Top 10 Things on Being Filipino

Welcome to Filipino Friday where everything celebrated is Filipino.

Being Pinay, a Filipino American womyn, is a secret treasure that not many people know much about.   Often, Pinays get thrown in under the Asian American umbrella, as if China, Thailand, Japan, the Philippines, Korea, Sri Laka, India, and other fine countries can be swiftly held together with one flimsy string.

Welcome to Filipino Friday.

Why I Love Being Pinay - the TOP TEN REASON WHY BEING A PINAY/FILIPINA ROCKS:

10.  My expandable stomach.  

You try eating rice everyday for three meals and see how wonderfully expansive your stomach can be.  Rice with breakfast food, rice for lunch, and of course, a hot steaming pot of rice with whatever is being served for dinner.

9.  Mixed Identity

Filipinos have a beautifully complex history.  The Spaniard colonization and American militarization have influenced the culture, but nothing takes away from the beauty of the Filipino culture that celebrates hospitality, fiestas, and laughter.  I see parts of my culture in the Latino community, the African American community, and in my White/Euro communities as well.

8.  Relax!

Filipinos are all about relaxing.  It may be the fact that our mothership is a collection of tropical islands.  It may be al the rice we eat.  It may be the fact we'd rather talk and eat than do anything else.  I struggle with punctuality, procrastination, and organization, but I'm getting better.  Hey, there's always tomorrow.  Or next Wednesday.

7.  Belly Up Laughter

If Filipinos ever get headaches, it's because we've been laughing too hard.  And I'm not talking about the hahaha jokes at the table.  I'm talking about cave-wide open mouths with a sound coming out you wonder if a laughing whale is stuck in our bellies.  Filipino laughter is the clap and hands grasped, gasping for air and then say it one more time kind of enjoyment that most people do not enjoy.  I'm often the last person laughing because it takes a while to fully enjoy the throttle and then relive it again in my mind.

6. Cousins You Never Had

I have never met half my family.  They live on the other side of the planet.  However, that doesn't mean that I don't think about them or pray about them and hope someday that I will greet them or be greeted in an embrace.  Extended family also includes random filipinos who I've never met.  My parents' friends, their children, and any filipino family who end up gnawing on a piece of lechon at the Filipino summer picnics are considered family.  That's the hospitable, loving family way, so that's the Filipino way.

5.  Language

English is my first language and the Tagalog I do know mixes with the Spanish with which I am more familiar.  The Philippines has several languages of the Islands and while I do not know all of them, it brings me great pride that my parents can speak so many different dialects.  As a Fil-Am, I also have the comfort that I can navigate through my ancestry with my first language - English.  At times, I do still feel my waves of rage that I am not fluent in Tagalog.  Teaching their children English so they can easily assimilate is a commonly heard priority among Filipino immigrants who have children in the US.  A sad testimony, I believe, in losing our native tongue.

4. Parties that NEVER End

I mean this in the best way.  Not only do weddings go well over the time and not only do parties last until the wee hours of the next day, but they NEVER end because we keep talking about them and reliving them in memory.  "Remember when Uncle Shall took off his shirt during the dance off?"  "Did you see Kat doing the tinikling?"

3. Hospitality and Warmth

It may be the natural spirit of the people or the breeze of love that seems to endlessly blow in Filipino windows, but Filipinos are generally an extremely generous and warm community. Sure there are issues of pretenses, class, and general over the top gossip, but overall, being Filipino means understanding the spirit of giving to others.

2.  Passion and Temper

Faster than a microwave or a rising summer sun, Filipinos are emotional folks.  Often times, we don't make a lot of sense because we're too busy laughing, eating, or talking.  And if you interrupt us - even if it's with a plan to solve global warming - we'll wonder what could be more important than a good conversation and quality time with a beloved.  There's great passion and devotion to relationships, love, friendship, and understanding.  Filipinos are deeply feeling people and while that is not always the greatest quality to have, especially when we're pissed off, it generally emanates a welcoming atmosphere and genuine pleasure to spend time - hours - together.

1. Family and Culture

There's God.  Then Family.  Then Everything Else.  If you can learn that, you've got a lot under your belt.  It's not just church, mass, and prayer.  "GOD" encapsulates rosaries, novenas, altars in your living room, prayer groups, night prayers, prayers before meals, and all the sacraments throughout your life.  Then there's Scripture readings, contemplating what the Gospel meant and then we have to think about how that plays into our lives.  Then we have to watch "The Passion of the Christ" and then call our brother in California to talk about what he thought of it.  It's all spiritual.  It's all about God.  Don't mess with salvation.  Don't forget the meals afterward either.  Then there's family.  Family is central and God holds everything together.  Have trouble knowing what you want to study in college - family conversation.  Don't know what restaurant to choose - family conversation.  Who's paying for Lola's funeral expenses - family conversation.  Everything revolves around family and, like anything else that brings you pain, it is usually also the deliverer of most joys.

Everything else - anything else - comes in third, at best.

These are my Top Ten and by no means should assume that all Filipinos are just like me.  These are my observations of my own field study - my own life.  While many other Flips may see some truth in what I wrote, these are also like my fingerprints  -  absolutely my own.

A Bi-Racial, Bi-Cultural Pinay Sings Maybe

In the musical, Annie, there is a song called, "Maybe." This song frames the small corner in which orphan Annie wonders about the whereabouts and hobbies of her biological parents. Growing up, my sister, an intrinsically talented piano player used to glide her hands over the ivories and order me to sing along in my loud and often off key voice.

Maybe far away
Or maybe real nearby
He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straighting his tie
Maybe in a house
All hidden by a hill
She's sitting playing piano,
He's sitting paying a bill
Betcha they're young
Betcha they're smart
Bet they collect things
Like ashtrays, and art
Betcha they're good
(Why shouldn't they be?)
Their one mistake was giving up me!
So maybe now it's time,
And maybe when I wake
They'll be there calling me "Baby"
... Maybe.
Betcha he reads
Betcha she sews
Maybe she's made me
A closet of clothes
Maybe they're strict
As straight as a line...
Don't really care
As long as they're mine
So maybe now this prayer's
the last one of it's kind...
Won't you please come get your "Baby"
Maybe

While I am most certainly not an orphan, I sang this song frequently enough and loud enough to memorize its words and contemplate its tugging profundity. Singing, I would often try and project how I would feel growing up without knowing my roots, who I belong to, and yearn for a sense of history. Belting the lyrics out time and time again brought me to a deep connection with Maybe. For me and my family, love was never in question, but belonging and history was always in doubt. With two immigrant parents, I struggled for every inch of self-understanding. In my younger years, life was much smoother feigning disinterest and apathy toward my ethnic roots.

In Nadia's deep pool of reflection she asks children of immigrants: Do you think your parents thought that being born in the u.s. means you are outside the influence of their home country/culture? Do your parents think of you as americans? The old truism says that immigrants are in search of a better life for their children; what were your parents seeking for you?

My parents are legal American citizens, but they will tell you that I am all-American. Two worlds, equal in force, combat for my brainpower and loyalty. In one corner is my Filipino-Spanish blood; a living paradox of the colonizer and the colonized beating in the same heart. In my Filipino existence, there is family-centered prayer and religion, loud gatherings, food, rice, music, raucous dancing, and an almost ridiculous disregard for time and deadlines. No home is complete without an altar in the living room, no dinner is worth having unless it's eaten three times over. In my Pinay eyes, mistaken identity is my identity. If not Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, Loatian, Malaysian, Samoan, or Native American - then I was rendered invisible. The only place where I ever felt racially understood was with my own family. Not only did my siblings understand what it meant to be Filipino, they understood what it meant to be Filipino-American; to be raised Filipino while living in the United States. That bond, sealed with the most intimate clarity, can never be broken.

In the other corner is my American world. This is the east coast born, Midwest raised existence. This is where I made a salad for the first time in college and began questioning Catholicism. My American identity is the fast driving, fast talking, eye rolling independent
daughter who couldn't stand Filipino summer picnics and hated making eye contact with any other Asian Americans because it was a lightning-quick reminder of the awkward reality that I was more comfortable navigating an all White crowd of folks than connecting with another grrl of color. Back then, even if it's hell, familiarity always triumphed. This side of me that effortlessly understood White society through private schools, privileged friends, also took in the cool absence of any other grrls of color in my White mainstream Midwest manners. She lived in the forefront, elbowing and trying to beat the Pinay out of me. She almost won.

The Pinay, thankfully, overcame. And in the epitome of Filipino spirit did not expel the American out, but, rather, invited her in as a passenger. They both existed in equal position, but only one had the steering wheel.

Endlessly explained in simplistic and binary terms, bi-culturalism is the fusion of two cultures,
yielding a rare lived experience that specializes in multi-understanding, multi-reasoning, and multi-facets. Children of immigrants have a wider periphery than most. It's both a characteristic and reward of our dueling/dualing lives.

When I think about the years I spent in utter anguish and rage, I wonder why. I wonder what would have helped ease my acidic bitterness. It was not so much that I was different, it was more the fact that everyone assumed that I was just like them. The visual difference was evident, my brown skin spoke more across a hallway than anything. In the face of difference, most people just try to comfort themselves by drawing commonalities. Normally, forging connections in hopes of establishing a relationship is acceptable and expected. Over time, however, relentless emphasis on sameness and commonality qualifies the differences as insignificant and dispensable.

There never was or ever will be an entire reconciliation between cultures, tongues, creeds, and lifestyles. After realizing that separateness was no longer necessary, there were no longer two individuals in the car. There is no longer one passenger and a driver, there is only one driver: Me, a conglomeration of two worlds that is not accepted into either world as a whole. Without fluent Tagalog, or trips to Manila, I am a not a "real" Filipino. Without peanut butter and jelly and baseball, I am "foreign" or "exotic."

This country, my country of origin, is obsessed with Black and White as the only two races, as the only racial conflict, as the only communities of conflict. In every experience of academia, media, and social conversation about race, Black and White are polarized to model the dynamics and yawn-boring patterns of racial tension in the US. Shameless in its ignorance, the United States frequently groups Asians in one category, one hand glossing over our black hair and smudging our skin until its all yellow. I am Brown.

The Latino community continuously gains signficant ground, but Asians are the wallflowers of the race conversation. Deemed pleasantly invisible and poetic in distinct features, Asians are Asians and nothing more, nothing less. If we continue to operate in the same outdated model of an umbrella-ed Asian category, I shudder to think of how many lifetimes it will take until bi-racial and bi-cultured issues will come to surface.

I grew up to be my own self translator. To this day, I still walk into every room and automatically survey its occupants, my mind quickly calculating likelihoods, conversations, percentages, and potential detonating bombs. After almost three decades, my intuition is dead on accurate. It is a learned survival skill to know when to relax or guard yourself. Navigating the Midwest as a grrl of color was like a stepping through a mine field. Careful, careful.

My parents did not come to this country to give their unborn children a better life. They came to this country to help their families who were alive and poor, sick and marginalized, stuck and helpless. My parents came to work to send their earnings home, to do better not for themselves but for their immediate families. Selfless, sacrificing, and urgent, my parents reaped the benefits of this country for others, never themselves.

I was sixteen when I attended my parent's naturalization process. Uncertain as to why I was resistant to their American citizenship, I watched with sadness as they proclaimed their allegiance, but could never articulate exactly why. Their legal ties to the Philippines, on paper, were gone. A land I had never seen except through stories of poverty and heat, the Philippines cradled my parents' hearts and loyalties. Today, I see the reasoning as to why becoming a citizen was necessary for them, but the ceremony rang false to me. I kept questioning the logic, "Why not let patriotism be reflected through human service, merit, decency, and dedication, rather than history tests and ceremonies? Why ask my parents to essentially choose between birthplace and home?" It did and continues to seem like such an unjust choice.

My parents were in constant flux in how to let their children be Filipino-American. Only now I can appreciate how difficult it must be to pass traditions along to your children in a completely unfamiliar environment and then watch it simply be considered and sometimes disregarded. The sound of cultures clashing arrives in the form of unasnwerable questions. Is dating in the US better because we have freer sex with less guilt and more condoms? Is American Catholicism better than Filpino spirituality that celebrates family prayer, tradition, and rosaries? Is it better that college students in the US typically blow off their undergraduate experience in favor of beer, experimentation, and spring break roadtrips? Do I lead a "better" life than my parents?

It depends on who you ask. If you ask any US born citizen, they would say that I have a more comfortable, stable, and privileged life. Is that "better?" I don't think so. Is it better to leave home and be considered an American adult at 18 or live with your parents until you are more certain of what you want from life and have latent independance? Is it a better life to live with your elders and learn how to take care of them or send them off to nursing homes and/or hire personal nurses? Is it better to have have endless choices with indecision or fewer choices with less freedom?

I am 28 years old an have been married two and a half years. I am childless and live in city where I do as I please and answer my cell phone in restaurant booths. My mother, by the time she was my age, had flown halfway across the globe to work at the United Nations and attend Columbia for two years while she supported her family and sent her siblings through school. She quit Columbia after realizing her benign-tumored ovaries weren't going to give her the timeframe most woman would have. At 28, she was married with one child and another on the way.

Do I live a "better" life than my mother? Easier, perhaps. Better? I don't know. I've often questioned as to whether I am as strong as my mother. That, also, I don't know. Our lives, cluttered with various obstacles and failings, cannot be compared. I will never know the pain of leaving my country of origin to rebuild my entire life in support of others. And she will never know the unrelenting pain of isolation and misapprehension.

The question of authenticity used to haunt me. The stiff armor built due to racist, belittling degradation and the humiliation of admitting I cannot speak Tagalog once paralyzed me. I now keep a healthy perspective of authenticity, grounded in the Pinay pride I carry; the knowledge that I am a product of two worlds; two mothers who nursed with radically different idelogies and I am not 50/50. I am 100% original, unprecedented, authentic, and rare.

I still wonder about my roots, my history, and whether I will ever truly find belonging. The difference now, when I sing Maybe, is that I am singing in reminicence of how I once was lost, orphaned by a Black/White only debate. I also resist the notion that bi-cultured, children of immigrants are wondering lost and then suddenly, one day, are self-found. We are in constant state of unfolding, each moment bringing more sense and experience to our natural state of bi-plexity. I have always been in this process. The difference now is that I am less afraid.

Reunion

I am in California for a 30 year reunion with my family.

I can't blog right now.

I'm too busy laughing and concentrating on my roots.

Mabuhay.