During my first reading of this article, I felt slightly detached to the subject matter. As a first generation Filipino immigrant from the Philippines, I didn’t have as strong a connection to hip-hop culture during my childhood. Growing up, however, I’ve realized that music has extremely integral to the Filipino identity. Particularly in the United States, where many Filipino-Americans have turned to music and hip-hop to find a form of self-expression in a society that often erases their existence. As mentioned by Tiongson, “Viewed within the context of Filipino invisibility, DJing constitutes an important mode of self-representation, allowing Filipino youth to negotiate the terms of their racialization and render their experience meaningful and intelligible.” This reminds me of the early days of Youtube (during my late adolescence) and how impactful the Asian community on the website was; performers like AJ Rafael and other personalities was my first personal exposure to actual Asian-American exposure in media.
But then again, the article points out that this ‘lumping’ of Filipino-Americans as Asian-Americans contributes to their invisibility, saying “...[M]usic artist Jocelyn Enriquez… suggests that the classification of Filipinos as ‘Asian-American’ has proven to be consequential in terms of contributing to a sense of being lost.” Filipinos presence in and contribution to hip hop, however, enables Filipino artists to distinguish themselves, but it bewilders me how many Filipino artists and turntablists deemphasize their identities as Filipino-Americans in their attempts to appeal to a greater number of people, or, in other words, “not just be known for their race”. To be honest, it really made me sad. With an already extreme lack of Filipino representation in American media, their acceptance and pride in their identities is important for younger generations of Filipino-Americans.
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