My story I decided to tell was the discovery of my parent’s mindset. Despite living here in America for over 20 years, my parents still hold the Filipino mindset they had in the Philippines.
Q: Why did you choose this idea?
A: Living in America my whole life, especially in Southern California, I thought everyone around me would have the same mindset. I thought everyone would be open minded and nonjudgmental, but my parents proved m:e wrong. My parents immigrated from the Philippines in the 1990s to live a better life. Despite being here for years, having a family and raising three children, my parents still held onto the mindset they grew up with in the Philippines. Many of their believes were still shown through their parenting when I was growing up and I had to realize that my American way of thinking was completely different from theirs making it harder to communicate.
Q: What did you hope to communicate?
A: In my pictures, I hoped to communicate how much my parents held onto their believes even though they’ve been living in the American culture for years. My parents have traveled around the world as well, exposing themselves to different cultures and different ways of living. I soon realize that the most prominent Filipino trait they still hold to this day is their stubbornness. This trait is a good and bad thing to have. When I talk to my parents, their is no way to persuade them, because that trait they posses is stronger than their trait of understanding.
Q: How successful do you think you were?
A: I don’t believe I was successful because the pictures I took were just still pictures of things in my house. If a person were to look at this, they wouldn’t know what to think.
Q: What would you do different if you did it again?
A: I would take pictures of them in front of the things they strongly believe in that grew from their Filipino culture. And along with that I would take a picture of things that I strongly believe in that grew from my American culture. These pictures would show the comparison between my mind growing up in American and their mind growing up in the Philippines and living in America.
Q: What is another idea you might explore through “shocking art”?
A: Another idea I might explore is the revelation between corruption of the governments in third-world countries.
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