What does it mean to be Filipino American today?
Over the last two years since I started Dear Flor with Brian, I’ve met so many incredible people including fashion designers and chefs, to entrepreneurs and artists, each with a story to tell. Stories about resilience and creativity, wrapped in Filipino identity. They’re stories that reframe how people think about Filipinos, our culture, and our history.
They’re stories that need to be shared.
That’s why I was excited when I got the Invite to guest host Modern Minorities, a podcast about work and life through the lens of race and gender. It’s a show where we talk about the conversations everyone is thinking about but nobody is actually having. Hosted by Raman Sehgal and Sharon Lee Thony, Modern Minorities has been diving into race, culture, and identity for the last four years, featuring guests like Margaret Cho, Sam Yo, and Tanzina Vega.
The Modern Minorities Episode: Magic, Dating, and Reframing Filipino Identity
I had the chance to speak with Michael Wong. If you’re on Instagram or TikTok, you might know him as @AsianVerified. Every day he’s reaching well over 100,000 people and he’s sharing all things Asian, from the best hole-in-the-wall restaurants to the iconic dad fashion moments at Costco.
If you ask Michael Wong what he does, he’s a self-proclaimed cultural anthropologist for Asian America. A Seattle-based commentator, he’s best known for @AsianVerified and his monthly column for The Stranger, a Seattle newspaper.
Our conversation on Modern Minorities was one for the books.
We talked about everything, covering topics from how a non-drinking, half-Filipino, half-Chinese kid from Auburn, Washington, used magic to get into a fraternity, to navigating dating apps as an Asian man, to what it really means to "Asian verify" anything.
Why These Stories Matter
For too long, our stories have been defined by outsiders. As a people we’ve been reduced to stereotypes and tropes. We’re often rendered invisible in mainstream spaces. And if we are included, we’re lumped into a broader Asian American narrative that doesn’t fully capture who we are. But when we tell our stories (and Filipinos are great storytellers), we get to take control of our individual and collective narratives. When we share our experiences, good, bad, and ugly, we get to claim our space in history and shape how future generations see themselves.
That’s why these conversations matter. Our identity isn’t static and it’s not monolithic. Our identity is something that we have agency over. And we’ll do that by challenging outdated narratives so that we can show the world the full spectrum of what it means to be Filipino American.
So, what does it mean to be Filipino American today? It’s time to find out.
🎧 Listen to my conversation with Michael Wong here: Spotify | Apple
📡 Subscribe to the Modern Minorities Podcast