Being Filipino, I found this article incredibly intriguing, because I often never experience Filipinos and their culture associated into my studies, which resonates with the ideas discussed in this reading. This reading, pointed out the very identity struggles that come with being Filipino. I grew up never understanding why we were called "Asian", because our appearances and our culture and language resemble that of the Spanish instead. As I grew up, I realized that relative to other Asian races, Filipinos are obscure when it comes to knowledge about them and their representation in everyday life and in the media. Filipinos are so segregated from other Asian countries, that when indicating one's nationality on official forms and government mandated tests, Filipinos are indicated in parenthesis next to "Asian".
This reading has also pointed out the iconic relationship between Filipinos and hip hop. What the article claims is true: Hip hop was just a part of our everyday lives and our use of it and integration of it into our culture is merely out of respect and love for it's universality, not to appropriate African American culture or claim it as our own. Before this reading, I never really thought about how Filipino's authenticity may be challenged when it comes to hip hop, because it has always been so integrated into my life and in my eyes Filipino's have become their own in hip hop culture, have established their own sense of style, and our now contributors themselves to that very music genre. I believe that respect and allusion to it's origins are always incorporated into Filipinos' utilization of hip hop and that Filipinos have effectively established their authenticity in regards to the genre, throughout the years.
The last and main point of this article is DJing and how such a random art form, became the thing to signify Philippine presence in American society. As I continued to read this article, I realized more and more that I know several Filipino DJs, some of them relatives and some parents of friends. I never thought of DJing to be a Filipino "thing", let alone be the very thing that helps define our identity in society, but it's incredible to realize how important DJing has been to my culture and how much it has influenced my own life. The idea of DJing also ties all the ideas of identity and hip-hop together, showing how a musical, art form paved the way for Filipinos to establish themselves and who they are in a society, in which they are often overshadowed.
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