Mga Pamumuni-muni

Pamumuni-muni (reflections, wisdom)

Welcome to the section of my site that will house my various reflections and musings. As I am using Google Sites, which doesn't have blogging capabilities, I'll be experimenting with different ways of working around that (or perhaps with that), so please bear with me. Salamat.

In so-called North America, when we think of Asians, it’s common to think primarily of East Asians. South East Asians such as myself may be included, particularly if those who are descended from these regions possess phenotypes associated with East Asians because of past and present histories of trade, imperialism, migration, religious influence, etc. In the US, there is also the broader category of AAPI or “Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders”. Often South Asians are seen to exist solely within their own category, particularly in the context of the Muslim community. In England, the term “Asian” mostly refers to South Asians due to the country’s colonial history with the region.

And the rest of Asia? Most of Russia lies within Northern Asia, and the other portion is considered European Russia. There are numerous countries and states within Central Asia. Western Asia has countries that are considered to be part of the political region commonly referred to as the “Middle East”, along with some Northern African countries. Some countries in Western Asia have cultures that share more in common with those of the Mediterranean region. Yet technically, they are considered Asian countries.

At the risk of sounding like a refresher on grade school geography, I’ll stop here and ask this instead: when we say “STOP ASIAN HATE”, exactly who are we talking about? Who are we including and excluding from these conversations? If Asia has varying geographical and political borders, what does this mean? Who decided on these borders and distinctions in the first place? If there are complex injustices happening within Asia among Asians and continued colonialism and occupation by “Western” states, what does this mean for Asians in America? What kind of harm are we doing when we see Asia and Asian people as a monolith?

I’m from the islands known colonially as the Philippines, therefore Southeast Asian. When you think of a Filipino/x person, what comes to mind? My homeland is the only predominantly Catholic country in all of Asia, a distinction that sometimes aligns diasporic Filipinos with the Latino/x communities in the US. Being Filipino also means I am a non-Indigenous person, due partly to the fact that I have some mixed heritage and also because whatever tribal Indigenous lineage I had was broken long ago due to colonialism, migration, etc. For those whose tribal identities and cultures were not disrupted, they retain their own tribal names and are politically designated as Indigenous Peoples (or IP) in the Philippines, and may also identify as such as migrants within the Filipinx diaspora. In my suburban Toronto subdivision, there is a family who signals that they are proud "Igorotak” by way of decorative stickers on their vehicles. Some Indigenous communities practice traditional forms of animism, some may practice their traditional religions alongside Catholicism, and some, particularly in the Southern part of the region, are considered “Islamized”.

In the diaspora, Filipinos are mostly lumped under the “Asian” umbrella, as I mentioned previously, despite the many varied distinctions within the peoples and culture itself that I discussed. With all this “lumping” and generalizing, who are we really serving? Who really is “Asian”?

While I’m open to helping other non-white folks dissect this for themselves, as a femme person, I have specific boundaries I have to draw around cis people, particularly cis men who want to engage in dialogue with me. Salamat sa inyong lahat.

March 18, 2021