“1st Requirement: My Essay on Zamboangueño Culture”

Zamboangueño is my culture, we are natives of the city of Zamboanga since the

colonization of the Spaniards, the language we spoke are mostly Chavacano, which is compose
of Spanish language and a mix of native language in the Zamboanga, as a child I have always do
play outside of our home, and play with my friends which is mostly speaking in Chavacano, it’s
also the same in the home, my family don’t speak Tagalog or English at home, that’s why when I
did go to school, I only know a little of Tagalog words and I often do speak in Chavacano.
Zamboanga City is where I am born and I am proud to be a Zamboangueño, even though where
will my journey in life bring me.

As a native Zamboangueño, my religion is Roman Catholic, which is the majority of the

Catholic here in Zamboanga, my family is not that religious I say, but we do have a dedicated
altar at home and we do pray at church sometimes and not every Sunday in the miraculous Fort
Pilar Shrine, we do visit it when there are special events happening in the life of each family,
such as birthdays, graduation, or simply if we want to thank our God almighty to the life he
given to us, the achievements we achieve through his help, and for the times he help us even in
our downs in life. As a Roman Catholic we celebrate Christmas and Holy week, which in the
night before Christmas we do have our Noche Buena, in which we do eat in the midnight before
Christmas, to celebrate the day of the born of Jesus Christ, the son of the father. In holy week in
the other hand, we do repent our sins and do fasting, by not eating meat in any form as a shown
of our faith to our Lord. As a kid, I have experienced being an Altar boy for 2 years in my
elementary years, even though I am not that religious, I have served my God even for a short
time and I am proud about it.

My family doesn’t really take care of politics that seriously, because it is always like that,
even though anyone wins the election, it is always the same, and we just go with the flow and
follow the majority of people on who will be the right leader of the country and our city. We
don’t have any member in family the run in the politics, but we do have our neighbor before and
a friend of my uncle which we fully support him.

In the economy aspect for our family, we are mostly composing of breadwinners, we do
have a total of 6 family members who are working and living abroad which do help our family
here in the Philippines, my mother is one of them, she already a citizen in the city of Berlin,
Germany, which do help us a lot when in comes to the economy aspect of the family, which also
help me to go to school and made me currently what I am, which is a student nurse. My mother
chose to go the abroad even though I was still a kid, because the salary abroad is high compare
on what we get here in our country, and I didn’t regret or get mad at her by leaving me here in
the Philippines with my grandmother, Instead I am proud on what she did despite of being a
single mother and she manage to made me who am I right now, without my father support. We
also do have some family members which help us from the United States of America, and they
are there since I was not born and already do have their own family, despite of those, they still do
help us by sending us money monthly for our monthly expenses and such. We also have 2 family
members working in the Middle east, which are my aunt and uncle, they just recently work there
and already did help us a lot. Here in the Philippines, we don’t have anyone who is working or
doing some economical aspect, because all of our family members when they got a work,
decides to go to abroad and work there.

For the social aspect in our culture and family, we are very sociable, because all of us
here in our neighborhood are acting as one, if someone who really needs of help, we as a
neighbor do help each other, we do have a good relationship even some of our neighbors are not
in the same culture. In my culture, we are very sociable and living the life to the fullest, we do
made friends everywhere we go and I go, because that is the environment I grew up and will
always bring this kind of social aspect wherever I go.

Culture is a part of me, it cannot be removed or change that easily, I am proud on what
culture I have and what my culture is, I live with it and will die having the mindset on what my
culture is. As Zamboangueño, we do respect other cultures also, here in Zamboanga there are a
lot of culture and I do have a lot of friends with different culture and manage to learn some of
them too, and same as my friends. Culture is not a barrier which will set aside from someone to
befriend someone, culture is the way you live and not decide on who you’ll be friends with.