hereandnow

So yesterday at 4pm, SDSU's Cross Cultural Center hosted a Filipino American Heritage Event in celebration for Filipino American Heritage month (October, yay!). Some friends and I enjoyed a small theatrical show at Aztec Center's Casa Real. Overall, hereandnow performed many different cases of Filipino American culture, experiences and struggles.

Even if I didn't understand everything, it was very entertaining and kind of an eye-opener. :]

hereandnow is "a compelling Asian American theatre company that has performed across the nation for the past 17 years. hereandnow uses the collective voices of its diverse cast to reach out to the audience through universal themes of the show: that everyone comes from a unique experience, and that all people have stories to share."

After their performance yesterday, I spoke to the person leading the group, Jason, and out of that conversation I found inspiration and solace :] I first commended him for the performance and the messages they strive to relay out there. Because many of the scenes addressed controversial issues, I asked him, "What criticisms have you gotten, how did you take them and how did you deal with them?"

I swear it took him 15 minutes to answer that question. Haha. So basically, their group has received a lot of criticism, almost to the point where they had to avoid physical fights. I asked him how can he keep going with all the controversy... and he laughed as he replied, "I love the controversy."

He also made an interesting point that some of the criticism he's gotten, the worst coming for their own ethnicity, is how many people told him that the issues they addressed were shown incorrectly. But in his defense he said, "These are my experiences. This is what I went through. This is what I saw. No one can tell you what you experienced and how you interpreted it. That is up to you."

We kept talking - well... he kept talking haha - about the group, all the situations they've been in, and how much fun the journey has been. As our conversation came to a close, I asked him one more question, "What advice would you give to minorities who are trying to stand out and break through the stereotypes... like you guys do?"

Before he asked, he took a step back and asked, "What's your major?" Haha.

And so Jason said something along the lines...

"Ask most of the youth what they want to do and they'll answer, 'EVERYTHING.' But you can't do everything. You just can't physically do everything. You have to make a decision - do something that is most important to you and who you are - and stick to it. You will gain so much more doing a specific thing than many things. I mean, you can do many things, but there won't be one specific thing that you won't be good at. You limit yourself that way and you won't be as happy. A jack of all trades is a master of none."

And from doing what we want, we can break through the stereotypes and show to people that we are more than what everyone expects from us :]

Thank you hereandnow :D