Ensuring that the family is financially stable is a shared sentiment among most Filipino immigrant parents with American-born children. With this in mind, these Filipino American children are often not encouraged to pursue a career outside of STEM, or Science Technology, Engineering, Medical fields. This push, in particular, often steers Filipino children away from their own interests.

The Bay Area is a rich melting pot of different ethnicities, which allows for cultural crossovers and introductions. Over the past five years alone, numerous cooking and food-related publications and personalities, such as Andrew Zimmerman, Vogue, and Anthony Bourdain have cited Filipino food as being the “next big thing.”

There is a surge of artists of all backgrounds, specifically within marginalized populations, establishing themselves in the art community. It is an exciting sight seeing these artists collaborate and find confidence in their work. One in particular is local, half-Filipino artist, . He is a self-taught acrylic painter who focuses on natural settings and creatures utilizing realism techniques with an urban abstract texture.

The conversation between the Filipinos who left the island and those who stayed is ongoing and as passionate as ever. The subject of the Filipino identity is one way this heated dialogue continues: what is it that defines the essence of “Filipino-ness”? Having survived colonization and WWII, some argue that Filipinos don’t have an identity that is not influenced by colonizers. However, why is it that we are so quick to limit the definition of this identity to solely one?

Amanda Pascual is a recent graduate of Sacramento State University. Through her love of painting and printmaking, she wishes to represent her Filipino American culture through her idea of home. She wants the diverse Asian American population to be better represented in the art scene. She is also the current Art Editor for both Chopsticks Alley Pinoy and our sister organization, Chopsticks Alley Art.

Kenneth Tan Ronquillo is a San Jose based Filipino artist whose beginnings started with an unconventional move: he left Southern California, homeward bound, to help care for Crescenciana Tan, his grandma, or “lola” in Tagalog, when she turned ninety-four. In our recent interview with Kenneth, he shares that he wanted to find a way to make the most of their time together, by coming up with the idea of collaborative art. His lola makes the paintings, and his promise is to finish everything she starts.