"FILIPINO OR PILIPINO..." by ALEX S. FABROS, JR.

 “Filipino or Pilipino…”

By Alex S. Fabros, Jr.

 

The question of whether Filipino or Pilipino is the correct term is rooted in the intertwined histories of language, colonialism, nationalism, and diaspora. While both words refer to the same people—those originating from the Philippine archipelago—their usage reflects different linguistic systems and political moments. In the United States, Filipino is the proper and standard term, not simply by convention, but because of historical, legal, and linguistic realities that shaped Filipino migration and identity in America.

 

The word Filipino predates Pilipino by several centuries. It derives from Las Islas Filipinas, the name given to the islands by Spanish colonizers in the sixteenth century, honoring King Philip II of Spain. Under Spanish rule, Filipino originally referred to Spaniards born in the colony (insulares), but over time it expanded to include the native population, particularly in the nineteenth century as nationalist consciousness grew [1]. By the time of the Philippine Revolution and the subsequent American takeover in 1898, Filipino had become the dominant political and ethnic identifier in both Spanish and English [2].

 

When the United States assumed control of the Philippines after the Spanish-American War, English rapidly became the language of governance, education, law, and migration. Filipinos entered the United States not as immigrants but as U.S. nationals between 1898 and 1946, a status unique in American immigration history [3]. Their passports, labor contracts, census classifications, court records, and military files all used the English term Filipino. As a result, Filipino became embedded in American legal and bureaucratic systems in a way that Pilipino never was. U.S. Supreme Court cases, immigration statutes, and labor agreements consistently used Filipino, fixing it as the authoritative term in the American context [4].

 

Pilipino, by contrast, is a product of twentieth-century language reform within the Philippines itself. Tagalog, one of many Philippine languages, does not contain the “f” sound in its classical form; Spanish loanwords substituted “p” for “f.” When the Philippine government sought to create a national language in the 1930s and later standardize it after independence, Pilipino was promoted as the Tagalog-based national language, and Pilipino became a spelling consistent with that phonetic system [5]. Later reforms expanded the alphabet to include “f,” resulting in Filipino once again becoming the official name of both the people and the national language [6].

 

This distinction matters because Pilipino is not an English word and was never intended to function as one. It belongs to a specific linguistic and nationalist project inside the Philippines, particularly during the mid-twentieth century. In American English usage, substituting Pilipino for Filipino introduces confusion rather than political clarity. It disconnects Filipino Americans from the historical record under which they were classified, organized, and often discriminated against in the United States—from anti-miscegenation laws and labor exclusion to unionization, military service, and civil rights struggles [7].

 

Within Filipino American communities, Filipino also functions as a unifying term across regional, linguistic, and ethnic lines. Ilocanos, Visayans, Kapampangans, Tagalogs, and others entered the United States under the same legal category and forged shared institutions—labor unions, churches, fraternal organizations, and advocacy groups—using Filipino as their collective name [8]. Organizations such as the Filipino American National Historical Society, Filipino community centers, and Filipino veterans’ associations reflect this continuity. The term carries historical weight tied directly to the Filipino American experience.

 

Importantly, using Filipino in the United States does not negate Philippine nationalism or indigenous identity. Rather, it reflects the reality that diaspora identities form under different political and linguistic conditions than those in the homeland. Just as Chicano, Mexican American, or African American have meanings shaped by U.S. history, Filipino in the American context signals a specific trajectory of colonial status, labor migration, racialization, and community formation [9].

 

In summary, Filipino is the proper and correct term in the United States because it is historically grounded, legally embedded, linguistically appropriate in English, and consistent with the lived experience of Filipinos and Filipino Americans. Pilipino has meaning within the Philippines and within discussions of national language development, but it does not replace Filipino in American usage. The distinction is not merely semantic; it reflects how history, power, and place shape the words people use to name themselves.

 

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ENDNOTES

[1] Vicente L. Rafael, White Love and Other Events in Filipino History (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000), 13–18.

[2] Teodoro A. Agoncillo, History of the Filipino People, 8th ed. (Quezon City: Garotech Publishing, 1990), 135–160.

[3] Mae M. Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2004), 74–77.

[4] United States v. Bhagat Singh Thind, 261 U.S. 204 (1923); Roldan v. Los Angeles County, 129 Cal. App. 267 (1933).

[5] Andrew Gonzalez, “The Language Planning Situation in the Philippines,” Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development 19, no. 5 (1998): 487–525.

[6] Republic of the Philippines, 1987 Constitution, Article XIV, Section 6.

[7] Ronald Takaki, Strangers from a Different Shore: A History of Asian Americans (Boston: Little, Brown, 1989), 315–331.

[8] Dorothy B. Fujita-Rony, American Workers, Colonial Power: Philippine Seattle and the Transpacific West, 1919–1941 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 22–45.

[9] Yen Le Espiritu, Filipino American Lives (Philadelphia: Temple University Press, 1995), 1–12.

 

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Alex S. Fabros, Jr. is a historian and writer specializing in Filipino American history and the multiracial communities of California’s Chinatowns. A former Marine and longtime educator, he has contributed to public-history projects, documentaries, and community archives focusing on Asian American labor, veterans’ history, and Pacific migrations. He writes across genres—social history, biography, and creative nonfiction—and advocates for intergenerational storytelling and community memory.