Learning Filipino

For many Filipinos who are part of the diaspora, our parents teach us English as a means of survival. Especially for Filipinos, where English is a second language and colonisation is deeply rooted in our history, our parents wanted us to learn English.

Learning Filipino is a personal comic about my journey with learning Tagalog, my parent’s native tongue. It tells the story of how growing up in both the UK and the Philippines influenced my skills in English and Tagalog, but also my identity crisis relating to what it means to be Filipino. So for me, it wasn’t just “Learning Tagalog”, but “Learning Filipino”.

The format of the comic is inspired by “ABAKADA” Books, which are educational children’s books designed to teach the Filipino alphabet. I then risograph printed the pages and bound them together to form a zine. 


Supported using public funding by Arts Council England