A couple of Hispanics have said, "No es un pueblo" (It's not a people). I'm guessing that they are referring to Filipinos. As Filipinos, our culture seems incomplete. Our daily language is replete with foreign-sounding fad-sounding English words. We don't have vast literature, as do the Indonesians. Our crutch is the English language. Regionally, there are many local languages, like a hodgepodge. Many Filipinos who talk in a mixed manner are fluent in neither good Tagalog nor good English. Our culture and cuisine are an ambiguous blending of Malay, Spanish, Chinese, and American influences, all jumbled up. Sometimes, I say to myself, "I'm from Firipin!"—the uchronic or alternative-universe Philippines in which the Japanese would have continued their rich colonization.
(I often think that with the Filipino population now well over 100 million, we should be more ambitious and think more about things like space. Many of us Filipinos think that we are "from just a little country.")
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