The Surprising Ways Filipino Culture Is a Trend—and Its Hidden Impact on Identity

After scrapping a first recording that didn't feel right, Alyssa and Nadia land on a topic that's been sitting in the background: what it actually means to be Filipino-American when you're a generation removed from the immigration story. Nadia is 100% Filipino by heritage — but both her parents were born in the US, and that one fact changes almost everything.

The conversation gets specific fast. Nadia recalls arriving at Northeastern's Filipino club and learning there was a taho night — a dessert she'd never heard of. She looked Filipino, but didn't always know the script. A visit to the Philippines brought the same dissonance: people addressed her in Tagalog expecting fluency, only to find she couldn't follow along. Alyssa notes that neither parent spoke Tagalog at home, so there was never a natural path to absorb it — though Nadia still holds herself accountable for not seeking it out.

They also get into what it's like to be Asian in mostly non-Asian spaces — something Nadia encounters more in Boston than she ever did in the Bay Area. Outside the community, all Asian identities tend to get collapsed into one. It's frustrating, but Nadia also finds unexpected comfort in her Asian friend group: there's something grounding about being around people who look like you, even when the specific cultural backgrounds differ. The episode closes with both of them acknowledging there's a whole other conversation waiting — including whether the Philippines even belongs in the "Asian" part of AAPI.

Takeaways

• Being fully Filipino by ancestry doesn't guarantee fluency in Filipino culture — especially when your parents were also raised in the US
• Language is one of the clearest markers of cultural connection, and its absence tends to surface guilt even when it wasn't really a choic
• Arriving somewhere you're "supposed" to belong and realizing the connection isn't automatic is its own specific kind of dissonance
• People outside a community tend to collapse all Asian identities into one — frustrating, but not always malicious
• There's real comfort in being around people who look like you, even without shared cultural specifics
• Growing up in a diverse environment like the Bay Area creates assumptions about normalcy that other places quickly disrupt
• Navigating multiple cultural contexts builds something useful: the ability to hold different worldviews without defaulting to one as the obvious baseline
• Cultural identity isn't a fixed destination — for most people, it's an ongoing negotiation between origin, upbringing, and what you decide to learn now

Chapters

• 0:10–0:52 — Do-Over: Why the First Recording Didn't Make the Cut
• 0:52–2:14 — AAPI Heritage Month and the Filipino Moment on TikTok

• 2:14–5:08 — Growing Up Filipino Without the Philippines

• 5:08–7:43 — The Taho Moment: When You Look the Part But Don't Know the Script

• 7:43–10:19 — Why Tagalog Wasn't in the House — and Whether That's Anyone's Fault

• 10:19–12:19 — Being Lumped In: How Non-Asians Read Asian Identity

• 12:19–14:29 — The Quiet Comfort of Your Own Community — and What Boston Made Visible

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