Carlyle Nuera Pieces Together a Personal Project with the Literal Fabric of His Filipino Roots

This is “U.S.ako,” a flag in the formation of the American flag, but in the colors of the Pride flag and made with Filipino materials. It’s a visual allegory of being Filipino and American and queer all at the same time. Of being the child of immigrants trying to fit into spaces that were not made for you. Of not feeling like one particular flag represents you. 

“Ako” of course means “me” or “I.” When I think about my own history, about how my family ended up building our lives here in the U.S., it all goes back to my grandpa Tate, my mom’s dad. He was half-Filipino, half-white, and had U.S. citizenship through his American dad. It was through my grandpa’s U.S. citizenship that my mom and her siblings immigrated to the U.S. at different times. That’s how it came to be that my older siblings were born in the Philippines and I was born here in the U.S. My mom used to joke that because I was U.S.-born I could be president, but I went to art school and became a Barbie designer at Mattel instead. 

My grandpa Tate passed away in October 2013; the old white t-shirt on the flag is one of his that he used to always wear at home. He was part of my entire family’s immigration, so he’s part of this flag’s narrative and physicality. The stars are made of capiz shells, a material common in Philippine home décor, like parols at Christmastime. In my head I was hoping they’d be perfect stars, but they broke and cracked and were difficult to cut. They weren’t meant to be cut into stars, the way we weren’t always meant to fit into strict rules of what an “American” is. The stripes are made of different fabrics from different regions in the Philippines: Binakol from the Ilokanos and Itneg communities of Ilocos and the Cordillera region; Hablon from the Argao people in Cebu province; Abaca Pinangabol from the Daraghuyan community from Bukidnon; and Tiniro from Mang Abel Ti Abra in Abra, Ilocos Norte.

Nuera is a Lead Designer at Barbie Signature, having worked at Mattel for over 11 years. He has designed the Holiday Barbie three times, in 2017, 2018 and 2021, and also designed the A Wrinkle in Time and Mary Poppins Returns Barbie collections, among other movie tie-ins. The Filipina Mutya Barbie he designed as part of the Global Glamour Collection was inspired by his mother, and the Naomi Osaka Barbie, which he designed as part of the Role Model series, sold out within hours of its  launch. In 2019 Nuera was awarded the Global Pinoy Award for Design by One Mega Group, a Filipino content publishing company. You can follow Neura on Instagram, @carlylenuera.