I can speak from personal experience as a half-Filipino, half-white woman, but I have never been to the Philippines myself. Here is what I notice from the first-and even second-generation Filipinos in America in my family or extended family. Maybe not all Filipinos are generally like this, but the ones I have been exposed to are.
- Their initial reaction will always be, “Whose white kid is that?” This would mostly be a thing that happens at gatherings I guess, but I know this because even my own family does it. Honestly, I forget that I am half white and find myself doing it. Filipinos tend to be quite gossipy, so they are all curious about who went out and found themselves a white person to have a child with. Usually, they are proud that they found a white spouse.
- They favor white people over any other. This is sad but true. My half sister is fully Asian. Her father was very tan, so she is too. My grandparents would always say that I am their favorite because I am white. Growing up, she would not be allowed to play in the sun, God forbid she got any darker. Many Filipinos I know, not all, but the ones that my family knows, seem to favor white people over many other, sometimes even their own. I often hear what equates to, “Find a nice white boy to marry! Or a Filipino.”
- They love to point out that you don’t look like them. This one hurts me a lot. To this day, my family is always making comments like, “You’re so pale!” “Your hair is so much lighter than ours!” “Your skin burns but ours doesn’t!” “You don’t have the same genes to stay thin.” All things I am aware of, but it hurts to hear all the time. When I am with them, sometimes I can pretend I look like them and I fit in, but then they say something like this or I walk by a mirror and I’m reminded I’ll never look quite right in my family.
- They also love to point out what you do more American. I’ve started doing this to myself, because if someone is going to make jokes about you, it helps to join in with them. If I choose to eat with a fork over chopsticks, my hands, or a spoon, they sometimes will make a comment like, “You’re so American.” Once again, I am aware, but it used to bother me a bit. They also say the same thing if we go to a restaurant and I order something more American.
- They seem to forget you’re Asian as well. My family sometimes quizzes me on Tagalog, the language that they all understand but failed to teach me. I know a handful of words, and they taught me all of them, yet they seem so surprised when I know the word. The same goes for when I know the name of an Asian food. They seem to think that I am completely out of touch with Asian culture. I’m not that close to Filipino culture, but it’s not my fault that my upbringing was quite Americanized. Once, a relative said to me, “I forget sometimes that you’re Filipino.”
- You are only seen as Filipino when you do something extra Filipino. When I am running extra late, they say, “You run late all the time. You’re so Filipino!” When I eat rice with my hands, or enjoy a Filipino dish, they say “I knew you were Filipino!” As if they had believed I was switched at birth, just some random white kid swapped into a Filipino family.
Overall, the Filipinos I have encountered seem to like white people a lot. However, as a half-white, half-Filipino, raised by my American born parents in America, they tend to overlook my Filipino side. Even my own family has said that they occasionally forget that I am Filipino, and I am sure that that statement is primarily based on my looks. They have never said the same to my sister, who was raised by the same parents as me, in the same family as me, but only is genetically more Asian than me.
I want so badly to teach my children about Filipino culture, but it will be hard because I haven’t been taught much about it. I have been accepted to be a white person, not a Filipino, so although my fondest childhood memories are immersed in Filipino culture, I have been treated as nothing but white. (Not to say that being fully white is bad. Sometimes I wish I were one or the other.) I just want to be treated as a Filipino-American, because that’s what I feel like I am.
