Mmm... Sarap!

"Sarap" basically means "delicious." Almost any Filipino dish can be considered comfort food, and of course, it is never quite right unless the right family member prepared it. Most Filipino dishes are simple and hearty, with the main ingredient oftentimes some form of meat, whether beef, pork, chicken or fish. Of course, vegetarian Filipinos are hard to come by.

Filipino food is beginning to become more popular in mainstream dining, with restaurants such as Gerry's Grill, a chain from the Philippines that now has two locations in the Bay area.

A not-so-little introduction

One may expect a variety of faces while flipping through the major publications in the Bay Area, but a Filipino-American face rarely makes the cut. Unless you live in California or Hawaii, the first exposure to Filipinos that many people have may be in the form of stereotypes plugged into popular films and TV shows.

Despite being the second largest Asian group in the United States according to the 2000 census, Filipino-Americans are erroneously underrepresented in all forms of mainstream media. This invisible state does not undermine any aspect of Filipino culture. In many ways, it can be seen as a unifying cause and reason for many Filipino-Americans to develop and maintain a heightened sense of their culture, a mixed-bag culture that values family life, religion and hard work.

Culture is one of those fundamental parts of life that is so difficult to portray, let alone package into a neat little summary. The following is a break down of some key elements of the Filipino-American, from history and traditional values to food and generational differences.

The Younger Perspective

The Westlake Starbucks is the social hub for Daly City. Although the sun has already set an hour ago, the coffee house is packed with students studying or simply socializing. Almost every face is Filipino; not surprising given Daly City is home to perhaps the largest Filipino-American community in the United States.

A young woman enters and makes a B-line for the register, throwing quick peeks around to check for people she may know.

Jennifer Tavares looks like an average female Filipino-American. With her shoulder length black hair, a round face and black-rimmed spectacles, she could be any FilAm student from San Francisco State University.

My Transition from Deliberate Ignorance

I must have had at least one dream each week about something Filipino since starting this project. Just last week, I dreamed that my grandpa sold his first and only house in the United States to move to the SoMa district. It doesn’t matter whether the dreams are about my own family, the food, or the people I’ve recently met. The fact is that I’m now living my culture in a manner I once disdained.

My brother and I were understandably Americanized by both our parents and our two sets of grandparents. When they moved here as children, both of my parents had to quickly assimilate at school. While growing up, we rarely heard Tagalog or Ilocano (another dialect spoken by my dad’s side of the family) in our own household. We wouldn’t even have the choice to learn the languages or even the food, for that matter.