October was Filipino American History Month. Did you know:
Filipinos were the first Asians to visit North America
The Philippines became the first American Commonwealth after the US paid Spain $20M for it after the Spanish-American War
Filipinos are the 2nd largest Asian community in the United States
Filipinos point with their lips
I don’t actually remember when I first became aware that October is Filipino American History Month, but it was first introduced in 1992. Why October? The first recorded Asians in what became the United States were Filipinos on the crew of a Spanish galleon in the Manila-Acapulco trade route. A small landing party with two Filipinos came ashore at Morro Bay (near San Luis Obispo in present-day California) on October 18, 1587 and had a violent encounter with the local Chumash natives, resulting in the deaths of one Filipino and a Spaniard.
This means that Filipinos were the first known Asians to visit the United States, and also the first ones to die there.
Fast forward to 1898, and the short, ten-week Spanish-American War ended after Spain decisively lost two naval encounters against the US Navy in Santiago de Cuba and Manila Bay. As part of the 1898 Treaty of Paris, the United States gained control of Cuba and ownership of Puerto Rico, Guam, and the Philippines.
To compensate Spain’s infrastructure losses in the Philippines, the US paid $20M to Spain (about $619M today). In an interesting case of what-might-have-been, Andrew Carnegie, the steel industrialist-cum-philanthropist, offered to pay the $20M for the Philippines to gain its independence. The US Government declined his offer. I went to Carnegie Mellon University a little less than a century later and paid a small fortune for my degree instead.
As of 2019 there are approximately 20 million Asians in the United States, about 5.6% of its total population. The largest Asian groups are Chinese (4.9M), Filipino (3.9M), and Indian (3.9M).
Asians as a group have been described as the “Model Minority” based on seemingly positive stereotypes of being polite overachievers with overbearing parents, being naturally good at math and science, and achieving the American Dream of upward mobility at higher-than-average rates, but this stereotype ignores the diversity of cultures and experiences across the Asian population.
Though Asians seem to be well-represented at elite universities and Fortune 500 companies, they are very underrepresented in senior leadership positions despite some visible examples like Sundar Pichai at Google, Satya Nadella at Microsoft, John Chen at Blackberry, and Indra Nooyi formerly at PepsiCo. This barrier is also known as the Bamboo Ceiling and it’s definitely a thing for Filipino Americans.
I have met Dado Banatao, a giant in the field of semiconductors, a successful entrepreneur, and now a venture capitalist and philanthropist. Dado was a dominant figure in Silicon Valley, and yet I didn’t hear of him until he started PhilDev, a non-profit dedicated to eradicating poverty through the benefits of science & technology. Last month the Filipino Googler Network co-hosted PhilDev’s annual summit at the Google office in Playa Vista, Los Angeles. I was proud to be there and hear from my fellow Filipino Americans like Pulitzer Prize winner Jose Antonio Vargas, author & restauranteur Nicole Ponseca, philanthropist Priscilla Hunt, CEO & entrepreneur Tony Alvarez, Dado himself, and many others. We have all come a long way, but it’s clear we are the exception than the rule when it comes to the Filipino American experience.
Despite the fact that we are among the largest Asian groups in the United States, we are underrepresented among tech entrepreneurs and leadership roles. It’s one of the reasons why I keep myself somewhat visible & active – representation matters.
Lip pointing is something we grew up with. It’s a very efficient gesture that is clearly understood by my fellow Filiipinos and confusing as hell to others. Once you have that gesture down, we can move on to raising your eyebrows.