Talk:Flip (slang)

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[edit] Alex Fabros & Flip

Below is a letter from Alex S. Fabros, Jr. (an editor at Filipins Magazine) from a usenet newsgroup. His father was Alex Fabros, Sr. He died in 1999 at the age of 96. He immigrated here in the US in 1929. Anyway, he wrote the following in response to someone who was claiming that Flip & even Pinoy are offensive and racist. --Chris S. 17:12, 16 September 2005 (UTC)

From: "Alex S. Fabros"

Date: 1998/03/01

Subject: Elitist Media Breakfast Club

The Media Breakfast Club and its members seem to think that they are the ones to make all of us stray Pinoys here in the states conform to some sort of politically correct form of greeting each other besides the use of PINOY or FLIP.

Let's begin by abolishing FLIP phones.

Stop FLIPping coins.

No more FLIP flops.

So they're saying that an old Manong, who busted his ass here in the states back in the dark days of blatant racial discrimination, is ignorant when he uses the term FLIP? What the hell were their ancestors doing back in P.I? Were they waiting on their colonial masters, kissing ass, and enjoying being called a "Little Brown Brother"?

FLIP, whether it's used by Pinoys to greet each other or by those who dislike us, is a term of pride for four generations of Filipino Americans who had the guts to stand up against a racist America.

Tens of thousands of Filipinos left the land of "Little Brown Brothers" to come to America to seek a better life for themselves. Many of the men that I have interviewed over the years mentioned another factor for their living their homeland. They wanted to get away from the likes of elitist such as the members of the Media Breakfast Club who tended to look down on poor, ignorant farm workers.

Here in America, those FLIPS, as they came to call each other, paved the way through the years by fighting for the civil rights of Filipinos here in America.

Pablo Manlapit who let the FLIP labor movement in Hawaii in the 1910s and '20s, was instrumental in instilling FLIP pride in his fellow exiles in Los Angeles. In fact, he went to court to fight for the right of FLIPS to marry

whomever they loved.

Carlos P. Romulo, a much better journalist then those clowns in the Media Breakfast Club, called Carlos Bulosan and Johnnie Dionisio FLIPS.

When Osmena visited the Filipino Americans of the 1st and 2nd Filipino Infantry Regiments and the 1st Reconnaissance Battalion in California in 1942, he called them the only free FLIPS left in the world.

We used the term in the 1960's when we stood up against the racist University of California and California State University administrations.

We called each other FLIP when we went to Sacramento to lobby for changes in the law that prevented FLIP doctors from practicing medicine in California.

We called each other FLIP when we went to court to change the laws so that we could break out of the ghettos and buy homes in the better parts of town.

We called each other FLIP when we went on strike in Delano for a living wage. And we dodged bullets when the white boys tried to kill "them fuckin' FLIPS."

Phil Polido was the FLIP who opened the doors for minorities at the racist University of California at Davis medical school in the 1970s when he was admitted over a white applicant.

We are going to have two FLIP general officers in the U.S. Army very shortly. Ed Soriano is proud to be FLIP. Not only did he fight against racism and racial quotas at San Jose State University in the 1960's, he's been defending the rights of his fellow Filipinos to call each other FLIP.

So how do I know that these people used the term FLIP as method of greeting? I have video taped interviews with the survivors of that racist period of America who told me that being a FLIP was a symbol of pride and defiance. Men like P. C. Morante, who clarified the use of PINOY, spoke often of FLIPS in the U.S. Photographs are inscribed with the word FLIP. Old letters from that period use the term FLIP to address fellow PINOYS. The Filipino American newspapers use the term FLIP.

The Filipino American newspaper publishers from that period, Delfin F. Cruz, D. L. Marcuelo, George Aquino, Manuel Insigne, Victor Calderon and all those other great men had no problems greeting each other as FLIPS.

So Media Breakfast Club of Los Angeles, what have you done lately to advance FLIP pride?

ALEX S. FABROS, JR.