Hi ! Hello & everything else ..

Hello ! My name is Maria Delos Santos. I'm currently going to Southwestern College for the first year, so as a freshman. I come from a big Filipino family, I grew up being raised not only by my mom but by my Lola, aunts, uncles and older cousins. That's a lot of people to raise three little kids, but to me that's just my family. Ever since I could remember, my life has been influenced by the Filipino culture. I was raised in a household that was all Filipino .. all the time. What I mean by that is, that my cousins and I were raised pretty much the "filipino" way. Knowing the culture, values, being used to the food and especially the language. I don't remember learning the language very much, but it just seemed to come second nature to me. I also got American cultural influences from my uncles and cousins who were mixed Filipino and White, so I felt that I had a good balance of both cultures. When I saw that the Learning Community, Bayan, had a Filipino American Focus I knew that I wanted to be a part of it. Not only because I'm Filipino American but because, I wanted to learn more about essentially where I come from and how Filipinos became who they are now. In Henry's class, we're reading Filipino American Psychology by Kevin Nadal, and I can say that so far this book is can describe exactly how my family and our culture and values. I have learned a lot of new things about Filipinos like how Spanish and American cultural values had a big impact on our culture. It also reaffirmed or gave me names to things that I already knew, like the filipino values of "kapwa", "utang ng loob", "pakisama" and "hiya". These are the values that I grew up in and my family wanted to instill in my cousins and I. Seeing it in print is kind of the reaffirming part because even though I know that that's how most Filipino families are, reading about it makes it have a bigger impact on me .. knowing that people who read the book will understand the dynamics and values of a Filipino family. I'm excited to see what else Bayan has in store for us .. Til next time happy readings (: