After finding there was no active group for Filipino students, four students have taken the responsibility of starting Philippine Americans Creating Kapamilya, or PACK.
The last organization at NC State for Filipino students was a club called Barkada, meaning “group of friends.” It was not an official organization, and eventually fizzled it out.
This semester, Tim Villar, a sophomore studying sustainable materials and technology, and three other Filipino students decided to try to resurrect the organization but then chose to create a new organization entirely with a fresh identity, a sense of structure and most importantly, the goal of Kapamilya.
Kapamilya is a Filipino term for “family.” In Filipino culture, family is a priority and extends further than just blood relatives. For instance, friends of the family are often referred to as “tito” and “tita,” which roughly translates to “uncle” and “aunt” in English. This is one of the ways to show love and respect for friends and elders as well as build a network of familial ties.
The strong emphasis on family and cultural pride among the Filipino community is what PACK is striving for with its members in the near future.
“There’s no place for Filipinos to congregate and call a place home, so I’m hoping that’s what PACK can serve as,” said Villar, president of PACK.
It has been a slow start for PACK, but they are getting support from other Asian-based organizations on campus like the Asian Student Association and Pi Alpha Phi, NC State’s fraternity for Asian-American men.
“We want to promote the continuous Asian-American community on NC State’s campus,” Villar said. “We want to keep good ties with the other organizations and not act as a competitor but as a peer.”
One of the main focuses of the organization is to embrace the Filipino-American identity, which fuses the two worlds together to create a subtle yet significant cultural phenomenon.
“It’s really cool that as Filipino-Americans we have such a distinct culture,” Villar said. “We all grew up watching ‘SpongeBob’ and ‘Kim Possible,’ but we also grew up eating spam and eggs and hotdogs for breakfast with rice.”
Villar emphasizes that food is another important aspect of Filipino culture.
“If I ever had friends come to my house and they didn’t eat what my mom served, my mom would never like them,” said Chelsea Abad, a freshman studying electrical engineering.
The executive board of PACK intends to incorporate Filipino cuisine into their general body meetings. They will also be teaching Filipino history, a topic that Villar believes is crucial to having a Filipino background.
“The Philippines is basically a footnote in American history textbooks,” Villar said. “People don’t know the struggle that Filipinos went through to gain independence from Spain and America. It’s an untold story.”
In addition to history, PACK wants to teach its members the basics of the Filipino language Tagalog.
“Language is so infused with the culture,” Abad said. “I wish I knew how to speak Tagalog. It makes me sad to think that if I have a kid later on, I can’t even teach them that language.”
By learning common phrases like greetings and everyday vocabulary at each meeting, they hope to strengthen their community.
PACK has plans for events, fundraisers and regular meetings, but for now, it uses a Facebook page to connect. Members and anyone interested in Filipino culture can post and become a part of Kapamilya.
“The great thing about a university is that you can share your knowledge,” Villar said. “I have so much pride in being Filipino, and I want other Filipinos to know why they should be proud too.”
