dante basco speaks up

read this write up from the real dante basco:

in the philippines…

laying up in bed at 2am, manila time. i just got home from the premeire of "take the lead," here in the p.i. & it’s all so surreal… so many things have been racing through my mind since i’ve been here for this press tour. and many more emotions have been racing through my heart & feelings through my soul. see, i’m filipino, but i’m born & raised in the states, people here call us "fil-am’s" (filipino-american). now coming home, especially as an adult & artist, i find myself overwhelmed with something so powerful, yet somewhat unexplainable. i mean, i’m here in this land, i can’t understand anything anyone’s saying and it feels sometimes as if i’m another planet yet the second i stepped out of the plane as walked through the thick moist air and felt the humidity hold me and took a breath of the air… i’m overwhelmed by this connection to this place… this island… the beuaty of the land and the people, the heat, the food, the traffic, the shanty towns filled with the meloncohly faces, the kids laughing and playing in the tyrantal showers, literally swimming in the flooded gutters… laughing and splashing… the mega malls filled with masses of people who look like me… a sea of black hair, a place where i’m not a minority, a place rich with history of turmoil & war, conquer & colonization which somehow made a race of truly mixed blood… this magical place… my homeland.

here i am, a son who’s come home… and the thing i see most in everyone’s eyes who look at me is pride. everyone is so proud of me here, that i’m in hollywood, working with big stars representing filipino’s… representing them. it’s weird because i’ve been an actor almost all my life and i do my work because i love it. i never did this with the mind of representing a whole coountry… i’m just a filipino kid from a blue collar town who was maybe a little bit of a ham and loved to perform and now here i am.

i don’t know what it all means yet. part of me feels this sense that somehow this place is going to complete me… & the thing is, i didn’t even know i wasn’t complete before i got here…

it sure feels good to be home…

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