too filipino for america, too american for filipinos
pikachu, the kid on his filipino-american experience
During the past week, I came across a street interview posted by One Down Media on Instagram that asked Filipinos on the streets of Metro Manila a very controversial question:
"Are Filipino Americans real Filipinos?"
It's a question that can prove to be very, very controversial depending on who you ask. There are many itching at the opportunity to snatch our theoretical "Filipino card" away from us, but at the same time there are those who keep it short and sweet in defending our so-called "Filipinoness."
There is no doubt in my mind that I am a Filipino through and through. I am Filipino-American. I was born in New Jersey to Filipino parents and raised by my parents with a sensibility and mindset I find uniquely "Filipino-American."
Although I call New Jersey home, and although my Tagalog sounds like I have a speech impediment, and think Shakey's makes absolute dogshit pizza and I do not do X, Y, Z chasing my tail doing the "Filipino thing," my blood is as red as all the Filipinos with hypertension.
Our teachers have always told us that America is this place is a land of opportunity, where people from all over the world come in search of this so-called American dream, but when the same kind of people always talk about being American, it always goes back to how much you can talk, walk and act like a white guy.
Based off of my experiences, assimilating into so-called "American culture" and learning the ways of “being American” is not a meaningful exchange of culture, but a ways to survive without getting hurt physically or emotionally.
I was racially abused during my schooling. I was never called a racial slur directed, pinpointed at specifically Filipinos, but just because I was called chink, gook, the N-word and was told by a white classmate that his "daddy would be proud if he beat someone like me" did not mean it did not fucking hurt.
I still feel hollowed by that experience because even to this day and all the nuanced talk we have about how other people in this country face racism, the people closest to me never really understood how much it hurt; deflecting to that I was never called a racial slur pinpointed at specifically Filipinos.
Just because someone called me the N-word or a chink or a gook, the fact that I am not Black, Chinese, or Korean does not matter, the person that said it intends malice.
There were other Filipino kids at school, but um, uh.
Dr. Lisa Mundy of the University of Melbourne said in a 2019 report that the ransition to secondary school (what the British and Australians call middle school) is " a time of life when relationships with peers change and become much more important" and that "the opportunities for prevention [of mental health problems] and mental health promotion may be greater during the middle years than at any other point in life."
What I believe what really messed me up emotionally was the fact that in middle school, the other Filipino kids at school did not associate with me. Mind you, these were kids who were, at the surface "just like me;" kids who were also born in America to Filipino parents and whose moms knew my mom.
These kids called me whitewashed and shunned me because I associated with the white kids.
I was in special ed - the only Asian in special ed. I had no other choice. The good old, trusty American education system put me there.
I used to wonder how my life would be different if I were not Filipino, If I were not Asian. I do not explicitly or vividly remember, but I would not be surprised if I ever asked God, or prayed that he’d make me white to make the pain go away.
The thing is, I feel that this syndrome revolves around every immigrant group. For example, in season one, episode 10 of The Sopranos, Tony Soprano told his therapist Dr. Melfi that he didn’t like to associate with Italian-Americans like his neighbor Bruce Cusamano, because he is a “merigan”, someone that “eats his Sunday gravy out of a jar.”
Although it is bold for me to say this as a young person, but when I look back at my life's experience and everything around it, all the anecdotes and all the perspectives of everyone involved - even the people that have hurt me, should be taken as a set of lessons in an ever-evolving learning experience.
For both Filipinos and Filipino-Americans, whether you claim to be "cultured" or not, you cannot deny the fact that people are of the background that they are. Being Filipino as a whole is not just one idea or story; mine is part of a web that consists of a rich history that stretches multiple generations.
Every Filipino's story is different. Every Filipino's story is unique and nuanced.
Anyone, Filipino or not, has a personal history that is rich and full of unique ingredients that is stacked together like a layer cake. All of one's personal histories interacting with each other create culture, and different aspects of culture creates a diaspora and that's why I reserve the right to call myself whatever I wish.
Practicing the act of erasure is the act of gagging the messenger.
Happy Filipino American History Month. Ingat.
“It is but fair to say that America is not a land of one race or one class of men. We are all Americans that have toiled and suffered and known oppression and defeat, from the first Indian that offered peace in Manhattan to the last Filipino pea pickers.” - Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart (1946)