Tulog na ba ang mga ka-Pacific Islander? Dahil hindi mamatay-matay ang isyu na ito, gawan natin ng thread. (English ahead.)

Are Filipinos Pacific Islander? NO. It's easy to mistake Pacific Islander as a generic catch-all label for people who live on 'islands' in the 'Pacific', but that's not what it means as an historical and cultural label. A Pacific Islander is a native of the Pacific Islands.

The Pacific Islands are not just any group islands in the Pacific — they are a group of islands inhabited by people who share a common *recent* history and culture. These are the Polynesians, Micronesians, and Melanesians. Filipinos are not native to these island groups.

Native Filipinos and Pacific Islanders DO share a common *ancient* (not recent) history, both being Austronesian, but we are no more Islander than they are Asian. (Suggest reading: "The Austronesians" by Peter Bellwood or "The Austronesian Languages" by Bob Blust)

Are Filipinos Asian? YES. We are much, MUCH closer to Malays and Indonesians than we are to Samoans and Maori—culturally, geographically, and genetically. Our national hero, José Rizal, is often (though inaccurately) referred to as "The Great Malayan", not "The Great Polynesian".

But what about the island culture? The tattoos? The brown skin? Plenty of Asian cultures live on islands, tattoo their bodies, and have brown skin. Precolonial Filipinos (or pre-Filipinos) pretty much had these in common with their relatives and neighbours in Southeast Asia.

I'll skip the part where I talk about the role our islands played in the vast Asian empires of old, how we used to be largely Hindu Buddhist, wrote in scripts that go back to India etc., because that'd be too obvious. Clue: ᴬˢᶦᵃⁿˢ ᵃˢ ᶠᵘᶜᵏ

Our place as a Southeast Asian nation is cemented in ancient and modern trade, politics, culture, and history. We are Asian, through and through, despite the multiple waves of invaders that have crashed our shores. Even if Americans frequently mislabel us, we're still Asian.

Forward to the modern era, and we're still pretty much Asian. We are Asian, not only because of our history and culture, but because we've decided to remain so as a sovereign nation in the region. We know it, our neighbours know it; I don't know why anyone would say otherwise.

I'm not Fil-Am and I don't presume to know their experiences. Idk what led many Fil-Ams to believe they were a part of another people's name, culture, and history, and why they're so insistent on it. But facts are facts, and my question to the adamant deniers remains: