Hello friends, my name is Audrey (@audreyeve on Wattpad), and I am a Filipino American. My parents were born and raised in the Philippines, and shortly after getting married, they immigrated to the USA where they had the best daughter in the entire world— me, haha.

While I was not born in the Philippines, the Filipino culture still runs through my blood just as strong. I visit my homeland every few years, and my family celebrates our beautiful culture and traditions everyday.

✖

Family is of the utmost importance in Filipino culture. Being family oriented to Filipinos means having people who will always love you and protect you no matter what. This also means being part of a very large community of people— not just your parents, grandparents, and siblings. Filipino families are , and include every cousin, aunty, uncle, niece, nephew, and anyone that can fit in the family tree.

Going to family parties mean spending time with the family you already know, and also meeting new ones. Trust me when I say I meet a new "cousin" every big gathering— which sometimes means it's your aunty's cousin's second uncle on your dad's side, haha. Moral of the story: family is everything.

→ Overprotective Parents: Growing up in a Filipino household means being "babied" till you're 26 or till you move out. Going out with friends, means getting a 'yes' from both parents, the names and numbers of every person you're hanging out with, plus the phone numbers of your friends' parents. Whenever I wanted to spend a Saturday going to the mall and movies with my friends, I definitely had an early curfew. I also had to call my parents every couple of hours to check in, and if I wanted to spend the night, my mom even took the time to speak to my friends' mom or dad.

→ Respect for Elders: Being Filipino means respecting your elders, and not just your relatives. This goes for anyone— even people you just met at the grocery stores. I always found it weird when I meet my friends' mom and we just call her 'Susan'. In the Filipino culture, we never call people older than us by their first names, and we usually add an honorific before names.

Tito / Tita:

Means Uncle / Aunty. This can also be used for your older cousins, friends' moms or dads, or even people you just met.

Manong / Manang:

Used for older brother / sister. Again, this can be used for older cousins, or for people you just met.

Ate:

(pronounced: Ah-Teh)

Means older sister. You can add this before a first name, or just by itself. You don't just have to use this for your actual older sister, and instead can use it for your cousins and people you just met.

Kuya:

(pronounced: Koo-yah)

Means older brother. Like Ate, you can use this before a first name or just by itself. No need to just use this for your brother; this can be used by cousins or people you just met.

Lolo / Lola:

Means grandpa / grandma. Use it for your grandparents, or for your actual elders.

→ Coming to America: A lot of Filipinos who live in the Philippines try to immigrate to America in hopes of a better future for themselves and their families. However, getting to the U.S. is a lot harder than just signing a few papers for a visa, and becoming an actual citizen is more difficult.

A lot of the times it's just one member of the family who goes to the U.S., works job they can find and uses that money to help pay for bills back home in the Philippines. Sometimes, these people are "TNT" or Filipinos who are illegal. But you can also petition family members to be legal citizens, and if everything goes well this can be a smooth process— sometimes it isn't, but if you're lucky it can be.

Food is just as important as family in the Filipino culture. Food is what brings us Filipinos together. We are known to party, and this is because of the ridiculously large spreads of food at these loud, karaoke-filled shindigs. At Filipino-American parties we normally have a mixture of both super-traditional Filipino dishes such as Dinuguan, Lechon, and Kare-Kare, and traditional yet normalized/mainstream foods like Spaghetti, Lumpia, and Pancit.

Of course, food never tastes as good as the way mom makes it. But for those who are away from home that need a little taste of the Philippines, one can find specialized restaurants dedicated to serving Filipino dishes.

→ Breakfast: Our meals for breakfast are usually grand. As much as I love eating Fruit Loops out of the box or heating up some Poptarts, whenever I can, I love having a traditional Filipino breakfast that includes garlic fried rice, eggs, spam, Longanisa, and red hotdogs.

→ Lunch / Dinner: Our staple for every meal is white rice. Then, it's paired with some type of meat and vegetable dish. Some popular dishes include Chicken/Pork Adobo, Tocino, Pork/Fish Sinigang, Bistek, or Pinakbet.

→ Dessert / Snacks: Filipinos have a wide range of yummy sweets. We have "normalized" salty snacks like cheese balls, or salt and vinegar chips, and we also have "odd" flavors of ice cream. Some flavors include Ube (purple yam), Buco Pandan (coconut), or Mais Queso (corn & cheese). Our most popular dessert is called Halo Halo and it is a shaved ice delicacy served with sweetened evaporated milk, ice cream (like Ube or Mango), and a plethora of toppings like coconut, jackfruit, coconut jellies, and sweet beans.

It's no surprise that Filipinos want to do well in society. This also means that parents tend to put pressure on their children to do even better than they did. Typical occupation goals for most Filipinos include nursing, engineering, business, or joining the military. This is where the lines between being Filipino and being Filipino-American are blurred.

Filipino parents encourage their children to study courses that will get them a good job; something stable that makes a ton of money. But when you grow up in America, there's a plethora of career options. From Psychology, to Entertainment; Photography, and Teaching.

Ultimately, arguments happen within the household because of this, and sometimes Filipino kids are too scared to stand up for themselves. They end up pursing a career they are not passionate about, only to please their parents. Of course, this differs between households, as some Filipino parents are not as strict when it comes to career choices.

When it comes to dating as a Filipino, it's usually not advised till you're at least 18 and completed with school. Academics are important and distractions such as dating, is not advised. However, we can't help our feelings sometimes.

Dating a Filipino means you have to be ready to court. To a Filipino boy/girl, this makes sense, but choosing to date outside of the race, means having to guide that person. Courting means to "date" the entire family—this means respecting the family, spending time with them at parties, and taking your time to get to know them too.

Courting means to take things slow; to take your significant other out on dates, and really getting to know them well. It also means learning the culture out of respect, especially if you're not a Filipino trying to be with one.

✖

To sum it up, Filipinos are family oriented. They love to host large parties with tons of food and are very respectful of their elders. Older Filipinos stick to tradition and culture, while trying to instill these concepts in their children, however for the ones who grow up in America, tend to alter these traditions. Despite it all, we are very proud of our culture— we love who we are and where we come from.