Pinoy ( or
Many Filipinos refer to themselves as Pinoy, sometimes the feminine Pinay ( ), instead of the standard term Filipino.
Pinoy was created to differentiate the experiences of those immigrating to the United States, but is now a slang term used to refer to all people of Filipino descent.
Etymology
The term
Pinoy was coined by expatriate Filipino Americans during the 1920s and was later adopted by Filipinos in the Philippines. According to historian
Dawn Mabalon, the historical use has been to refer to Filipinos born or living in the United States and has been in constant use since the 1920s. She adds that it was reclaimed and politicized by "Filipino American activists and artists in the FilAm movements of the 1960s/1970s".
Earliest usages
The earliest known usages of
Pinoy/
Pinay in magazines and newspapers date to the 1920s include taking on social issues facing Pinoy, casual mentions of Pinoys at events, while some are advertisements from
Hawaii from Filipinos themselves.
The following are the more notable earliest usages:
United States
In the United States, the earliest published usage known is in a
Republic article written in January 1924 by Dr. J. Juliano, a member of the faculty of the Schurz school in Chicago – "Why does a Pinoy take it as an insult to be taken for a
or a
Confucianism?" and "What should a Pinoy do if he is addressed as a
Chinese people or a
Jap?"
According to the late Filipino-American historian Dawn Bohulano Mabalon, another early attestation of the terms "Pinoy" and "Pinay" was in a 1926 issue of the Filipino Student Bulletin. The article that featured the terms is titled "Filipino Women in U.S. Excel in Their Courses: Invade Business, Politics."[Dawn Mabalon, Little Manila is in the Heart (Durham and London: Duke University Press, 2013), 20, 37.]
Philippines
In the Philippines, the earliest published usage known is from December 1926, in
History of the Philippine Press, which briefly mentions a weekly Spanish-
Visayans-English publication called
Pinoy based in
Capiz and published by the Pinoy Publishing Company.
[, Pinoy’s publication date is December 27, 1926. The publisher was Pinoy Publishing Company. Other than that, there's no further information.] In 1930, the
Manila-based magazine
Khaki and Red: The Official Organ of the Constabulary and Police printed an article about street gangs stating "another is the 'Kapatiran' gang of Intramuros, composed of patrons of pools rooms who banded together to 'protect pinoys' from the abusive American soldados."
Motivations
The desire to self-identify can likely be attributed to the diverse and independent history of the
island country – comprising 7,107 islands in the western
Pacific Ocean – which trace back 30,000 years before being colonized by
Spain in the 16th century and later occupied by the
United States, which led to the outbreak of the Philippine–American War (1899–1902).
The Commonwealth of the Philippines was established in 1935 with the country gaining its independence in 1946 after hostilities in the
Pacific War of the Second World War had ended.
[ ] The Philippines have over 170 languages indigenous to the area, most of which belong to the Malayo-Polynesian branch of the Austronesian language family. In 1939, then-president Manuel L. Quezon renamed the
Tagalog language as the
Wikang Pambansa ("national language").
The language was further renamed in 1959 as
Filipino by Secretary of Education Jose Romero. The 1973 constitution declared the Filipino language to be co-official, along with English, and mandated the development of a national language to be known as Filipino. Since then, the two official languages are Filipino and English.
As of 2003 there are more than eleven million overseas Filipinos worldwide, equivalent to about 11% of the total population of the Philippines.
Notable literature
Pinoy is first used by Filipino poet
Carlos Bulosan, in his 1946
autobiography,
America Is in the Heart – "The Pinoys work every day in the fields but when the season is over their money is in the Chinese vaults."
The book describes his childhood in the
Philippines, his voyage to
United States, and his years as an itinerant
laborer following the harvest trail in the rural West.
It has been used in American
ethnic studies courses to illustrate the racism experienced by thousands of Filipino laborers during the 1930s and 40s in the United States.
Pinoy music
In the early 1970s, Pinoy music or "
Pinoy pop" emerged, often sung in
Tagalog language – it was a mix of rock, folk and ballads – marking a political use of music similar to early hip hop but transcending class.
The music was a "conscious attempt to create a Filipino national and popular culture" and it often reflected social realities and problems.
As early as 1973, the Juan de la Cruz Band was performing "Ang Himig Natin" ("Our Music"), which is widely regarded as the first example of
Pinoy rock.
"Pinoy" gained popular currency in the late 1970s in the Philippines when a surge in
patriotism made a hit song of Filipino folk singer
Heber Bartolome's "Tayo'y mga Pinoy" ("We are Pinoys"). This trend was followed by Filipino rapper
Francis Magalona's "Mga Kababayan Ko" ("My Countrymen") in the 1990s and Filipino rock band Bamboo's "Noypi" ("Pinoy" in reversed syllables) in the 2000s. Nowadays,
Pinoy is used as an adjective to some terms highlighting their relationship to the
Philippines or
Filipino people.
Pinoy rock was soon followed by
Pinoy folk and later, Pinoy jazz.
Although the music was often used to express opposition to then Philippine president
Ferdinand Marcos and his use of
martial law and the creating of the
Batasang Bayan, many of the songs were more subversive and some just instilled national pride. Perhaps because of the cultural affirming nature and many of the songs seemingly being non-threatening, the Marcos administration ordered radio stations to play at least one – and later, three – Pinoy songs each hour.
Pinoy music was greatly employed both by Marcos and political forces who sought to overthrow him.
See also
-
Tisoy
-
Demographics of the Philippines
-
Ethnic groups in the Philippines
-
Race and ethnicity in the United States Census
