Around early 2016, Pinoy fans birthed ‘HAMILTON!!!! – A Pinoy Fan Group’, a group filled with Hamilton: An American Musical enthusiasts. The Broadway musical sung-and-rapped through the life of American Founding Father Alexander Hamilton, with music, lyrics and book by Lin-Manuel Miranda, inspired by the 2004 biography Alexander Hamilton by historian Ron Chernow.
It wasn’t until election season started that the once modest group started to boom with, #Ham4Halalan, a combination of the musical that took the world by storm and a Tagalog word that translates to ‘election”. The hashtag was used on Twitter to share humorous text and images based on the musical in order to raise awareness and shed some light on the state of politics in the Philippines. Filipino fans feel in tune with Lin-Manuel Miranda, as a Hispanic creator
“I think Hamilton getting big when it did wasn’t just a good thing for America. It also helped stoke our own feelings of pride in our country, because Lin’s words and lyrics emphasize the parts of America – which we can’t forget, has also been a colonizer and oppressor of not only our ancestors, but the ancestors of most members of the cast of Hamilton – that made it a great nation. And since we found those seeds of commonality, it’s only grown. Two of the three West End Schuyler Sisters are Pinoy. Just this year, the first Fil-Am actor to play Alexander Hamilton, Marc Dela Cruz, took the stage,” active community member, Paolo Perez, shared.
“I’m a balikbayan myself, and honestly, Hamilton helped me overcome this diaspora of not knowing whether I was American or Filipino that I’d been feeling for years. Lin-Manuel Miranda and Hamilton taught me it was okay to be both.” He continued after explaining the reason why the Filippino fanbase with him as symbiotic.
When Lin-Manuel Miranda himself posted about it that the community spread like wildfire. As it grew, they decided to hold an event dedicated to the musical and called it Jamilton – made for and by fans to sing along and perform their own rendition of sings from the hit musical. The events were held all over Manila. Six months later, they decided to bring the event over to Cebu. The first Jamilton was on November 18, 2017 at Handuraw Pizza Mango Square.
This was organized by CatScratch Club alongside some of the Jamilton PH founders as the culmination for the day-long celebration of Filipino Reader Con (FilReaderCon). Unlike the first, the second and most recent event was spearheaded by Liana Smith Bautista, a fellow fan whose family ran Handuraw, down to every aspect of the planning and execution as no one but she was available. She even went as far as paying for other expenses out of pocket.
Bautista handled the on-the-ground arrangements, which includes booking the venue and arranging for the equipment (projector, screen, sound system) as well as helping with the event promotion. DJ Choi, who had been at the previous Jamilton, was recruited to host the show on on March 16, 2019 at Handuraw Pizza White Gold.
Attendees are encouraged to reserve the parts they wish to sing by calling dibs when the signup sheets are posted. Roles that are left unclaimed will go to whomever wants them first before and during the start of the event. No entrance fee required, but encourage to support the establishment by ordering food and drinks. Seats are limited as Handuraw has a first come first serve policy.
An event that can tie strangers together to sing about something they are passionate about. The event itself was filled with camaraderie. A sense of belongingness is made as the night goes on. The occasion, like its previous success, was similar in concept, always bringing something new and fresh to the table.