Mentor Log #7

On April 30, I attended South City's very first Sala Talk within the Filipino American Club. It was really cool to see this get started here at SSFHS. I also got to see my mentor facilitating a whole Sala Talk for the first time. Since this was the very first session, it was a very general themed talk. It mostly centered on what it means to be a Filipino American in SSF. The facilitators, Joseph Balabis & John Yap, also provided participants with some knowledge of Filipino history. In fact, I did not know that Filipinos have been here in the US for hundreds of years. That was a shocking fact. As the Sala Talk went on, John would read a statement and everybody would indicate if they strongly agreed, agreed, disagreed or strongly disagreed by going to a corner of the room. A lot of these statements revolved around how Filipinos in general viewed things or how we personally felt about these same things such as college, education, culture, etc. This activity led to a lot of discussion and reflection on what it really means to be Filipino American in today's society. There was even a little discussion on how dealing with being a Filipino is different based on your location. I'm lucky enough to have been born and raised in a city that is so diverse that race isn't as big of an issue compared to other places. Then the Sala Talk ended by making a tree out of post-its. The leaves of the tree were comprised of what people wanted for their Filipino community. The roots were an idea of how to make that wish happen. The most common wish was unity, which I think is probably the ideal for any community. Communities are supposed to promote bonding and togetherness and I believe that they should definitely strive to be unified. All in all, I had a great time at this Sala Talk because I also got to have a frank discussion with my actual peers and not some strangers I had just met. This Sala Talk also got me to think about my heritage and how that affects my daily life.

INDIVIDUAL HOURS TOTAL: 2.5 hours
RUNNING HOURS TOTAL: 22.5 hours