The Filipino Culture: Rex Navarrete, Being A Filipino-American

Rex Navarrete, being a Filipino-American did not showed any difficulty or struggle in sharing his perception on the Filipino practices. In fact, although he grew up in the US, he still knows the typical Filipino culture, practices and issues (such as colonial mentality, racism within and without the Filipino community), and is able to share it to the people using his own experiences. This makes it grounded on the Filipino experience. But, as heard in the video, though there are some parts in the video that showed what everybody experiences in the Philippines (like Jollibee's MamSir), he mostly talked about his own experience with his family. And considering he spent most of his life in the United States, I believe that Rex was not able to capture

One of which is Enriquez's kapwa that means shared identity (Enriquez, 1978 as cited in Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000). The value kapwa can be seen in the part wherein Rex Navarrete was sharing his story about his English teacher. That part for me shows kapwa because he is glad and proud that his English teacher came from the same country as he is. Another Filipino value, hiya, which means sense of propriety (Salazar, 1985 as cited in Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000), is seen in the part when Hella Pinoys are being offered food, they refuse at first, but then gives in after some insisting. Enriquez's utang na loob, which means gratitude or solidarity (Enriquez, 1977 as cited in Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000) is seen in the part where Rex asked his audience if they had recently visited the Philippines, and promoted that they (Filipino-Americans) no matter what generation should go back to their own home country. He is proud to say that the Philippines is a beautiful country and that the people, no matter how messed up as they are, are also as great as they are. The part wherein Rex's friends come over his house to play, but Rex doesn't have a toy, so he used the Sto. Nino as his 'toy', for me shows the value of bahala na or determination and risk taking (Lagmay, 1977 as cited in Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000) because he is not ashamed of his toy, even though it is not really a toy. Pakiramdam or feeling for another (Mataragnon, 1987 as cited in Pe-Pua & Protacio-Marcelino, 2000) is depicted in the video where Rex knew that her sister is sad because she doesn't have a Barbie doll that looks like her, so he made his sister a version of Barbie doll that looks like her. In Filipino social interaction, one is immediately placed into the category of ibang-tao (outsider) or hindi-ibang-tao (one-of-us); and how one is placed determines the level of interaction one is shown (Enriquez, 1978 as cited in