My kids are little racists. Well, maybe that’s a harsh exaggeration. They definitely don’t discriminate against people who are not like them, which is good. But they’re also not down with the brown, which is sad because they are, in fact, brown. I really thought they would identify with their Filipino side because I’m always around them (“Mom’s brown and she’s so cool”…by the way, that is not a quote from them, that’s straight from my own mouth), but they really enjoy their Caucasian side. I tell them they are Filipino Americans. I don’t even bother telling them they are “half” Filipino and “half” white because I don’t want them to feel like they should only identify a little bit with the Filipino culture. I want them all in. But it seems to be requiring more work than I thought it would.
When I was growing up, I don’t remember my parents sitting me down and explaining to me that we were Filipinos. I just knew. Maybe I knew we had different cultural backgrounds than others because we took trips to the Philippines every few years growing up to visit family. Or maybe it was because my parents spoke Tagalog to me, while other parents (like The Keatons, The Huxtables, and the Drummonds) spoke English to their kids. I remember watching tv and wanting so badly to eat mashed potatoes for dinner because they looked so amazing, only to find a plate of white rice at every dinner at our house. I remember going to church every Sunday and being the only kids that “mano’d” their parents after mass to get their blessing. Nothing had to be spoken, we just knew from our regular practices that this is what Filipinos do, and that we needed to keep doing them and fit in at the same time.
I figured since it worked for me, I’d do the same for my kids. Rice at almost every dinner and making Filipino dishes, check. Mano after mass, check. Making the kids call my parents Lola and Lolo, almost every aunt and uncle Tita and Tito, and their older cousins Ate and Kuya, check. Still didn’t work. They didn’t seem to be connecting with being Filipino or even understanding what being Filipino American meant. How do I know? Well, here are a few examples.
When Reese was around 4 years old, I told her we needed to go to the Filipino store to buy some food for a party. As we were driving to the store, she asked, “What’s a Filipino?” I about broke my neck looking in the back seat because I was shocked she didn’t know what a Filipino was. I said, “A Filipino is a person from a country called The Philippines. Lolo and Lola were born in The Philippines, so they are Filipinos. They are my parents, so that makes me Filipino. I am your mom, so that makes you and Evan Filipinos. Does that make sense?” She nodded and became quiet. 2 minutes later, after much deliberation, she asked, “So how many Filipinos are we buying at the Filipino store?” Great, so now I had to explain what slavery was and how we don’t buy people. I thought I did a decent job explaining how she was Filipino, so I didn’t go into it any further, and she never asked anymore questions.
A year later when Reese was 5, I recall putting thick Eucerin lotion on her after a shower, and she said, “I like when you put this lotion on me because I get to be white like Daddy.” Holy balls, did I lose my shit. I didn’t yell at her or anything. I even considered that perhaps she said that because she is such a Daddy’s girl that she wanted to just be more and more like Jamie. But deep inside, I couldn’t help but feel shocked and hurt. I took the bait and asked her why she wanted white skin like Daddy’s, and she said, “It just looks nicer. The kids in my class have skin like Daddy’s.” I said, “Well, I have dark skin. Don’t you like my skin?” And she said no. Okay then, thanks for your honesty. I told her it doesn’t matter if people look different, like me and Daddy look different; what is important is that you treat everyone with kindness. I didn’t know what else to say at the time, and I thought maybe it would be better if both Jamie and I were having this talk with her together. But life happens, and the topic got flipped to the back burner. And perhaps we left it back there for too long.
Recently (3 years now since the lotion incident), Reese told me that she gets confused about who Tita Dimple, Tita Abby, Tita Lincy, and Tita Tina are. When I asked why, she said, “I can’t tell who is who because they’re all brown!” What the hell? They look nothing alike, some are Filipino and some are Indian, and it sounded so damn racist that my mind was blown. I reminded myself that she had no mean intention behind her comment, and maybe she just needed some clarification as to who was who because we usually hang out together in a group. But still, comments like these to the wrong person at the wrong time could be really hurtful.
Now that Evan is 5, surprise surprise, he is making similar statements. Just the other day, as he was putting his hair in a mohawk and admiring himself in the mirror, he said to me, “I wish I had the same color hair and skin as Daddy and my friend Jack. I don’t want to be tan anymore.” In my infinite wisdom, I said, “Too bad.” Seriously though, why don’t they ever make these comments to Jamie? Do they have to tell the brown parent that they’d rather be white? It’s so annoying! I thought to myself, I can’t just leave this conversation at “too bad.” What other great wisdom bombs can I throw at him? So I continued on with, “You are a perfect mix of Daddy and me, so you are lucky. You are Filipino American and you should be proud of that.” “Ok” is all I got back from him. I’m not sure what I was expecting him to say after that. I certainly wasn’t expecting him to bust out the lyrics to the Philippine National Anthem or anything like that (although that would have been hilarious). I was just hoping that he’d hold on to the message that he was Filipino American.
Perhaps there was something in the air because a few days later my friend shared a funny story with me. She and her kids are Filipinos, and her son was asking what his friend was. He was confused because his friend was lighter-skinned than he was but still Filipino. My friend explained to him that one of his friend’s parents was Filipino and the other was white. It wasn’t clicking for him. So she said, “It’s just like Reese and Evan. Tita Ely is Filipino and Uncle Jamie is white.” He looked shocked and said, “Wait a minute…Uncle Jamie is white???” After a good 5 minutes of straight tearful laughter, I saw the beauty in that statement. My friend’s kid could not see that Jamie was any different than him, despite an obvious skin color difference, because Jamie has embraced the Filipino culture so well. Truthfully, I don’t even know what that really means, or if Jamie really did anything in particular, but I know that other than Filipinos feel pretty comfortable being themselves around him. If they were to mix their F’s and P’s or he’s and she’s, he wouldn’t bat an eye. If they felt so inclined to eat with their hands instead of utensils, he’d get it. If someone called him Kuya or Tito, he’d be all good with it. But he wouldn’t suck on a fish eye or eat bagoong, he had to draw the line somewhere. I was hopeful that if Jamie could be down with the brown after all his years of exposure and being open to the culture, so could my kids.
With all these different examples hitting me at once, it seems like this could be a good time to give the kids a deeper explanation of cultural diversity. But it is a complex concept for a kid, and a difficult subject to navigate through as a parent. Sometimes I wish I could just sit them in front of the tv and make them watch “Fresh Off the Boat” and tell them that life is like that, except substitute Filipino for Chinese. Then I could throw in a few Jo Koy references, and then they’d be set. But alas, it’s not that simple. I need to explain to them the concept of openness and acceptance. They will never accept others’ difference if they can’t even accept their own. But where do I start? Google tells me to maybe start with talking with their grandparents because they can share first-hand stories about growing up in The Philippines, along with traditions, food, and games they played as kids. And then perhaps at the end of their conversation, my kids could convince my parents to take us all to The Philippines someday (please and thank you).
But is that enough? My guess is no. I think consistent exposure is key. They know what Filipino food is, and thankfully I haven’t messed it up too much to turn them off to it. I don’t speak Tagalog, so they don’t really know the language. But Jamie and I do use a few Tagalog words, mostly private body parts, which the kids have now taught their friends. So that’s my great contribution to society. Jamie and I could also start speaking in a Filipino accent, which often happens anyway when we’re drunk. But someday, we are all going to Rosetta Stone the fuck out of Tagalog, and when I ask you in Tagalog to please pass me the cat fries because I feel hot in my elbow, just smile and nod and be proud that we’re trying.
I can list more things that we can start working on with my kids (because Google gave me a list of at least 7 things), but I think the point is I want this to be a priority in our family. Knowing that I was Filipino played a large role in forming my identity, especially in high school and college, and it would be nice if the kids had that opportunity too. The sad reality is that someday they will also probably experience racism and discrimination, either towards them or their friends, and I want them to be able to stand firm their ground, know who they are and where they came from, and stop hatred in its tracks.
With my children being biracial, the physical differences between them and their peers are much more subtle than what I experienced growing up. I feel like it is easier for them to blend in with the majority, so I feel an even stronger pull towards teaching them about being Filipino American, in fear that the culture will be lost in our family after a few generations. And I could understand that as a kid, you don’t want to stick out and look or be different. But if only they knew how great it is to be unique, to look different and have special traditions that they could teach their friends about, to have family on the other side of the world that speak a different language but enjoy Game of Thrones like the rest of humanity, to have the power to check the “other” box on the U.S. Census, to say they are Filipino Americans and know what that means. It will be an on-going conversation about our culture in this house. Time to bust out my coconut bra and Tinikling sticks, it’s about to get Filipino up in here!
The Mundame 