Jeepney Journey | Richard Juan | TEDxYouth@SJCS

good afternoon everyone my name is Richard Juan and I am here today to talk to you about a topic that really matters to me, it is a topic about national and cultural identity and more specifically for today what makes a Filipino a Filipino. Yes, I know them all. Down there I know what you guys are thinking right now, why do we have this Korean looking guy who speaks with an American accent? tell me what a Filipino should be like in Filipino, well I hope that at the end of my talk today you all understand why I am here talking to all of you about this topic, so before I get into today's topic, I want to ask you.

Right there you were from yes, from the Philippines, well, about you back there in the corner, I think it's a blue shirt, okay, hello, yes, oh, oh, yes, don't you turn around yet, where are you from? ? Sorry Philippines, it's okay, someone was there on that corner. you see, everyone says Philippines, these are all very very interesting answers because every time someone asks me this question where am I from, I panic, I can never answer it right away because I would always think, huh, what do they mean, but where? ? I'm from, for example, if I was traveling abroad and I'm Natur, someone asked me where I'm from.

I would say: do you mean where I live or what my ethnicity is? And sometimes I think that all of them. What I really want to know is why I speak English with an American accent and I'm sure all of you here can relate to that. Why do they travel abroad or sometimes, for example, when I meet a new friend for free in Manila and I will have some questions. Okay, are you referring to where I'm from in terms of living in the north or living in the south or are you referring to where I grew up or where we were always born?

Use All These Questions They're Always On My Mind West doesn't ask me where I'm from, so why do I have all your questions? I want to bore you with all the details of my backstory about what's going on and why I keep asking these questions so quickly. Background about me I was born in the Philippines to Fujian Chinese parents and grew up in Hong Kong. I moved to Hong Kong when I was one month old. Well, when I say move, I'm not really saying I had a choice. My parents dragged me to Kansas. I went to Hong Kong, so yeah, I grew up in Hong Kong and moved back to the Philippines.

A couple of years ago, I want to say exactly how old because I don't tell you how old I am, but yeah, yeah. I returned to the place between my studies and UB and lived here since then, so to you I am Filipino. I don't really need you to answer that, but yes, legally speaking, I am a Filipino, this is the Constitution, this is our Constitution, so under article 4 section 1 those who are citizens of the Philippines at the time of the adoption of this constitution and those whose fathers or mothers are citizens of the Philippines, please verify that it is 2 checks for me and yes, those born before January 17, 1973 to Filipino mothers who like Philippine citizenship upon reaching the age of majority and those who are naturalized according to the law, so when I was born, like I said before, my parents were actually born and raised in the Philippines, so they are actually already Filipino, so that makes me if I'm not wrong, this alone makes me a Filipino of born right, which means I can run for president.

Yes, Richard for president, that's fine, but the real issue is socially speaking. I'm accepted as a Filipino so yeah like I said? I'm not here to really discuss with you the legality of this. I'm not saying, hey, I want to change the law, I want this, I want that. I'm just trying to talk to you about the social perception of what Filipinos are like. should be or I mean should be or just give you a new idea of ​​how you want it to be perceived so this finally brings us to the topic of the day socially speaking what makes a Filipino a Filipino to be a Filipino is it necessary?

To be born in the Philippines legally speaking, you need, you need to know how to speak Tagalog or Bisaya or lift a balloon, you need to have Filipino blood, but honestly, what is Filipino blood nowadays? Because if you think about it, we are all you know some kind of our access is some are Chinese some are Spanish what is Filipino blood you need to have brown skin what kind of values ​​you need to have maka Kazama O'Donnell Oh resilience, but really they are all exclusively Filipinos if the traits and what religion you should have you have to be Catholic you have to be Christian let me give you some examples for example how is our national soccer team going in the Philippines most of these players are actually Hafeez who were born and they grew up in Europe, they are Filipino, what about Gillis, a Filipino national basketball team?

We have someone who is actually naturalized, yes, legally speaking, he is a Filipino, but since he was socially or culturally accepted as a Filipino, what about our beauty queens? we have a Raj, we have a word Spock, we have a grey, all of these are not traditional Filipino surnames and some may even argue that they don't even look like Filipinos, but to you, are they Filipinos? Let me give you a more complicated example. this guy I met actually had a Filipino passport, he is Filipino by blood whose first language is actually Japanese, he doesn't speak a single word of Filipino since he lived in Japan his whole life, he doesn't eat Filipino food, he doesn't. anything traditionally Filipino, but do you consider yourself Filipino?

Another example is what about this friend I met whose parents are from France but he was born in France and raised in the Philippines? He speaks Tagalog than I do, at least better than I do, and he eats Balut. he knows how to do eiki-sama, he is catholic and he claims that he is more Filipino and he feels more Filipino, he is actually French but just because he is white that means he is no longer Filipino and what is up with this, famous singer Hailee Steinfeld , what was a-? 8th Filipino by blood 1/8 that means her grandfather's father is Filipino do you think she still has Filipino culture in her or in her family?

Is she still Filipino? The question is where do you really draw the line for this? I'm not saying they're not Filipinos. I'm not saying that at all. I'm just giving a perspective. I just want to think about it. Where do you draw the line where most of us, who come from unusual backgrounds, have often found ourselves? With mixed reactions, some of us are accepted as part of the rich cultures of the Philippines, others, although they have been met with their skepticism and sometimes even their rejection, a couple of years ago, a news anchor of a channel A very important Philippine news outlet said this about Asko Filipinos are not real Filipinos, they just pretend to be brown-skinned, of course, he said this in Filipino, but it's translated, so there are some people like this who have a very rigid idea of what the Filipino should be. they like it because they're used to it, but the thing is we're always evolving and we're always changing, Filipino culture is always changing and one more thing that really bothers me personally is that, and again you guys don't.

Actually I have to agree with me, but many Filipinos have the idea that Filipinos have to be Filipinos only by blood, many of us Chinese, and I'm sure here from St. Jude is that we live here in Philippines for so many, many, many years, some of us honestly speak Peano Morden Chinese Mandarin Folk Yen or Cantonese and yet I, those people, do not really fully accept them as Filipinos to me, for example, in the social media when I was in PPP, when I was doing it to be annoying or when I was doing all these different things on TV, I often get hate messages saying Richard, why are you here in the Philippines?

Go back to Hong Kong, go back to China, are you? not Filipino when I got into PvP, I remember my dad telling me that there were some tweets saying Richard White, why is Richard in PvP? He is not Filipino, why is he taking a place and not being an older brother? The titles have been Oh, big. brother, why is he there? But the thing is, there are many of my friends who are also Chinese, but they are never accepted. They have lived your other life. They feel Filipino. They do so many Filipino things and yet they also receive. unnecessary hatred in the streets, for example, I had a friend who told me a story saying, oh, when I was in the streets they said or blinked like a China and welcomed him, open Akana because, of course, with all the conflict I do.

I don't want to get into the political side of this, but it's sad. I mean there are so many Chinese here or not even just Chinese or maybe even what they call foreigners or thumbs are treated the way they have lived. here all their life, but still they are excluded for being called Filipino, that's fine, but sometimes Filipinos who live abroad, who grew up abroad and who spend their whole life in the US, for example, They identified as American, English, British, but they still have a little bit. of Filipino blood and everyone while the Filipinos go to celebrate their Filipino wisdom for the pinyin Nest of Filipinos there they are, they are seen as Filipinos immediately, but they don't even identify as Filipinos they grew up as.

America they like hamburgers they like crazy parties and all that crazy stuff and yet they were there just because they're Filipino but they're Filipino right away I'm not again I just want to say I'm not by saying they're not Filipino but I just want to to say that non-Filipinos should be, except they don't sit, let me rephrase this again. I am not saying that they are not Filipinos, but I just want to say that Filipinos of non-Filipino blood should be. accepted as Filipinos - when you say Filipino French when you say Filipino German Filipino Chinese there is always this connotation right away that you are mixed race you are half Chinese half Filipino half Chinese I have half Filipino half German and if you say However, Chinese Americans or they say Polish Americans, Italian Americans, you don't automatically associate them as a mixed race, but for me, I guess not, I just want, I just wish that Filipinos in general would be more open about this idea of ​​having a Filipino who doesn't have Filipino blood, you follow me, yes, yes, okay, I hope we have to accept that the world is getting smaller with technology.

Different cultures are mixing all over the world, including the Philippines, from the increasing number of working Filipinos. abroad and of course the increasing number of foreigners who are moving to the Philippines and living in the Philippines, the trend will continue. Did you know that in 2010, it is estimated that 11 percent of the Filipino population, or 12.5 million Filipinos, reside abroad? I imagine how the numbers have actually increased for the family over the last nine years. Filipinos can be found practically everywhere in this world, next to Hong Kong, maybe in Shanghai, London and Qatar everywhere. Filipinos are everywhere and all these people are actually part of making this Filipino culture quote Aaronson Akbar who wrote the article Pinoy Diversity in a Hyperconnected World for Rattler, excluding them from any definition of Filipino leaves an incomplete picture of the history of the people for me, the Filipino or the Filipino culture is not being understood. lost, it is simply evolving, simply growing, and this applies to all cultures in the world.

Being Filipino is more than a matter of mentality, it is an idea, it is a feeling, and it is your action and how you feel that makes you a Filipino, thank you all very much. a lot and I hope you don't know anything or also