Hi everyone, it’s me Aaron!

As I prepare for the YSEALI Academic Fellows Program this year, I feel a strong sense of nostalgia. Soon I’ll be seeing the country I’ve always wanted to see!

When I was a kid and teen growing up in Manila, I was a big fan of lot of American media: Disney movies, pop music, Marvel movies, The Hunger Games books, classic literature, and Broadway musicals.

Back in the day, the word “America” brought to mind dollars, tractors, music videos and movies filmed in the countryside, cowboys, gumbo, and Southern accents!

Now that I’m going to the real place, America won’t be a fantasyland to me anymore.

It’s silly, but there’s a part of me that doesn’t want to go because I selfishly want to preserve the America I loved as a kid- and not overwrite them with real memories of the ol’ US of A. (This is of course overridden by my wanderlust and the fact I want to see a Western town like Carson City with my own eyes and attend a rodeo)

While I’m typing this out, the New York in my mind is the one Taylor Swift sings about in her album 1989.  When I hear the word “Montana,” no longer will I see the golden hayfields of “Hannah Montana: the movie,” but the actual state of Montana. When I watch football games in American films, I’ll have the actual memories: the sensations, the sounds, the crowds. It’s bittersweet.

As I’ve been assigned to the University of Nevada, Reno; I can’t wait to share my experiences here on this blog! We’ve got a mascot named Wolfy, and the admins Cidney and Jeremy are hyping us up for the fall football season and pumpkin spice lattes in the new Starbucks at the business building! I’m so excited.

A Shared Childhood

In 2023, I was talking to my American friend during theatre workshops, and it was such a surreal experience to have the same childhood nostalgia despite growing up halfway across the world. This is actually very common, as a lot of us grew up on Disney movies, Twilight, Taylor Swift, One Direction, and 2000s era games: Plants vs. Zombies, The Sims, Mario Kart, Sonic Adventure, and GTA.

We both had Sunday school and cried over Disney movies. We read Bible verses in class, and even reenacted the Hebrew slaves’ flight from Egypt in our musicale “The Great Escape,” which was adapted from “Are We There Yet?” (Pote, Long)

In high school, every time my friend Tiffany and I walked down the library, we would laugh at the copy of Gone With The Wind with its melodramatic cover and pose. I remember watching bootlegs of “Les Miserables” and “Wicked” after Glee Club rehearsals.

In church, we sang songs like Isaiah 40:29-31, and had training books from Anaheim. We were raised on the same conservative values. Of course we had Filipino childhoods. We spoke Tagalog, we ate sisig, lechon, we listened to OPM. But about half of it was American as well. 

To quote “Wicked,” You’ll be with me like a handprint on my heart.

Why do we feel this way?

A big reason why so many Filipino young adults and Gen Z share the same nostalgia for 2000s American media is the heavy cultural influence of the U.S. in the Philippines, especially through television, movies, and music.

Unlike most other countries that primarily consume their own local media, we’ve had widespread access to American pop culture for decades. Heck, the bags we brought to school had Zac Efron and Vanessa Hudgens on them – or Anna and Elsa from Frozen.

Whether it’s your dad playing some 80s and 90s hits in the car during a sound trip down Manila, your mom playing Taylor Swift videos on the family computer and wondering what you’ll be like as teenagers, to you and your friends singing along to “High School Musical” songs during a sleepover.

Here are the four main reasons we feel so nostalgic for a culture that is basically an ocean away:

1. American media dominance and Hollywood
   • We watched a lot of Disney Channel, Nickelodeon, and Cartoon Network as kids!
   • English-language pop music (like Taylor Swift’s) played a lot on our local radio stations, shaping what we grew up listening to.
   • Hollywood movies and Western artists are seen as aspirational, setting trends that Filipino youth admire and follow.
2. Parallel childhood experiences
   • A lot of Filipino Gen Z kids grew up watching the same Disney Channel and Nickelodeon shows as their American counterparts, so they have the same emotional attachment to Hannah Montana, Mean Girls, Twilight, etc. This shared media exposure creates a strong sense of collective nostalgia, even across different countries.
3. Social media amplification
   • TikTok, Twitter, and YouTube keep 2000s nostalgia alive, making trends and references resurface globally. Since Filipino Gen Z are among the most online-active demographics, they engage in the same nostalgic trends as American fans. (Like sharing Y2K playlists, re-watching old films and shows, making edits etc.)
   • One example is when Demi Lovato and the Jonas Brothers had a mini Camp Rock reunion, and so many Filipinos were in the comments section ❤ It was similar with the HSM and Descendants cast :”)
4. English proficiency and cultural alignment
   • The Philippines is one of the most English-proficient countries in Asia, making American media more accessible without language barriers.
   • Many Filipinos relate to the themes of American pop culture, especially coming-of-age stories like Mean Girls and Twilight. (For this reason, we Filipinos also love to buy into the American dream, success stories, and narratives about resilience)

The America I loved, and America today

This wide gulf in my mind reminds me that the America I loved, and the America now are virtually irreconcilable. Just like the Philippines then and now are completely different.

Now, when I hear the word “America,” it’s not just cowboys, hay fields, and pop stars I think about anymore. One scroll through the news, and it’s honestly a little frightening: issues about everything under the sun that would be too much to cover in an entire essay.

What happens in the U.S. reverberates around the world, and trends in technology, culture, and more will eventually reach all the way to my country the Philippines. (Sometimes, we even experience them at the same time – such as anxieties about artificial intelligence and social media!)

Before my flight, I received a lot of “stay safe” messages, which is sweet! Lots of people also said “You’re going now? But the current state of affairs in the country…” “Polarized” “The political climate-”

On this trip, I will choose to have an open mind! (and have a buddy system of course)

To quote one of the speakers at our Alumni Q&A, the news is not indicative of the people you will meet in that country.

So far, every American I’ve met – whether at the online orientations, the Fourth of July party in Makati a few months ago, or the US Army birthday at the Manila Elk’s Club – they’ve all been wonderful! I hope to bring the same kindness, light, and good conversation as I go there. After all, people-to-people relations are paramount in this program.

Conclusion

As my country is plagued by rampant corruption, it is our duty as citizens to do all we can to improve the lives of our countrymen – which is why it’s amazing that programs like the YSEALI AFP are helping raise Southeast Asian leaders!

I am so immensely grateful for the opportunity to see the real thing, but I will always miss the America I grew up with – and I think that’s a sentiment that Americans will relate to as well. 

Thank you for reading, and I can’t wait to embark on this journey! As we head towards the nation’s 250th birthday, all I can say is “God bless America.”