My capstone idea revolves around my experience of choosing to assimilate my culture when I was younger. Being one of the few persons of colour in my town, I felt like compared to everyone around me, to fit in, I had to cut ties with my Filipino culture. This was a result of people pointing out my differences, people pointing out that some aspects of my culture were weird, and overall personal experiences that made me feel inferior for being Filipino.

For my capstone project I have chosen to study of social identity/comparison, cultural hybridity, and cultural assimilation. All of these are things that I have personally experienced. Throughout my research I compared these areas of study to my personal experiences and described and showcased these experiences and learnings through my illustrations, graphic work, animations, etc.

All three areas of study that I have chosen to research are all very important to my research question but also to everyone who has ever felt like they do not belong to society because they are slightly different. All these theories that I have researched are extremely relevant because I would like second-generation immigrants to feel like they do not need to take the extreme path of assimilating their culture like I have. There needs to be more talk about how second-generation immigrants are not alone when they feel this way—it is something that most second-generation immigrant go through, and because it’s not voiced enough, second-generation immigrants feel inferior, and I hope my research and art helps change that.