u/techkiwi02

I'm not sure if anyone posted this before, but I can't stand American YouTubers who bash on the USA for the sake of "America Bad". I can go off on a whole essay right here right now about why this mentality is damning for both Americans and Europeans on both sides of the Atlantic.

But something that made me post this was something he said about how some Europeans find British to be backwards, and he said something like "The British are the Americans of Europe". Like no shit dude, who do you think settled the United States?

But yeah overall, a lot of these American YouTubers in Europe with content like "America Bad, Europe Good" don't realize one of the reasons why Europe is better to them relative to America is because of a mixture of American contribution towards European international security via NATO, as well as certain class privilege that comes with being an "American Bad" American in certain European communities.

Also, I haven't seen any of these YouTubers try to immigrate anywhere East of Berlin/Rome or South of Stockholm. Like I genuinely wonder if there are any visible American YouTubers (i.e. more than 1 million subs) out there who willingly immigrate to somewhere like Poland. And no offense to the Polish out there, they respect the hell out of America. But there's definitely a lot of American privilege being used by "America Bad" content creators.

Hey guys, I'm a Filipino situated in SoCal. Grew up in Orange County, I work in Los Angeles County.

My life experiences so far. Not bad, could be better. Grew up with pretty stereotypical parents - one parent's a nurse, the other works for the American military.

But as some may have mentioned before, I've also lived with a great first world identity crisis. During my teenage years, I was considered too Asian for the Hispanic-Mexican majority. And in college, I was considered not Asian enough for the Asian/Chinese community. Naturally being split between these two ethnic communities whom I could relate with on many but not all aspects has led to a pretty interesting social life overall for I have always considered myself to be someone challenging the status quo of society. And with that said, I don't regret this life. I'm very proud to be a Filipino American.

I have gotten used to challenging Hispanics to broaden their understanding of Asian culture and accepting that not all Asians are Chinese, Japanese, or Korean. That East Asian culture isn't all that great if you aren't born into privilege, and that many East Asian communities have hella issues hidden beneath face culture.

At the same time, I've also gotten used to challenging Chinese Americans. That, while I respect what the Chinese have endured, not all of Asian America is based on the Chinese American struggle. I have to tell many Chinese Americans that the Philippines used to be an American colony back in the early 20th century, that Filipinos were pivotal in the creation of the Asian American identity back in the 1960s. I also have to educate Chinese Americans on the struggles of Korean Americans & Japanese Americans - for a majority of Chinese Americans seem to be under the impression that many Korean Americans & Japanese Americans are more connected to South Korea & Japan because of the Japanese & Korean pop culture industries. And while there are some, like many things in life, not all Japanese Americans are that invested in Japanese pop culture and not all Korean Americans are that invested in Korean pop culture.

The reason why I care so much about these specific little details is due to my teenage years amongst Hispanics, being expected to be more Hispanic because I looked Hispanic enough, yet getting called out for not knowing basic Spanish. Needless to say, it was complicated trying to educate many Hispanic/Mexican American students that Filipinos are Asian. Flat-out many Hispanic Americans I've met thought I was lying because my eyes weren't chinky enough to be Asian.

As of today, I find myself relating to both cultures well enough but not comfortable being completely in Asian America or Hispanic America. Yet this mentality and my perspectives are largely possible because I was born in SoCal, a region where many first gen immigrants from Asia and Latin America casually meet.

So there's a part of me that's wondering what it's like to be a Filipino born outside the Philippines, but instead of being raised in SoCal what if I was raised in NorCal, Chicago, or NYC? Would I still have the same passion and care for challenging the status quo as a means of helping others be more aware of their personal blindspots regarding the Asian American identity?

And that led me to think about where else do Filipinos go. And I see that there are many Filipinos in Canada, Australia, and the United Kingdom. For the Filipino Americans unaware, there are almost 1,000,000 Filipinos in Canada, almost 410,000 Filipinos in Australia, and 164,000 Filipinos in the United Kingdom.

And wherever Filipinos go, there are bound to be many Chinese & Indians as well. And both Chinese & Indians have their own experiences with the USA, the UK, Canada, and Australia - considering the UK & Canada having more South Asians, and the USA & Australia having more Chinese. Both of these tint the average American/British/Australian/Canadain perspective of who is Asian and who isn't. And that in turn can impact social resources for each of these countries Asian diaspora and populations. Like how it was in my experience, where despite the Filipino American being literally from a country that was once colonized by Americans the Philippines is largely not rememembered as an Asian country in lieu of China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.

And that in it of itself is largely shaped by America's foreign policy and geopolitical strategy since the mid-19th century - where the Asian identity has been associated with really smart people who at one point in time had a major war with the Americans (i.e. WW2, Korea War, Vietnam War) or whose people were literally ground zeroes for flatout racial discrimination (i.e. Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882).

And I could go on about that. But the point remains is that to many Americans, Asians will be remembered moreso by their connections to their homelands rather than their personalities independent of the ethnicity's home country/countries. Filipino Americans, because the Philippines was an American colony for 40-ish years, have had the privilege and luxury of not having the same struggles as many Asian immigrants in America but have thus become burdened with our unique struggle of not being completely alienated as non-white people in America.

But I'm curious though, about the perspectives of other Filipinos across the USA. Can you relate with what I've written? And to the many Filipinos outside the USA, how connected are you to the struggles of those outside the Filipino identity?

Preface: I am in SoCal. I've had a passive interest in Italian culture, like many people do. And about a couple of months ago, I was talking to one of my friends about the fact that we have many Italian restaurants around SoCal - yet we don't have too many Italian American communities. To which we rationalized that it must be stronger in New York City considering that New York is the closest to Europe.

Which then led to another question about why is it that Italian restaurants are usually "on par" with other ethnic minority genre restaurants like Greek, Mexican, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Vietnamese, Indian, Thai, and Filipino... and why on Earth there aren't many French restaurants, German restaurants, or Polish restaurants. (Although we do get Hamburgers from the Germans).

So I'm wondering why on Earth is it that the Italian Americans have the most visible cuisine culture, and the other major European countries don't.

Don't know if this is the best place to ask but thought I'd ask regardless.