@books-are-like-dragons said:

I’m a Korean-American writer, and my story includes a Filipina teen actress who lives in the US away from her parents. She returns to Manila (where her family lives) for her debut. Her family is pretty well-off due to her acting career, so it’s a big, flashy celebration. I’m worried that this falls into a “wealthy Asian” stereotype perpetuated by media such as Crazy Rich Asians. I’m not sure if this is widespread enough to even be considered a stereotype. Is this indeed something to avoid?

I think the “crazy rich asian” thing most often applies to people from (mostly) Mainland China, who are nouveau riche or children of nouveau riche parents. I think the “rich Chinese” thing is definitely A Thing, and can be used to discredit Chinese international students on college campuses and characterize them as cold, clique-y, unwilling to assimilate, less deserving of a Western education, etc. 

For whether or not a Filipino example would be playing into that, I’ll pass it along to our Filipino mods!

~Mod Rina

Agree entirely with Mod Rina! Personally, I don’t see any issue with this at all - a wealthy Filipino character doesn’t necessarily make for a “Crazy Rich Asians” stereotype, especially when Filipinos in Western settings are often portrayed as low-income or middle-class immigrants by mainstream media.  

That being said, I’d just like to know who funded her acting career - is she self-made, or are her parents wealthy / active in showbusiness? There are a bunch of issues here with the kids of rich people / famous personalities succeeding in their acting / singing careers not because of talent, but rather the wealth and opportunities necessary to “make it”, to say. Take a quick look at the discourse surrounding “Hate”, a song performed by Michael Pacquiao (son of Manny Pacquiao, world-famous boxer). I wouldn’t discourage you from either portrayal of your character, as it’s just a place to examine!

~ Mod Lisa

@blooberryspicehead asked:

I have a trans character who is the daughter of a South Indian and a Filipino immigrant. As a trans person myself, I’m confident in my ability to write the trans part of her storyline, but I want to be sensitive in how I intersect the two sides of her culture and write her relationship with her family. Are there any cultural perceptions about trans people that her family would be working through after she comes out? Would it be insensitive to have them initially unsupportive but come around over time? How do I write the emotions behind that initial rejection, given this character’s cultural background? What should I include, and what should I avoid?

On the South Asian side, we’ve had a variation of this discussion already. Here are some of responses with respect to the Hindu stance on the issue: 

It wouldn’t be surprising for family to initially be unsupportive, but that’s not always a given for Hindus and Buddhists. We don’t exactly have any rule that says “Thou shalt present as the gender assigned to you at birth”. Even if we did, Hindus and Buddhists are not known for uniform stances. Cultural and familial expectations for marriage and child-rearing are more likely to be a source of conflict, but frankly, I’m a little tired of stories that emphasize the lack of progressive perspectives on gender in the Global South.

I would very much like to hear from our Muslim S. Asian followers on this topic. 

- Marika.

Anon asked:

I have this fantasy story i’m working on and i’d like some advice. my protagonist is a Filipino girl, and she must learn magic to defeat a witch who held her captive. She travels back to her homeland because there she can better learn kulam, a form of folk magic in the Philippines. 

I know that the Philippines is very diverse, so my research will mostly be focused on Talalora, Samar due to the prominence of kulam there. My problem is that i’m very wary about creating fantasy countries based on real ones, especially ones with cultures so foreign to me, so i’m wondering where should i stay true to the inspiration and where should I let my imagination run wild? I’m afraid of erasing anything, so should i just base my story in the real world to avoid this? 

Disclaimer: My heritage is Tagalog and Ilokano, which are two of the most dominant ethnic cultures, so I can’t speak much on the experiences and cultures of marginalized indigenous ethnic groups in the Philippines.

Narrow down the culture

You’re right that the Philippines are incredibly diverse, composed of hundreds of different ethnic groups that’re often flattened into one monolithic entity. So much of what we think of as “Filipino” culture–language, food, customs, traditions, etc.–is primarily sourced from Tagalog and/or Spanish culture and erroneously applied to the entire island nation. This cultural erasure is a huge issue in modern Filipino discourse and dialogue. So I want to make it clear that you aren’t just writing a Filipino girl; if you’re focusing on Samar, you’re specifically writing a Waray homecoming (and possibly reconnection) narrative. 

Most of your research should therefore pertain mostly to Waray people and culture rather than those more broadly labeled “Filipino.”

Using Filipino Cultural Magic in battle (Kulam)

Moving on to your plot, I’m not so sure about the cultural accuracy of your kulam. Again, I’m not very familiar with specifically Waray culture and folk narratives. However, of all of the Filipino cultural mythologies I have seen, I’ve never read about kulam being used as a form of battle or confrontational magic as you describe here. In fact, I can’t recall any stories where the main character practices kulam, period, because it’s often associated with dark harmful magic (again, this is just based on my knowledge). 

In many stories the villain may practice magic–and possibly kidnap people, like in your story–but the hero often defeats them by merit of their own strength, wits, kindness, etc. Obviously, you don’t have to strictly adhere to tradition, but it just might be weird to have your protagonist and antagonist duking it out with battle magic when that narrative doesn’t make sense with Waray culture. 

Fantasy Philippines 

Regarding creating fantasy countries, we have an ask: Fantasy Cultures: Mass Answer that addresses that somewhat. Overall, I would say avoid “letting your imagination run wild” because you run the risk of overwriting existing, deeply important cultural information. Instead, I would stay true to your Waray cultural inspiration wherever possible and then use your best judgement to fill in the worldbuilding gaps, if you find any. I do think it’s possible to write fantasy countries that are still deeply true to Filipino culture. 

A resource: If you’re open to reading children’s literature, check out Lalani of the Distant Sea by Erin Entrada Kelly; she’s Visayan (the larger cultural group the Waray people belong to) and does an excellent job of writing an unfamiliar fantasy world that nevertheless feels deeply and beautifully Filipino.

Any indigenous Filipino followers, feel free to chime in!

- Mod Mika

Hey everyone! I’ve been following this tumblr for a while and I love it. Not only has it addressed problematic representations of Asian people in the past, I have also learned a lot on portraying other non-Asian people of colour. I’m currently working on an alternate universe-dystopian novel where the Cold War turned “hot” but with people of colour as the main characters. I have come across novels that portray this, but it’s often from a white person’s perspective.

While I am fully Filipina by blood, I identify as a Fil-Brit-Am: born in the Philippines, lived in England for 12 years and currently live in America. Below is what I have experienced and/or observed.

Beauty Standards

Just like what some people have said on here, whiter = more attractive. In the Philippines, walk into any beauty store and you’ll instantly see tons of skin-whitening products. With women, pale skin was a beauty staple; with men, being handsome meant being “tall and dark”, but not “too dark”. In England, it was such a double standard. I went to a mainly white secondary/high school where for white girls, it was attractive to have tanned skin (the more tan = more attractive) while girls of colour were seen as the opposite. In America, you were “exotic” (my situation) or shamed.

Daily Struggles/Culture

Oh man. Balancing conservative Filipino values with those of the less conservative English was a struggle, especially going through puberty. While it was normal for my friends to hang out in the park after school everyday, date who they wanted and just get home before it was dark, my parents gave me a strict curfew (always way earlier than when my friends would go home) and pressured me to not date until finishing college. Back then, I resented my parents for what I saw as my lack of freedom. Looking back now, I understand why. We lived in a neighbourhood where crime was relatively high and during the time, it was also where a surge of immigrants from East Asia flowed into the UK. As you can imagine, our presence wasn’t welcomed. My parents were simply trying to protect me.

Dating and Relationships

For a lot of immigrants, education was THE way to progress to a more secure future. During my teenage years, my parents emphasized this with the whole “no dating until you finish college and have at least some form of a stable job”. They mellowed out after some time. In some talks with my mother, she said that my dad and her would prefer me to marry a Filipino because they would have a better understanding of our culture. However, if he is a good man, loving etc, the race wouldn’t matter. 

Food

In England, I discovered staples such as the “English breakfast”, cake with custard, scones, fish and chips, Indian curry while keeping to Filipino dishes at home (adobo, pancit anyone?). Even though I had the option to bring lunch to school, I decided to have meals from the cafeteria. Whether that was from a moment of other children thinking my lunch food was weird or I feared of being seen as different, I can’t remember. In America (with more diverse communities anyway), they’re more open to food of other cultures.

History Repeating in the Workplace

Philippines - you’ve guessed it: colonialism. From beauty standards to power, whiteness is seen as the best. Just like another poster has said, it makes me sad that Filipino culture has been eradicated through the ages and that I never got to experience it.

England and America - Having benefited from colonialism, there is a lot of colonial mentality (though subtle). From stories I’ve been told from my parents and their generation, this is common in workplaces. White people are fine working with people of colour until they hear that a person of colour is applying to be their manager. Then they suddenly have a problem (with the whole mentality of “people of colour can’t be leaders” crap). 

Identity Issues

With three cultures part of my identity, I never really knew what my identity was or even how to identify myself. I always had the feeling of “belonging everywhere and nowhere” at the same time. it was only until last year that I discovered a term for it: third culture kid (or fourth for me I guess). Third culture kids are people who have developed multiple cultures from having lived in multiple places: one from their parents’ culture, one they grew up in and the third being a combination of the two. It has helped me with my depression, as it stemmed from the fact that I had no label to call myself while everybody else seemed to. If you are like me, I would suggest the book Third Culture Kids: Growing Up Among Worlds by Ruth E. Van Reken and David C. Pollock. It helped me a lot.

Misconception/Micro-aggression/Religion

In England, discrimination was more towards the Asian community (in particular, the Muslim community despite living there for a long time). In secondary school (high school), I had the typical comments of “chink” and talking to me in a mocking Chinese accent. I remember one time when a guy asked me where I was from - I answered “Philippines” and he immediately said, “so basically Japan?” *rolls eyes* 

As I was raised Catholic, the family went to church every Sunday. After some time, due to some pressure from my mother, I became an altar server. We became pretty close to the church community. What I didn’t remember is when we first attended mass, (as my parents told me later) they had openly looked at us with disgust. This shocked me as I couldn’t imagine the church goers being so mean. Talk about “loving your neighbour”. Makes me wonder what would have happened if I didn’t become an altar server…

Things I’d like to see less of

- Asian women being portrayed as submissive, shy, petite or as the Dragon Lady

- Asian women only being seen as scientists (with the whole smart, nerdy Asian trope). What about writers? Mechanics? Musicians? Leaders even?! One of my characters is an Asian woman who is an investigative journalist.

Thing’s I’d like to see more of 

- Asian people being friends with or at least, being respectful towards non-Asian people of colour (in particular, black people). It’s my hope that my generation and the ones after ours will bridge that gap.

- That writers of colour get more representation. 

I look forward to learning more from y'all!!

Read more POC Profiles here or submit your own.

infidel-of-lucifer asked: Hello! I’m half-filipina and half-american and born in the Philippines, but I would be considered white-passing. I’m writing a piece that connects the inferiority complex on skin color which was influenced by the colorism created by European colonialism, and the experiences of Filipinas who deal/t with the consequences of it. My mother had lived through bullying and skin whitening products because of her darker skin, and to this day she still has low self-esteem and mild internalized racism. She doesn’t like to bring it up much, and since I never dealt with discrimination, I was hoping any followers could share their experiences. Or any resources that personally talk about it would help. Thanks!

sprocketsandspriggans asked: Hi everyone. I am working on a YA series that prominently features an Aboriginal Australian girl as one of the main cast. I’ve been researching for a few years to make sure I’m doing justice to her and I was wondering if anyone - from the MOD group or passing by the blog - would care to share their experiences growing up as an Aboriginal Australian teen? Also are there any specific tropes I should avoid (like, obviously, the Aboriginal tracker)?

Followers, feel free to share your experiences or submit a PoC Profile on the subject.

–WWC

So there’s a PoC profile by/about a trans male Filipino-American and he said “ we’ll never have a ‘real’ culture after we were taking advantage of and colonized”.

Like, WHAT?!

Firstly, what do you mean by “real culture”? Do you mean a unifying culture that encompasses the very essence of being a Filipino?

As a Filipino born and raised in the Philippines, I would be the first to admit that the Philippines does NOT have a unifying culture that encompasses being a “Filipino”. (Which is problematic, but I would digress.) But this does not negate the fact that the Philippines is a culturally diverse country with at least fifteen major ethnolinguistic groups, and several more minority groups.

(While I’m on minority groups, I would like to point out the very real and very serious issue on lumad killings. Lumad is a collective term for the indigenous tribes in the Mindanao region; and they are being killed for unjust reasons.)

Or is “real culture” defined as a culture purely Filipino and does not borrow anything from other cultures because it would invalidate the essence of the real Filipino culture?

Like that could never happen because the beauty of culture is that it adopts and adapts; but despite adopting or adapting to different cultures and people, it does not make the culture any less.

So yeah. We incorporated and integrated a lot from the Spaniards because they stayed in our country for 300+ years, so that was bound to happen. Their influence can be seen in the small and big things in our daily lives.

An example of small things is how we read time. 1:30 pm is read in Filipino as tatlumpung minuto nakalipas ang ika-isa ng hapon (literally “thirty minutes past one in the afternoon”). But we actually read it as ala-una y medya ng hapon. (For clarification, in Spanish it is read as es la una y media, so obviously we use some bastardized version of Spanish.)

Another example would be the barong, which is actually called a Barong Tagalog, which translates to Tagalog outfit/dress. The word baro refers to dress/outfit (hence baro’t saya or baro at saya), adding -ng means the word is an adjective. This already existed and the arrival of the Spaniards only modified the clothing to make it into what it is known today. (The barong is considered the national outfit and often used as formal wear. Check out this post reblogged by WWC for examples of traditional Filipino clothing.)

But those are just the little things. Let’s talk about the big things, like the seven elements of culture. So let’s talk about customs and traditions.

This link leads to a calendar showing the list of festivals celebrated in the Philippines every year. As you can see, there are at least FIVE in one month alone. And yeah, a lot of them are related to Christianity (which is obviously from the Spaniards), like the Ati-atihan Festival.

Ati-atihan Festival is celebrated in honor of the Sto. Nino every year in January in Kalibo, Aklan. It’s a week long festival with blackened dancers and colorful costumes. But even before the Spanairds arrived, the Ati-atihan festival already existed. The accepted origin story is that 10 Malay datus escaped from Borneo and met the Atis or Aetas, who are considered to be one of the earliest settlers of the Philippine islands. In face of the kindess and hospitality shown by the Aetas, the Malay (who have a lighter skin complexion compared to the darker Aeta) covered themselves with soot and the Ati-atihan was celebrated. When the Spaniards arrived, they used the already existing Ati-atihan festival to incorporate Christianity, which was their main method of colonization (their back up method is violence).

Does making it a celebration of the Sto. Nino make this festival any less Filipino? I think not!

Another element is religion. Christianity obviously came from the Spaniards (actually, they brought Roman Catholic) and it’s because of them that the Philippines is the only predominantly Catholic country in South East Asia. But religion may also refer to the mythical dieties whom we believed in long ago. This post that has been reblogged by WWC is a reference about the Philippine dieties. They existed long before the colonizers arrived and they are still acknowledged to a certain extent until now. A favorite Filipino expression, Bahala na, (which is used when you’ve done all you’ve could and you just leave it all to fate/luck/whatever), originally came from Bathala na, which basically means you’re leaving in the hands of the chief diety of the Tagalogs. (And yes, I have to specify that he’s a Tagalog diety because there are also Visayan dieties, Ilocano dieties, Bicolano dieties and more!)

So, yes, the Philippines does not have a unifying culture, but it has several ethnolinguistic groups each with their own rich history and culture. And every single member of all the ethnolinguistic group is a Filipino, so their culture is the real Filipino culture.

Yes, the Philippines borrowed the cultures of its colonizers and integrated it into its culture, and this does not make the Filipino culture any less real or simply any less of a culture.

The Filipino culture is as real and beautiful as any of the cultures in the countries around us. The Filipino culture is real and beautiful and how dare you say otherwise.

Links to some of my references: 

• http://www.thepinoywarrior.com/2011/01/ati-atihan-festival-and-history.html
  
• http://www.barongsrus.com/barong/history-barong-tagalog-i-20.html
  

(Side note: There are over 100 dialects in the Philippines and Tagalog is one of them. Filipino (which can also be Pilipino and both can either refer to the people or the language) is the national language of the country and heavily borrowed words from the Tagalog dialect (due to political reasons.)

Beauty Standards 

After the Europeans colonized I’ve noticed there’s been LOTS of cases of colorisms. It seems lots of people want to be white, and most pinoy actor (esses) and on ads are white too. A lot of kids tend to be looked down for having dark skin and it’s been seen as a symbol of poorness in Pinoy. My Pinoy side of family was proud that I “looked white”. We also treasure beautiful women with long, luscious hair.

Clothing 

Our clothing, speaking modern is pretty normal. As a kid I wore a lot of casual clothes but my nanay kept wanting to tie up my hair and cutting it because it was so long. Traditionally speaking, males usually wear clothing called a barong which is an embroided formal shirt. I see more often people are beginning to design to appear more cool and modern, which is really creative of them.

As for women, they usually wear baro’t (shirt) and Saya (skirt). Either that or mestiza dress with kimona. Barot Saya is more common, though.

Culture 

We borrowed lots of things from other cultures , namely Japan, Spain, and US after they colonized us to do our own! Which I don’t really like very much tbh, to me it’s sort of a harsh reminder that we’ll never have a “real” culture after we were taking advantage of and colonized. Also I’ve noticed Filipinos are usually more accepting of gay, trans, etc. But my nanay isn’t very accepting of the fact I’m a trans boy, unfortunately.

Identity Issues

I always worry that I’m “not a real Asian” or not “Asian enough” because I came from southeast Asia instead of northeast Asia. I also worry I’m too white but I think that’s it.

Micro-Aggressions 

I live in a very white populated place and you’re lucky if you see like 2 Black people. So there’s lots of micro aggressions after people found out I’m Asian. This one girl asked me if I ate dogs or what’s the difference between Japanese and Chinese eyes. If you know how bad our history is its even worse people think I’m Chinese. My friends say I’m not a real Asian. Everyone tells me I’m hospital and friendly.

(Yes, this is a stereotype because the Philippines was constantly taken advantage of and payed for low rate jobs in order to support themselves. Not a compliment, po.) 

People talk to me in choppy Japanese. I’m boarded constantly about my Asian-ness just because I’m the one of the two only Asians in my whole school (can you believe it? I know I can’t). 

Language 

We have 119 languages in all, but the most popular one is Tagalog. You talk to any Pinoy and chances are they speak tagalog. Teachers teach students English at a very young age, and we’re one of the most fluent countries in speaking English. 

Things I’d like to see less of

The whole hospital and friendly stereotype. Yes, there are very friendly and familial Pinoys. There’s lots of them, but this is a stereotype by Europeans to keep us in our place after we were constantly colonized and taken advantage of. I’m not saying you have to make them a villainous, unlikable selfish asshole, but I’d at least like to break away from this stereotype.

I’d also like to break away from the shy, resilient stereotype of the Pinoy. Especially if it applies to women. 

Things I’d like to see more of 

More representation of Pinoy in general because we’re lucky if we get a character that is like 1.5% Filipino, more focusing on culture and putting it in everyday lifestyle, more asshole Filipinos, more loud and proud Pinoy.