourself again, you seek out bits you recognize: The beautiful hue of your eyes, the shape of your nose. One at a time, you put the pieces of your reflection back together. Once you can see yourself, you hear the rain start to pour outside the grates. You relish in the sound. For a moment, it feels okay.

Here's the thing about boulders: we imagine they are immovable. Looking at a single frame, it can be impossible to imagine it any differently. There is no time before the boulder, nor do we see the moments after the picture was taken. But every rock has gone through erosion. The boulder sitting with our sternum can't stay there, at that size, forever. Even if we pour just a little water over it at a time, it will decay— whether that be petting a dog or reminding ourselves to breathe. We should give ourselves patience. We should give ourselves kindness.