The Filipino American (Fil-Am for short) community is the second largest Asian American group in the United States and the largest Southeast Asian American group.
Filipino Americans trace their ancestry back to the Philippines, an archipelagic nation in Southeast Asia that is south of Taiwan and east of the South China Sea.[2]
The 2000 U.S. Census counted 2.4 million Americans who identified as Filipino. This makes the Filipino American community account for about 22% of the Asian American population. The State Department claims that there are an estimated of 4 million Filipinos in the United States as of 2007.[USA] [3]
Filipino Americans are the largest subgroup of the Overseas Filipinos. More than half of the community are either naturalized or American-born, while the remainder are Filipino nationals or dual citizens of both the Philippines and the United States.
Most Filipino Americans reside in states such as California, Nevada, Hawaiʻi, Washington, Guam and in metropolitan areas of San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago and New York City. States such as Florida, Maryland, Virginia, Texas, Alaska, and New Jersey are seeing growth in Filipino populations.
Congress has established the Asian Pacific American Heritage Month in May to commemorate Filipino American and Asian American culture in the United States. Upon becoming the largest Asian American group in California, Filipino American History Month was established in October. This is to acknowledge the first landing of Filipinos on October 18, 1587 in Morro Bay, California and is widely celebrated by Fil-Ams in the United States.
Dual citizenship
As a result of the passage of Philippines Republic Act No. 9225, also known as the Citizenship Retention and Re-Acquisition Act of 2003, Filipino Americans are eligible for dual citizenship in both the United States and the Philippines. Overseas suffrage was first employed in the May 2004 elections in which Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo was reelected to a second term.
In 2004, about 6,000 people became dual citizens of the Philippines and the United States. This act encourages many Filipino Americans to invest in the Philippines, buy land (only Filipino citizens are allowed to purchase land in the Philippines and the children of Filipino born Filipinos), vote in Philippine elections, retire in the Philippines, and participate in representing the Philippine flag.
Many dual citizens have been recruited to participate in international sports events such as the Olympic Games in Athens 2004, the 23rd Southeast Asian Games in Manila, the 15th Asian Games in 2006 and the upcoming Olympic Games in Beijing 2008.
In addition, the Philippine government actively encourages Filipino Americans to visit or return permanently to the Philippines via the "Balikbayan" program and to invest in the country. Philippine consulates facilitate this process in various areas of the United States. These are located in Chicago; Guam; Honolulu; Los Angeles; New York; Saipan; and San Francisco while honorary consulates are also available in Atlanta, Fort Lauderdale, Houston, Majuro, Miami and New Orleans.
. Your blood level is getting higher, watch out you might get stroke dude....