FIL AM · FILIPINO

Orange County • October 22, 2022 Building with Chapman University Kapamilya: Friendship Games & Student Voices From the Bay Area to SoCal Navy towns, we are connecting the 1.5 and 2nd generation Fil-Am journey—one campus story at a time. Ladies of Chapman University Kapamilya. Friendship Games 37. CSU Fullerton. "Whether you're a first-generation immigrant, a second-generation Filipino-American, or like me—a 1.5-generation Filipino—you belong here." Salamat, Chapman University Kapamilya (@cukapamilya) —thank you for following @Pinoybuilt on Instagram and for reaching out about that photo! Every message reminds us why Pinoybuilt exists: to connect Filipinos across generations and celebrate our shared stories. Per your request on IG. I used a cropped 9x16 for my Instagram story; here's the full photo. I still have videos and photos to edit/post. I will post as time a...

Maraming Salamat to the UC Berkeley Pilipinx American Alliance! We’d like to give a big thank you to the UC Berkeley Pilipinx American Alliance (PAA) for following @PinoyBuilt on Instagram! Your support helps us continue to connect Filipino Americans — from students and alumni to creatives and professionals across the U.S. As a Filipino-founded media project, PinoyBuilt celebrates stories of identity, heritage, and community. We’re inspired by organizations like PAA that embody bayanihan — unity, cultural pride, and leadership within the Filipino American community. 📸 Flashback Feature: Friendship Games 37 Here’s a throwback to Friendship Games 37 , held on October 22, 2022 at California State University, Fullerton — a celebration of friendship, culture, and school spirit that continues to unite Filipino American students across generations. UC Berkeley’s PAA proudly represented the Bay Area with energy and pride! 📍 UC Berkeley PAA at Friendship Games 37, C...

When I moved to Vallejo, California in 1979, I was just a shy kid trying to fit in.  Posted on: By: J.F.R. Perseveranda Coming from Chicago where my sister and I had first landed after immigrating from the Philippines, Vallejo was a different world. It was a Navy town, and most of our new classmates were kids of retired U.S. Navy men — born in the U.S., fluent only in English. By comparison, my sister and I still spoke Tagalog. We carried our culture with us — in our accents, our lunch boxes, and even in how we addressed each other. My younger sister Joy  used to call me “ kuya ” — until I asked her to stop calling me that at school. That’s when I first started hearing the word: FOB — “Fresh Off the Boat.” It was thrown around like an insult, often directed at Filipino immigrants who didn’t dress "right," didn’t speak "right," or who weren’t up to date on the latest American trends. It stung. Because I knew that if I wasn’t careful, that label wou...

“While a people preserves its language; it preserves the marks of liberty.”  José Rizal By Pinoybuilt Filipinos today speak English with ease. Taglish dominates daily life. Our media is Americanized—our humor, our slang, even our dreams. But national hero José Rizal gave us a warning that still echoes in 2025: the death of a language is the death of identity—and, soon after, liberty. 🇵🇭 Language = Identity = Freedom In works like Noli Me Tangere , El Filibusterismo , and his letters to the Women of Malolos, Rizal made this clear: a people who forget their language are easy to colonize again—mentally, culturally, economically. “Ang hindi marunong magmahal sa sariling wika ay higit pa sa hayop at malansang isda.” (“He who does not love his native language is worse than a beast and a stinking fish.”) This well-known line, traditionally attributed to Rizal’s youth, reminds us that language isn’t just a tool. It is a weapon of resistance. A map of memory. A...

June 12 is not just a date. It is the echo of 300 years of resistance, a cry for identity, and a quiet warning: that independence, once earned, can still be lost — unless we continually prove ourselves worthy of it. By Pinoybuilt In the 19th century, while revolution brewed in the hearts of Filipinos, Dr. Jose Rizal — the intellectual force behind our national awakening — offered a different kind of challenge to his people. One not delivered with the musket, but with the pen. One not aimed at the colonizer, but inward. “Our liberty will not be secured at the sword's point... We must secure it by making ourselves worthy of it. And when the people reaches that height, God will provide a weapon, the idols will be shattered, tyranny will crumble like a house of cards, and liberty will shine out like the first dawn.” — Jose Rizal Rizal believed in a revolution of the spirit before the revolution of the sword. He envisioned a Philippines where freedom was not grante...

Individually, we are one drop. Together, we are an ocean. -Ryunosuke Satoro

Bayanihan (pronounced [ˌbajɐˈniːhan]) is a Filipino term taken from the word bayan, referring to a nation, country, town or community. The whole term bayanihan refers to a spirit of communal unity or effort to achieve a particular objective.