The Philippines, a country located in Southeast Asia, is considered by the Center for Migrant Advocacy (2018) as one of the largest countries of origin for migrants. Today, about 10 percent of the Filipino population is located in 104 countries. (de Mata, 2022). From many waves of Filipino migration, about 2 million Filipino diaspora live in the United States (Batalova & Davis, 2023).
However, Filipino-Americans are not free from racism despite their numbers. Sentiments such as “go back to where you came from”, “all Asians look the same”, and orientalism affecting Filipino women and men differently are only some of the microaggressions affecting Filipino-Americans. It is also common for second and onward generations Filipino-Americans to not learn a Filipino language as it is seen as a barrier for full assimilation as “American”. They eventually settle into this state of being “in-between”, not being Filipino or American enough. Lately they have been leaning towards the idea of decolonisation as a way to reclaim their ancestry as a way of empowerment and filling the cultural void left from assimilation (Quintero, 2023).
As for non-diasporic Filipinos, their connection to the global world is through online. According to the Inquirer, Filipinos are the most “virtually online” of Southeast Asia (Peña, 2023).
With more than 78.8% of the Philippine population belonging to the Roman Catholic faith, many LGBTQ+ Filipinos struggle with acceptance within religious communities. Discrimination also ends up in changing their perception of religion, leading them to question their faith and religious identity in relation to their cultural identity (Libiran, 2024).
LGBTQ+ Filipino diaspora face discrimination from their families, Filipino communities in western countries, and predominantly white LGBTQ+ circles due to different aspects of their identity. As they seek support from the most accessible LGBTQ+ circles around them after facing discrimination and non-acceptance from their relatives and friends, they still face this covert exclusion and disconnect from western LGBTQ+ culture, particularly due to the different values and dynamics LGBTQ+ Filipino diaspora are raised with.
Traditional Asian values affect LGBTQ+ Asians in general, particularly the collectivist values compared to the typical western individualism. Kawamura (2012) defines collectivist values as “the embedding of individuals within their respective group identity, with the notion of a separate, autonomous self being deemphasized”. It is complicated as well for LGBTQ+ Asian Americans as they may face “intersectional invisibility” in communities they are in (Shen et. al., 2023). In another aspect, LGBTQ+ Asian diaspora experience racism in predominantly western spaces, such as LGBTQ+ South Asians experiencing racism in LGBTQ+ spaces in the UK. (Talwar, 2023)
An essential concept that will aid LGBTQ+ Filipinos in their issues is the concept of intersectionality. Coined by scholar Kimberlé Crenshaw in 1989, intersectionality refers to how different aspects of a (typically) marginalized person’s identity overlap and relate to each other. In LGBTQ+ Filipinos’ case, their queer identity and their Filipino identity may overlap in some parts such as regarding culture, language, and history (Coaston, 2019).
With this background, the research backing HABI HEART was conducted, aiming to identify and explore the disconnect LGBTQ+ Filipinos experience towards general LGBTQ+ communities, highlight those experiences, and to give them voices and spaces to express themselves.