8 Asians was recently asked the question: Why do some Asian-Americans say that Filipinos are actually Pacific Islanders, and not really Asian?
Our fearless leader Ernie threw the question out to the teaming masses and the answer we came up with… well, lets just say it was a mighty group effort.
Ben started us off by very wisely pointing out that the Philippines was, in fact, a set of islands in the Pacific Ocean.
I contributed a few nerdy facts about recent genetic analysis that indicates greater genetic migration/diversity amongst Southeast Asians (SEA) and Pacific Islanders vs. East Asians (EA). The same genetic analysis also seems to indicate greater Y chromosome similarities between SEAs and Africans than EAs and Africans.
Efren, Asian-American studies aficionado, set us all straight by educating us on the 1965 Immigration Act and its classification of Filipinos as Asian rather than Pacific Islanders.
According to how the 1965 Immigration Act was set up in the US, which is how these distinctions were made in the first place, Filipinos are considered Asian instead of Pacific Islander based on histories of migration, isolation, etc. The Philippines, because of its close proximity to the Asian continent, was designated as being part of Asia. Also, because of the extensive history of interactions between the Philippines and the Asian continent, including China, Southeast Asia, Indonesia, India, etc., the Philippines have a lot more similarities between those cultures than the cultures of the Pacific Islands.
Because of the relative lack of outside contact and relative isolation culturally, the Pacific Islands (Guam, American Samoa, Hawai’i, and the other island nations and territories in the South Pacific), Pacific Islanders are considered to be separate, and has been argued successfully, at least for native Hawaiians, that their experiences of living in the United States, is more akin to American Indians/Native Americans, rather than Asians, due to histories of subjugation, forced take-over, cultural and population genocide.
And there you have it folks. The 8 Asian stream-of-conscious answer to the question “Are Filipinos Asian?”. And it only took us about 15 email exchanges to get to this point.
What do you think about our answer?
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Eugene wrote:
I think people should be able to self-identify. Filipinos might just be Filipinos. In fact, I often wonder about the whole “Asians” category. Because you know, and I quote Ronald Takaki here, “There are no Asians in Asia.” Really, being Asian really means “Asian American.” I’m sure if you asked somebody who immigrated here as a teenager or older, many would first claim that there were Chinese, Japanese, etc. before saying that they are Asian.
And honestly, I don’t think the genetic analysis has much basis. A person is a partly a product of their genes, more likely a product of their experience.
If we are to categorize, I do think Pacific Islanders are a distinct entity from Filipinos. But this is coming from a person who is neither. I do think the subjugation and oppression of PIs INCLUDING Native Hawaiians is not what most Filipinos have experienced. Though, one can strongly argue that colonization of the Philippines by various countries INCLUDING the United States is akin to what happened to other PIs.
In the end, I think people should have the right to be self-identified. I’m not going to tell you how you think you should identify yourself. So, the more check boxes, the better.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 8:10 am | Permalink
Jesse! wrote:
that genetic “evidence” should be taken with extreme caution and is most likely a bunch of shit. The true source of identity comes from cultural and social context like Eugene is saying… and as long as American official policies and more so, American racists continue to lump Filipinos in with other Asians, that’s what they’ll be for better or worse.
Also the PI’s have a particular history with the U.S., being a former colony/territory and not mention the over 500 years of Spanish rule, will tend to skew things culturally and, well, genetically.
But seriously we’re spitting hairs on geography? If SE Asia has folks confused, try to find the “border” between Europe and Asia.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 11:49 am | Permalink
Chook wrote:
“Pacific Islanders are considered to be separate, and has been argued successfully, at least for native Hawaiians, that their experiences of living in the United States, is more akin to American Indians/Native Americans, rather than Asians, due to histories of subjugation, forced take-over, cultural and population genocide. ”
According to this definition, Filipinos seem to have more in common with Pacific Islanders than Asians. The American-Filipino War (early 20th Century) took the lives of between 700,000 and 2 million Filipinos at a time when the population of the Phillipines was only 6 million.
Much of the killing was gratuitous reprisal atacks on innocent women and children. Genocide?
Downer aside, who actually stays up at night worrying about this question?
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 11:52 am | Permalink
Simon Bao wrote:
Are Filipinos Asians, or Pacific Islanders?
It’s possible that question is *lot* like the one, “Is Pluto a planet, or something else?”
Let me explain the analogy. I assume folks here are familiar with the Great Pluto Planet Debate. Astronomers finally reconciled themselves that one can’t decide if Pluto is a planet by studying Pluto, or its characteristics. They finally backed up and said, let’s first define what we mean by a planet. They came up with some reasonable, not entirely arbitrary definition of the term “planet,” and Pluto no longer fits in that box, not even close. Pluto fits much more reasonably into another heavily populated category.
I don’t think that one can determine whether Filipinos are Asians or Pacific Islanders by looking at Filipinos. Just back up and clearly define what one means by “Asian” and “Pacific Islanders.” No easy task, as those terms mean very different things to the popular imagination, the media, demographers, historians, anthropologists, etc.
The thing is, no matter what category Filipinos are put into, it doesn’t change or alter anything about Filipinos. Just like Pluto, they are what they are no matter what box someone puts them in.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 12:52 pm | Permalink
Eugene wrote:
Almost sounds like we’re just preaching to the choir here with our comments. Yup yup.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
Bo wrote:
This is why it took 15 emails to come up with the material for this post. Per Simon’s comment, the first step is solving the “How to define Asian and Pacific Islander?” question. I tried finding some articles or other scholarly papers on this subject but had a hard time finding anything of substance.
And you’re right, Eugene, there is no such thing as Asian. Just like there is no such thing as White or Black.
Personally, I’ll take anyone who wants to call themself Asian. More power in numbers.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:08 pm | Permalink
darren wrote:
The conclusion of this article is correct that “Pacific Islander” usually refers to people from Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia and a few of the other small islands in the Pacific. If Filipinos were Pacific Islanders, then so would be the Japanese, Indonesians etc.
However, Pacific Islanders and Filipinos belong to the next biggest group: the Austronesians. (which also includes people like the Indonesians and Malaysians)
Are Filipinos Asian? Are British people Europeans? Probably yes to both questions, although people tend to identify more with their smaller ethnic/political/cultural/religious groups.
My wife is Filipina, but likes to tell people that she is a Ilocano.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:11 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
The whole point of this whole debate is that these distinctions weren’t made by us to begin with. The US government was the one who made the distinctions of what is Asian and what is Pacific Islander for demographic (supposedly) and other bureaucratic purposes, and that the moniker Asian was dumped on us in the mid-60s until the whole Yellow Power movement in the late 60s at UC Berkeley and SF State took Asian American for political reasons.
My own personal take is that “Asian American” is convenient for political and social science purposes, but lumping all of us as “Asian American” makes all these assumptions about all of us who have Asian ancestry, much like how “Oriental” did (and does) and that we’re an amorphous group of people, etc. etc. If people want to claim that they’re Filipino/Pilipino and not Asian, that’s their choice, not mine. Identity is always up to the individual, even if it might seem to fly in the face of “conventional knowledge”, like the whole idiotic debate over being on the down-low/gay/whatever. But I won’t go into that.
Posted on 17-Dec-07 at 1:13 pm | Permalink
Christian DeVera wrote:
Some Filipino Americans refer to themselves as Pacific Islanders a couple of reasons. 1) They don’t want to be bunched in with “lower class” Chinese and Asian stereotypes and 2) It’s cool to be Hawaiian and associated with island living. I think the bigger question is when do we stop calling ourselves by our colonial name - Filipino?
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 12:57 am | Permalink
Eugene wrote:
Christian, I hope that you’re being facetious on both points.
Anyhow, I have however learned something here. What would Filipinos prefer to call themselves?
And since you mentioned Hawai’i. Unfortunately for Native Hawai’ians, the word Hawai’i is fully appropriated by white people, people of Chinese and Japanese descent. It is really unfortunate that the “State” of Hawai’i has the same name as the native people who live there. IMHO, I don’t consider non-native people who live in Hawai’i, Hawai’ians. It really annoys me.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 8:58 am | Permalink
Christian DeVera wrote:
@Eugene: Sadly, my 2 points are the mentality of some “Fil-Ams”. There’s a condescending mentality we inherited from our colonizers that we are better than our “Asian” neighbors.
Sadly again, the majority of “Filipinos” would prefer to still call themselves “Filipinos”. There are only a few folks that have the capability of breaking the chains of colonial mentality. The religion has them by the neck.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 9:10 am | Permalink
Simon Bao wrote:
Christian, I’m not sure that “condescending mentality” was inherited from colonizers. I think that mentality is abundant everywhere, and must be inherited from somewhere in the human genome. I haven’t traveled that much, but I’ve been to some of the worst places on earth and some of the finest, and no matter where one goes - people are convinced they’re better than their neighbors. Doesn’t matter which people you’re talking about, they’ve all got long lists of all the folks they’re better than. People in Mud Hollow have such a list, as do those in Bug Tussle. Vietnamese had that mentality long before colonization, all through colonization, and long after colonization. You can go to places on the 2007 list of Most Celebrated Disfunctional Lands and find that folks in those lands all believe they’re better than their neighbors. Despite the obvious and overwhelming evidence to the contrary. In fact, that mentality contributes to their being celebrated as so very disfunctional.
Probably true that the experience of colonization adds a certain hue to the mentality. Colonization can add a premise to that mentality, but that mentality is nearly universal, seems to be there no matter what a nation’s history includes. “Yes it’s true, we were easily conquered and colonized, we did collapse in the face of a few gunboats and a surprisingly small number of actual soldiers… but it was by the FRENCH! And that therefore makes us better than you who were colonized by the Spanish! Or those Dutch.” Believe me, one can still find some (mostly older) Viets who think being colonized by the French elevates the people over those conquered by lesser Imperialists.
And yet, had Vietnam never been colonized, *that* would be the premise for that same mentality, “You people were conquered, but we never were, so there, phhhtttt!” The mentality is always there, all it ever needs is to find some premise to hang itself upon.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 9:57 am | Permalink
Christian DeVera wrote:
@Simon: I agree with you, however I think the so-called Philippines might have a special ingredient as we Filipinos have “God” on our side being the only Christian nation in Asia.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 10:18 am | Permalink
Efren wrote:
As a point of clarification, how would Filipinos call themselves if they were to be “decolonized?” If one’s referring to the term “Pilipino,” it’s assuming that all Filipinos use Tagalog, which doesn’t have P; however, there are Filipino languages that do use F, and so that argument is pretty spurious.
The concept of “decolonization” is a pretty slippery slope, as people who I’ve met who claimed to be decolonized simply replaced the idea of America as motherland with the Philippines as motherland, and do not look at the Philippines as critically as we do the US. Personally, I feel it’s a matter of awareness, and that placing one’s hopes or dreams in an imagined homeland isn’t as important as trying to carve out one’s identity against a background of people who claim that identity is monolithic and never changing, which is probably why I butted heads with some of the old-school Filipino American scholars that I taught with at SF State years ago.
I think that the Philippines has exacerbated problems of regionalism because we were basically all thrown together as a nation despite the fact that we have so many different cultures, languages, and religions, without any regard to how we actually would get along, much like many of the countries in Africa today. Many Filipinos I know tend to have stronger connections with the area and region they or their ancestors grew up in, rather than truly embrace a Filipino nationalist identity.
For example, my family is of Ilocano origin (in the north), but even then my mom was from Pangasinan and my dad is from a province even further north, and Ilocano was a common language that they could speak, but my mom always talked shit about the “mountain people,” never mind that my dad is from the mountains.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 2:01 pm | Permalink
Efren wrote:
Sorry, I meant in my first paragraph that Tagalogs use P and not F.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 2:02 pm | Permalink
Eugene wrote:
Efren, I suppose to have a deeper opinion and understanding of the Pilipino issue, one would need to understand the history and culture of the Philippines. Do you have any recommendations?
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
Christian DeVera wrote:
@Eugene: Sorry to butt in, I suggest Renato Constantino’s Insight and Foresight.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 9:56 pm | Permalink
Eugene wrote:
Cool. Thanks much.
Posted on 18-Dec-07 at 10:31 pm | Permalink
ancient one wrote:
Are Filipinos Asians? I love this question!
My company considers Filipinos to be Asians, and breaks it out that way when they do equal opportunity related reporting.
The Fil-am newspaper “Asian Journal” (http://www.asianjournal.com/) certainly thinks Filipinos are Asians.
You ask “Filipinos” in Hawaii what they are and they often say “Ilokano!”
The University of California once categorized Filipinos as separate from “Asians.”
My daughter once complained about one of her friends, saying that this particular girl had “lots of weird Asian friends.” Since I think my daughter is both Asian and weird, I asked her, “so what does that make you?” Her answer: “Filipino!”
Posted on 19-Dec-07 at 7:13 pm | Permalink
Carina wrote:
Hmm… my guess is that the 8ASIANS here are all US-based? and most likely have forgotten (consciously or unconsciously) how it is living as real ASIANS in their native countries?
Maybe your post should be more aptly titled “Should Filipinos be Categorized as ASIANs by Americans”.. because trying to create a whole issue based on a US Immigration Act is kinda LAME.
Posted on 27-Dec-07 at 9:38 pm | Permalink
Eugene wrote:
@Carina: There are no Asians in Asia. That’s what my first comment was. You see, Filipinos in the Philippines don’t care that they are Asians. Neither do the Chinese. Nor the Koreans. They are Filipinos (or Ilocano or however they identify). They do not think of themselves as “Asians”. That’s my belief. I could be wrong. And even if they do like to think of themselves of Asian, I would bet that that practice didn’t start until the rest of world told them that they were. That brings up the question… what is the origin of this word? and who the hell told me that I was Asian?
Perhaps what you’re saying is that the word Asian is a bad term to be using. I would agree with you on that. Perhaps we should use Overseas _____, [fill that in with the appropriate ethnicity of your choice.] But that doesn’t quite describe my identity either since I have never lived in China and likely never will. So my experience is not the same.
Posted on 28-Dec-07 at 12:05 am | Permalink
Rich wrote:
On a lighter note, i believe that geographically, Filipinos are Asians. Psychologically, I think Fiipinos are somewhat confused in an amusing way. Hovering anywhere between Manila, Madrid, Hong Kong and Hollywood which makes its culture quite unique and interesting.
Posted on 28-Dec-07 at 4:54 am | Permalink
nemogbr wrote:
Fascinating thread.
It does explain the reason why the term Asian seems to focus upon the South East part of the Continent.
In Britain, if you say Asian; people understand it to mean the Indian Sub-continent. India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.
Oriental seems to cover the rest and not regarded as a pejorative.
As was stated; there are no Asians in Asia. We are each of a unique group and regard the rest as not worth the bother.
Should be interesting when some people start a desire to change the name of the country.
Posted on 28-Dec-07 at 12:55 pm | Permalink
p3tra wrote:
“Why do some Asian-Americans say that Filipinos are actually Pacific Islanders, and not really Asian?”
Because those Asian-American are fucking stupid and faild geography. Phillipines is an ASIAN country. People from the philippines are filipinos, people from russia are russian, people from japan are japanese, people from australia are aussies….seems simple enough to me. It makes me laugh though how some filipino’s don’t think their asian. Do you see Parisian’s preaching how their not European? common-sense people. boo hoo hoo, go save your arguments for something more important, like cleaning up your fucking thrid world country.
Posted on 02-Mar-08 at 12:09 am | Permalink
CaliStunna wrote:
1) Fil-Ams usually claim “Pacific Islander” over Asian because they think it’s cool. Just like when Fil-Ams claim to have Spanish lineage, not all Filipinos have that. Surname doesn’t mean shit because if that was the case, Shaquille O’neal would be Half-Irish and practically the majority of African-Americans in the U.S. would be part “WHITE”!
2) People bring up stupid stereotypes like “Filipinos are brown and have double eyelids”. Are people seriously this fucked up in the head? Have you never met any other Asian that has these features? heck have you never met a Filipino who has the stereotypical Asian features? Cambodia, Thai, Laos, Malaysia, Indonesia all have features that are common in SouthEast Asia. Even Vietnam has people who have these features as well.
3) I think people are easily brainwashed by the media. Notice how “WHITES” get all the diverse looks while minorities are stereotyped to have a certain “image”. Especially Asians, who are usually labeled as Foreigners. Ever notice when Whites say like “I’m 100% American” and use Asian vs American arguements, as if Asians couldn’t be Americans?
Long story short, Filipinos are Asian. Are they like like EAST ASIANS?….well why do they have to be? Asia is a huge continent, why do people keep making it only exclusive to East Asia? You want to know why?…because the majority of Asians in the U.S. come from those countries. The impact and influence come from those countries. Thus, this is part of the Americanization. Instead of recognizing each other as the perspective groups they are, we all funder one broad term known as “ASIAN” which also seems very Un-American.
Posted on 25-Mar-08 at 1:37 am | Permalink
CaliStunna wrote:
Christian DeVera,
You’re right about the Philippines being the only Christian nation in Asia. However, they aren’t the only Asian country that has Christians. Just like how Catholicism has many followers in the Philippines, Catholicism also has influence in Vietnam. There are plenty of Vietnamese Catholics now in the U.S. as well.
Notice how the whole Catholicism thing has spread like a disease over many Third World countries, especially Latin America.
Posted on 25-Mar-08 at 1:44 am | Permalink
Simon Bao wrote:
CaliStunna, you’re probably a bit snarky there, comparing Catholicism to a disease. That’s kind of Gratuitous Snark.
And it’s unfair to single out Catholicism in any way. Conquerors, colonizers, and hegemons always bring their religion, whatever it may be, and seek to spread it in the lands they dominate. And you need to know that Cultural Imperialism isn’t some Western or Christian thing, Cultural Imperialism is also what Asians have always done to Asians.
The Portuguese and French were Cultural Imperialists toward Vietnam and Catholicism, sure, but before them there were the conquering Chinese and the imposition of Confucianism and Chinese flavors of Buddhism. But don’t feel too bad for the Vietnamese, because as soon as Vietnam got a taste of conquest they didn’t hesitate to impose their ways and views on the conquered residents of Champa or Chenla (Cambodia). Long before Western Catholics got in boats and showed up in Asia, Indonesia had already gone through Hindu kingdoms, Buddhist kingdoms, then Islamic kingdoms. Hinduism spread among Asians, by Asians, through conquest, through the rise of empires, through trade and cultural hegemony. Today, China seeks not only to impose its will on Tibet but to replace Tibetan Buddhism with The People’s Central Committee 5-Year Plan.
Catholicism *did* spread with Catholic European conquest and colonization, but that’s old news. Today the fastest spreading religions are Mormonism and Evangelical Christianity. Catholics in Latin America are losing sleep over it.
Posted on 25-Mar-08 at 5:21 am | Permalink
CaliStunna wrote:
That was actually kind of a joke.
The only reason why I bring it up because I’ve met many Fil-Ams who believe with conviction that they are not Asian based on the fact that they are Catholics, as if there are no other Asian Catholics. Not only that, not all Filipinos are Catholic or Christian. .
It’s the same reason why many Fil-Ams bring up the Austronesian background not to claim Asian, when the Austronesian background can be found in other Asian countries as well.
It’s the same reason why many Fil-Ams claim that they are not Asian because they are dark and don’t have chinky “eyes”.
And it’s the same stupid reasons as to why people don’t think Filiipinos are Asian.
Point is, I still don’t get why it’s so hard for people to understand that Filipinos are Asian, especially since both the U.S. and the Philippines adknowledge this.
No one ever asks questions like…are Indonesians or Malaysians considered Asian?
ASIAN is not exclusive to EAST ASIA. ENOUGH SAID.
Posted on 25-Mar-08 at 5:31 pm | Permalink
Danielle wrote:
I’m filipina and i call myself asian. if that helps
Posted on 26-Mar-08 at 5:43 am | Permalink
CaliStunna wrote:
Wikipedia does a good job explaining the confusion and reasons as to why Filipinos are Asian and why they might not be.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Islander#Usage_dispute
Posted on 27-Mar-08 at 12:36 am | Permalink
Justin wrote:
If you really want to categorize, Filipinos are Southeast Asian. To make sweeping generalizations (which in itself is not the greatest thing), geographically and culturally, it makes more sense to divide Asia into East, South, and Southeast Asia. Of course, even within those generalizations, there exist enough nuances to keep this argument going forever.
But if you want to bring genetics into the picture, the Y Chromosomes found in Filipino males (Haplogroup O3-M122) are also found in Korean and Chinese males. The people of the Philippines came are the descendants of people who migrated from what is now South China/Taiwan, and then migrated to populate the Malay/Indonesian archipelago (see “Guns, Germs, & Steel).
And on a personal note, I find Filipino-Americans who vehemently insist that Filipinos are Pacific Islanders incredibly annoying.
Posted on 29-Mar-08 at 10:40 am | Permalink
nemogbr wrote:
I would agree about the South East Asian category.
We don’t have that “box” in Britain. There is the “Asian” (India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka) or “Chinese” boxes.
I just tick the “other” box.
What I find annoying are people who insist that calling ourselves Filipino/Pilipino means we are suffering from a colonial mentality.
I suppose we can be grateful that Marcos never decided to name the country after himself.
Posted on 07-Nov-08 at 3:14 am | Permalink