Workbook
For Filipino (American) Men
A Workbook on Machismo, Service, and the Softness That Was Never Wrong to Have
You were raised to be strong. This is where you write down what strong actually means to you.
Filipino American men — first-generation, 1.5-generation, and second-generation — navigating the intersection of machismo, family obligation, military or service culture, and the specific parts of themselves they were taught not to show. Men who have provided and performed and are now asking what they actually feel.
The Name It First Experience
You learned what a Filipino man is supposed to look like. Hard-working. Strong. Provider. Maybe military. Definitely not soft. You may have spent years suppressing the parts of yourself that didn't fit that picture. This workbook does not ask you to become something different. It asks you to name — precisely and on paper — which parts of who you are you chose and which were handed to you, and what the man underneath all of that performance actually believes. Grounded in Racial Identity Development theory (Cross, Helms), Acculturation Theory (Berry), Intersectionality (Crenshaw), diasporic identity scholarship (Brah, Hall), and research on Filipino American men's identity and masculinity, this workbook moves through machismo culture, service obligation, and the self-defined agreement you write now. The work is yours to do. This is where you write it down. You leave with The Filipino (American) Men Agreement.
You can opt into 30-, 60-, and 90-day check-ins from your account. We recommend you do — the point is to see what changed.
Sample questions
- What is the name of the part of you that got called soft — and what do you actually know about what it is?
- When you perform the hardness expected of you, what are you hiding — and who taught you it needed to be hidden?
- What is one thing you believe about who you are that the role you were given never had room for?
Research basis
Cross (1971, 1991) Nigrescence Model adapted for Asian American identity / Helms (1990) racial identity statuses / Berry (1997) acculturation strategies / Crenshaw (1989, 1991) intersectionality / Brah (1996) Cartographies of Diaspora / Hall (1990) Cultural Identity and Diaspora / Espiritu (2003) Home Bound: Filipino American Lives / Parreñas (2001) Servants of Globalization applied to Filipino men in diaspora / cultural frameworks of machismo, utang na loob (debt of gratitude), hiya (shame/face), and pakikisama (group harmony) in Filipino masculinity / Root (1997) Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity / colonial masculinity in Filipino American men (Pido, 1986) / Filipino American military service history and identity (Baldoz, 2011) / Eng (2001) Racial Castration applied to Asian American masculinity / David & Okazaki (2006) colonial mentality in Filipino Americans.
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