White kid, I know you didn't just call me white.

I am light. My mom might even be as light as me. She doesn't have an accent anymore. She can't pass for a Barbie doll, but she could probably pass for Greek or Italian or some such. Enough that people say a lot of racist bullshit around her at work without thinking. Does that make her not Filipina? Does it erase the orientalism that led to her marrying my father in the first place? Does it negate the 21 years lived in what she also still thinks of as home, her abandonment as a child and the family who raised her? The husband who has never thought of her as anything but Filipina since the time they met as small children?

I wasn't born in the Philippines. I wasn't raised in California or Hawaii where there are so many mixed kids it doesn't make much of a stir, where you can grow up in a culture more similar to your parents' and have your debut and be surrounded by more people who understand your heritage. I don't know that it's necessarily a bad thing. But it was a lonely thing.

I was the only person who looked like me in school. I had to question where I came from, from the very first bubble sheet I filled out in elementary school: fill in the bubble with your race, and oh look, here's a sheet provided by the school to tell you what to put. White. My mother didn’t think I was white. My classmates surely didn’t think I was white.

I didn't want to be different; I wanted to go to school and be in the lunch line and not be laughed at for spam and rice. I wanted my mom to be a PTA member, a class volunteer, something, anything to show that I wasn't that different. They tried to make me white on my forms, and even at 5 years old, I knew that was bullshit. I was only white as long as I acted the same as them. But try as I might, they always made me bubble in the same thing.

Am I not Filipina because I'm mixed? I used to think that people thought that. I couldn't understand what it had to do with skin-lightening and why all the famous people in the Philippines were so light. I didn't understand why my few Filipina friends thought they weren't pretty when they were skinner and sexier and had more fashion sense than me. I can't help where I came from, but I don't want people to feel that way. I have a new little sister figure, who keeps whining about how dark she is. 16 and so gorgeous and so insecure because of her skin. I don't want that for anyone.

Am I not Filipina because I wasn't born there? Didn't grow up there? Maybe there's some truth to that. I can claim citizenship because of my mother being a Filipino citizen at the time of my birth, but I've never been able to spend a significant amount of time there before. So I don't know my family from there too well. I'm awkward with them, and a lot of them don't speak english. But I love them and I know they're always thinking of me when we send gifts back and forth. When I get a chance, I'd like to go and stay a while. I'm trying to learn Tagalog but it pisses me off because it's not my family's tongue and not their people's tongue and they don't speak it unless they have to when they meet friends from other islands.

Am I not Filipino-American? You bet your ass I am. And I will keep saying it every time some white person with an inflated ego tries to laugh at me and tell me what I am.

Me, Myself, and I

I HAVE THE RIGHT...
Not to justify my existence in this world.
Not to keep the races separate within me.
Not to be responsible for people's discomfort with my physical ambiguity.
Not to justify my ethnic legitimacy.

I HAVE THE RIGHT...
To identify myself differently than strangers expect me to identify.

from the Bill of Rights for Racially Mixed People by Maria P.P. Root

How dare you.

That's right, I said it, and I'll say it again. How dare you. What makes you think that you have the right, having just met me, to comment on my heritage, to back me into a corner, to make me feel confused by your anger at my ambiguity, and as though I have to justify myself to you. I am what I am, and it is none of your business what I am unless I choose to share it with you, and no matter what you think I am, I will still be what I am.

When did we decide that those who are so removed from us get to make the decisions about how we define ourselves? We didn't. We are not a monolith.

When you ask me what I am, when you tell me I don't look Asian, when you disdain something central to my identity, when you tell me how you want to have mixed babies because they're prettier - let me tell you something, motherfucker, it pisses me off. I was not put on this earth for you to objectify me, mystify me, vilify me, classify me; I will classify myself and rectify the misconception that my identity is dependent upon your reception of me.


I am first-generation and I am Pinay. Being the daughter of a white American as well does not suddenly short circuit these components to my personality. Neither do I have an "Asian self" and a "white self"; I am me, myself, and I, every minute of every day.

Hello internet.

I've been busy, to put it lightly. Not that I would probably have written much more if I weren't busy. Anyway, this is just a quick entry to note that I haven't written in three months, and hopefully I will write something soon. I don't think anybody was reading anyway, but you never know.

I'm getting through this semester. One way or another, the semester will end someday. And in a lot of ways, I don't want it to end. I don't want to say goodbye to my friends who are graduating. I can't believe my sister's going to start kindergarten in the fall. Or that my cousin will graduate high school soon. I'm not ready for a lot of things, but life is like that. At least the good part is, when things are really bad, they will always pass sooner or later.

One way or another, life goes on.

強くなるため

I've been told my whole life that I'm smart, that I'm gifted, whatever. But more than ever, lately I feel like it really doesn't mean anything at all. Being the smartest person in the world wouldn't matter as long as someone has no work ethic whatsoever. Very little has the same crippling affect on me as a large project or paper. Nothing quite makes me want to cry for a week like knowing I've disappointed someone because I couldn't make myself focus or care about my work.

Everyday I feel more like I don't deserve the life I am living. I don't deserve the vacations, or the allowance, or the top 10 public college, or the freedom to choose a major that's enjoyable rather than practical. I don't deserve the friends who are already accomplishing more than I may accomplish in my entire life, and I certainly don't deserve their support and comfort when I start feeling this way.

So my goal for right now is not to magically become a straight-A student overnight, but to at least become a hardworking one. I can't give back all the gifts I've been given whether I've deserved them or not, so the only thing I can do is try to make myself worthy.

The Meaning of Music

If someone asked me how I felt about music, I'd most likely say that music is really important to me, but lately I've been thinking about whether or not that's really true. I've always known that I don't seem to have the same frantic need for noise as other people. I don't twitch whenever I'm separated from my iPod. (In fact, I frequently misplace it for weeks at a time.) I don't feel the need to listen to music when I'm walking, riding the bus, studying, or just sitting around. It's not that I mind having music on, I just don't ever really think about turning it on.

Since thinking about that, and noticing that a lot of my friends are getting into last.fm and all, I've tried to be a little more conscious of the times when I'm sitting in silence, and I'm trying to listen to music more. I am really amused by how diverse everyone's tastes (including mine!) are, even though I've always known that. I guess it's just a little funnier to see that some people listen to different types of music back to back? I don't really tend to do that unless I have some kind of theme going on with my playlist, but I don't tend to make playlists in the first place. But I do think that Japanese music tends to have more variety within an artist or an album just because they don't get as caught up in genre and intended audience, I guess. I kinda like that freedom to just do what you want without having to have a big image change or risk alienating fans.

Hmm... I'll leave you with a tongue-twister!

にわの庭には二羽の鶏は俄かに鰐を食べた
(Niwa no niwa ni wa niwa no niwatori wa niwaka ni wani wo tabeta)
(In (Mr) Niwa's garden, two chickens suddenly ate a crocodile.)

Bye~