HUMANS OF KAPATIRANG PILIPINO
CONTEXT:
Humans of Kapatirang Pilipino or affectionally called Humans of KP, is a side project I launched in January 2017. Being the Ourstorian of Kapatirang Pilipino* at the time, I thought it would be interesting to interview members of Kapatirang Pilipino, considering that it’s the biggest Asian-Pacific Islander organization at UC Santa Barbara.
This photography project is based off of Humans of New York, created by Brandon Stanton. In this bi-weekly column, I asked current members and alumni to talk about their experiences within the organization, how their Filipinx identity shaped their experience, and how college was like for them. What I really enjoyed is that I got to talk to members that are very involved in the organization and other members who are currently doing their own thing outside of Kapatirang Pilipino. Since there were so many people who were involved or are currently involved in Kapatirang Pilipino, there were many stories to be told. When I left my position in June, I wondered what would happen to Humans of KP after my term.
The most interesting part of completing this project is that there were other Ourstorians after me who wanted to take on this project and put their spin on it during their term. I do photography, so that’s why I wanted to take portraits of the people I interview after I get a chance to talk to them one-on-one. The following year, the Ourstorian made Humans of KP as an informal video interview. This school year, the current Ourstorian has managed to tell the stories about current Kapatirang Pilipino members while the pandemic is still happening.
In the creation of this project, I never once thought about it from a social media standpoint (i.e. engagement, likes, etc) until now. I have the screenshots down below if you’re curious of the project’s success from a statistical standpoint. Kapatirang Pilipino has its own Facebook group so that’s where my posts went after I published on the KP website*. I made this project a reality because I wanted to do something other than what my current position duties were. Of course, it’s important for me to take photos at Kapatirang Pilipino events, but I wanted to expand on the history part. I’m glad that I was able to bring this idea to life and that this project would have a life of its own after my term ended.
HUMANS OF KP ARTICLES:
Note: (After Summer of 2017, Kapatirang Pilipino has changed and revamped their website and can be found atkpucsb.com. The old site is now unavailable, however I do have PDFs of the articles I did publish on the site/private FB group page.
