Filipinos always dig it when they hear someone speak tagalog (?) especially in a hollywood film or read it in an american comic book. my filipino friends proudly showed me a superman and an x-men comicbook where the artist (who was apparently filipino) managed to sneak in some tagalog words in the background and had the writer include some tagalog dialogue as well. of course, they were curse words in tagalog!
(why do filipinos like to hear curse words? same as everyone, i guess)
then they told me that there is a growing acceptance among hollywood stars with filipino lineage of their heritage. where once, lou diamond philips was told to say he was indian or native american, now he can proudly say that he is phil-american. tia carrere, lou diamond philips, deuce bigolow, all with filipino blood. dean devlin, producer of independence day and godzilla, is also of filipino ancestry.
and i think this would be the first time that the head chef in the white house would be a filipino (usually it would be french or american). and she (yes, a female filipino head chef) was hand-picked by laura bush herself.
i think the reason why they're so jazzed up about all this is because even after a hundred years of filipino migration to the states it is only now that they are getting the recognition they feel they deserve. while the rest of their asian brothers had found acclaim and acceptance long before (ang lee, jackie chan, jet li, chow yun fat, zhang ziyi, etc), it is only now that they (the filipinos) are apparently enjoying some mainstream (meaning US) attention.
which is why every filipino success story is heralded and applauded at home. i remember watching miss saigon (which my friends kept bugging me to watch) and i was totally blown away by the whole production, but most especially by the actress playing the lead character, Kim. Of course, I later found out that not only was she a filipino by the name of Leah Salonga, almost all of the cast members were filipino too! Later, I heard that Leah won a Tony (the theater arts' equivalent to the Oscars) for her performance in Miss Saigon and was even featured as one of the most beautiful people in america in People (i think, im not sure which now) magazine.
The darling of the country now, of course, is .... the boxer, Manny Pacquiao, who just won against mexican Chololo Larios. It seems Manny and three other filipino boxers playing in the undercard all defeated their mexican opponents in what was billed as the Thrilla in Manila II (the original Thrilla in Manila being the historical fight of Muhammad Ali vs. Frazier).
A few weeks ago, they were celebrating the first ever filipino expedition to Mt. Everest. Of course, it comes decades after the first ever everest ascent by sir edmund Hillary (?) and his sherpa (nepalese guide), but to the filipinos it is still an achievement because one of their own (or was it three?) has again proven to the world that they are world-class!
Of course, to all of us here at AZB that is already old news. Efren's been proving that to us even after all these years!
