I am a fourth-year undergraduate pursuing a degree in Linguistics and Communicative Disorders (with a minor in Spanish) at Cal State Fullerton. I currently serve as the Assistant Lab Director at the CSUF Heritage Language Research Lab as we currently investigate linguistic politeness in Southern Californian Heritage Spanish speakers. I also conduct independent studies on Heritage Tagalog morphosyntax.

I grew up in Quezon City, Metro Manila and lived in the province of La Union during my pre-teen years. I then moved to the United States when I was 14. While I am a native Tagalog speaker, I feel like having English as the dominant language during my teenage years influenced my Tagalog heavily.

Although my legal name is Raphael, I embraced the name Paéng (pronounced puh-ENG; IPA: pɐˈʔɛŋ) as a way to hold on to my Filipino heritage in the United States while attending predominantly white high schools (I moved a lot 😅). I also use "Paéng" not only as a way to index my Filipino identity, but to also reflect my journey as an immigrant navigating life in the United States.

I include the pahilís (or accent mark) on the letter <e> as a way for non-Filipinos to pronounce my name more accurately when they read it. However, I do not know if it has been effective at all...