Episode 243 – The Politics of Language with Jennifer Delfino

“You’re not Filipino if you don’t speak Tagalog.”

“You sound white.”

“The national language of the Philippines is Filipino, not Tagalog.”

“Filipino is already gender neutral.”

Much of our online discourse in the Filipino community is about or related to language. The debates are out there. We here at TFAL want to tackle some of these linguistic arguments head on. On this TFAL episode, we talk about the politics of language in the Filipino/Filipino American community with linguistic anthropologist, Jennifer Delfino, Associate Professor at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign.

Listen as we talk about the politics of “sounding white,” the struggles of Filipino Americans to learn their heritage language, the fallacy and limitations of a Philippine national language, and of course, the ongoing debate of FilipinX. Let the debate rage on!

Also, for fun, listen to Joe and Mike’s new made-up national identifiers towards the end of the episode.

Listen or download the episode through the embedded player on ThisFilipinoAmericanLife.com, or subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever your favorite podcasts are found.

What did you think of the episode? What other language questions do you have? Leave us a voicemail at (805) 394-TFAL or email us at thisfilipinoamericanlife@gmail.com.