Is it safe to say that we all stop for a moment and ask ourselves who we are? Cogito ergo sum or I think therefore I am. I woke up from a dream that retold scenarios of my past dealing with weird, uncomfortable confrontations with my identity. The earliest traced back to grade school:
As fuzzy as this memory is, I will never forget the decision I had to make. This was during elementary school and, in terms of lasting memories, it may rival that picture I took with my teacher in 1st grade –my hand was awkwardly placed on my shirt to cover a huge ketchup stain that turned into a icky black goo. Or that time when a wasp landed on my hand, casually stung me, and flew off like I was a fart in the wind. Okay okay, I have a lot of weird memories from then. But this particular event defined how I viewed myself for years to come.
Our teacher wanted our class to showcase our cultural heritage. So, everyone picked a flag from where their family originated and they would color it, cut it out and post it with the rest of our class to show how diverse we were. My problem was, everyone chose only one flag to represent them.
My childhood brain was like...dude, you are Filipino, Irish, English, German with maybe a fleck of Chinese (so my mom tells me). How on earth do I pick one flag to represent me? I feel some would say just be American because that is the combination of all of them. But it's not. America is the end result. America is not the origin of all this culture... it's more like a convergence point.
Anyway, In my mind, the reasonable thing was to use all flags I can relate to. However, I was pressured because all my classmates selected only one. Without any reinsurance that it is okay to pick multiple ones if you are mixed I felt the need to conform. I chose Filipino because no one else had that flag and it looked cool.
–––
The playground:
I think this was the most interesting aspect of grade school because supervision was to keep children safe. Socially, there were no rules and this is where cliques started to form.
During recess in elementary it was like battle of the sexes, gender wars, something along the lines of two defined sets of people split apart.
The layout of our playground consisted of two opposing jungle gyms and with a magnetic pull guys hung out on one end and girls stuck to the other. I really have no idea how it started or how anything progressed, but I got bored of hanging out on one side of the playground the entire time. Everyday the same set of people challenged who can jump the farthest, run the fastest, and who had the best Pokemon cards.
There was a stigma on girls telling us we shouldn't hang out with them because they were icky or whatever. But once again I didn't understand why and I just followed to fit in. It just takes one influential person to make such rules and people follow it without asking questions.
But once again I did not agree, and I liked being in the presence of girls as it was nice and comforting. Perhaps it's when they would role play and the motherly aspects of them reminded me of my own. Or I could have been a perverted shit –too far to remember exactly
So to circumnavigate around this weird pointless social feud I became a spy. A spy of the playground that would travel to the girls' side and become "captured". Then I would "pretend" to be a traitor to gain insider information. When I found the chance I'd slip out and reported back to the guys with some foo foo details about their so called "plans" but really, I just had fun hanging out with them. And maybe in some way I enjoyed being captured by a bunch of girls.
So I became a certified double agent, coming and going from both ends of the playground as I pleased. And the freedom of having access to everything and girls chase you around was pretty alluring.
–––
Development of Social Status:
As I grew older the issue of my origin and social interactions became more convoluted. The age of stereotypes and bullying started grow into fruition. The pecking order started to resemble Lord of the Flies and if you had a defining trait that someone didn't like, it wasn't long before everyone thought the same way.
4th grade was a new school with new problems. If you've ever worked with this age group I commend you. They are such a handful because many kids learn new things under poor context and spread this misinformation like an expert. Sounds like some people in our government right? :cough:
This was the start of the "what are you?" question. Because I think at this age if you did not simply fit into a category it blew their childish brains out of the water.
Throughout these years I was lumped into the category as a typical suburban kid. It was easy living, playing outside when the weather was fine, and collecting worms and checking them into my very own worm hotel (it was my first business). Pegging crab apples at each other and getting dirty all the time. Life was good and people got along pretty well.
A classmate came up to me in the hallway one day and started asking me what I was. I guess the veil of hiding behind my lighter-skin-Filipino-mix was starting to fail. This person started to list nearly every Asian country he could think of. Of course the first being "Chinese, Japanese, Taiwanese" even some made up places with -nese attached. I let him struggle and exhaust his imagination before saying Filipino. Of course, he never heard of it before.
Once one person takes notice you have some Asianic attributes other people pick up on it too. Granted, there are still people who don't know their left foot from their right and couldn't tell a difference.
It started happening more often, when people tried to guess what I was. When I was younger it didn't matter where anyone was from. During this time, if you were tagged "Asian", you became instantly smart at everything and people think they know how big your penis is without ever laying eyes on it. Every time I squinted I was called out "you look so Asian now". It was worse when people started to mock how Asians spoke. My mother has a very strong accent and some of it rubbed off on how I learned to speak. I started to fear certain words so much because it would raise too much attention. I became uncomfortable that my lips were bigger than a white person's lips and tried to hide them by curling them in. Essentially, I didn't want to be an Asian mix anymore. I probably only embraced it when people told me I was smart. Any negative connotation and I quickly defaulted to "I'm white also so it doesn't apply".
But the worse thing was when I deflected my differences to someone else. In order to fit in with the cool kids (generally, white, had money, ignorant to all things not white and well off) I threw away as much Asian parts of me as I could and rejected feelings such as compassionate human from my mentality.
These "cool kids" always picked on someone: He was black, much taller than anyone else, dressed different, always asked plenty of questions and challenged the teacher during lessons. He wasn't conventional by any means. Why was he a target? Because he was very different. In order to become accepted, I aligned my views with my popular peers and picked on him too. They laughed when I did so. When they laughed I felt like I was something. So the bullying continued. I became a bully because I feared getting picked on. How sad is that? I remember they warped my perspective of this poor kid so bad that I looked at him with hate. I nearly fought him when he grabbed me during recess once. This kid has done nothing wrong to me and I was disturbed by everything he did. It was sick that I became such a person. And when I moved on to the later grades and tried to have normal conversations with him I could tell that he was affected by the constant harassment from other classmates. I stopped hanging out with that group of kids and just like that I had no desire to pick on him. That doesn't erase what I did. And he was still picked on by others later on. I'm sorry and wish I could take back all those things. That wasn't me. The real me would praise you for your differences. Because like you, I didn't fit in a normal group.
–––
How to be a guy in high school:
Ah, the model everyone should follow if they want to be 100% man, all the manly time.
This is how I was taught to be a "guy". And if you don't comply with guy rule, then you are either cast aside as someone lower on the social chain or ignorantly dubbed as gay.
Don't you just want to fit in?
1. Talk about a girl in your school in a demeaning way. If everyone is talking about how nice her ass is, then you should agree and offer an offensive remark equal or higher to that made from your original guy peer.
2. If you do not talk about how hot some of the girls in your class are then it can be assumed that you're gay and don't have feelings for women.
3. You have to be extroverted every single second of the day. If you show any signs of shyness or introversion, then it must mean you are hiding some gay feelings and don't want anyone to know.
4 . You must make fun of gay people or people that are assumed as gay. Because if that person isn't talking about large tits and how badly they want to fuck the tall blond in their class everyday, they must like men and therefore be made fun of.
5. At all times, you need to be educated with a list of new sexual slang. If you do not know a term, you will be punished by being purposely left out of the conversation and taunted even after you find out what it means.
6. Fighting is manly, doing poor in school and not giving a fuck about your education is manly. Because muscles are more important than brains.
7. If you don't talk about a sport consisting with balls then it can be assumed you have no balls.
8. Your power level increases with the amount of pictures and videos you send around of exposed girls from your class. It doesn't matter if they were your ex who broke your little teen heart or if you are just showing off. Your male friends will congratulate you.
9. Girls are trophies and sexual accomplishments. How many and how hot?
10. Underaged drinking will help you grow chest hair and it is the only cool way to approach girls! Also, you must post pictures of you at someone's parent's kitchen guzzling bottom of the barrel alcohol each weekend. Because negligence of your parent's home is awesome.
11. The more you can drink, the more man is inside of you. Your favorite alcohol is the one you can consume the fastest. Fuel your inner man with alcohol and you will evolve into superman (for the course of one night).
12. Skinny or short people cannot be men because they are too skinny or short. So let's make fun of them because it makes us feel bigger than our egos already are.
13. You need to be able to quickly spit out a supermodel or celebrity that you masturbate to on the reg. If you don't, then it must mean you are not attracted to women. Always keep a list of your new favorite porn star, actress, and supermodel. Your man friends will fawn over your fantasies.
14. You actually have no music taste, you just say whatever you think is the coolest. You only listen to music that perpetuates your own ideals and what being a man is all about. You disregard that music is a form of entertainment and expression.
15. You brag how often you've been to a strip club.
16. You think gender roles are universal to everyone and there is only one way people should act. Your way.
17. Make fun of someone's demise. If someone has an unlucky day, make them feel worse by joking about it.
18. If you like someone, it should meet the standard of attractiveness to other guys, not your own. You don't want to be embarrassed that you like someone who isn't hot enough for your friend right?
19. You talk about women of different ethnicity like they are different flavors of candy. You proudly parade what flavors you prefer and why. Because all women can be categorized into flavors like candy.
20. Forget about being sensitive and understanding of other people. Only rash impulsive actions should be embraced.
21. It's all about that gym.
Yup, I've seen or heard all this happen from both close friends and classmates. Many of these directly affected me pretty badly. I was bullied if I didn't follow some of these ludicrous ideas. I'd like to say a big fuck you to those people in my past and can only hope they have become better people.
If you find someone who fits the description of all these attributes, don't let them get away! That is an ignorant male alpha, an asshole, douchebag, etc etc. Proceed with caution and if they approach you slap them silly with a used condom filled with rotting turnips and squirrel bits.
–––
Being mixed race when you get older:
It was public knowledge that I was a blend of different cultural backgrounds and I faced more issues. Really, I didn't expect I would be treated differently, but it is true.
It wasn't a matter of choosing which flag looks coolest anymore.
In high school I would have trouble finding friend groups. It seemed most Asians stuck together with other Asians. Sure I had Asian friends, but I always felt so distant whenever I hung out with them. Like I wasn't truly a part of their circle. Then, I hung out with my white friends and I felt like a part of myself was missing. Often I found my white friends joking about me being Asian. I was even further isolated by a newer term "Pacific Islander" that started to gain momentum. And sooner than I thought people would not consider me Asian anymore. My favorite, of course, is "The Philippines is the Mexico of Asia so they don't really count". We are not Mexicans, we are Filipinos. The Spanish colonized many countries in the world and we still have our own original culture. But of course, I played along with these comments because they were my friends right?
To help escape the isolation I sought refuge with a few punk and ska kids at school. They didn't seem to give a shit about anyone, including themselves. However in the end, no matter how hard I struggled to balance myself with my friends, I eventually succumbed and further suppressed my Asian roots in favor of acceptance.
But I don't think it is my fault. And it is something that feels so out of my control. There is a social construct that is running our country that "white is better". It is why many "passable" mixed race people eventually succumb to the pressure and abandon their cultures to blend in. And why? Because you will be more successful. White people run our country and have all the money and power...wouldn't you want to be included in such a lavish group if you can pass as one? Some people cannot select a different ethnicity than the one they were given so they don't have a choice. But I do, and while it may seem like "oh you can go both ways!" It is both a blessing and a curse. I can reap it's rewards, but I will always have trouble finding a place to belong.
I've come a cross many Filipino-Americans (both mixed and non) and we all share one thing. We don't speak Tagalog or native Filipino language. We have all been educated in English only and are not bilingual as we should be. I've noticed this happening with later generations of Asian immigrants as well. When I finally asked my parents why I was never taught, the answer was along the lines of "you only need to learn English". When I found out the reason was so I could be more "American" It really made me sad to realize what is happening in this country. The "cool group" is what is successful. The same kind of group that bullied that kid back in grade school. And in order to be in that group, you have to abandon your differences and assimilate.
But it doesn't make sense to me, being bilingual is one of the best things you can do for your brain during its development. It exercises the brain like learning an instrument does. Not only that, it injects you with culture and perpetuates where you came from. It creates a special bond between you and your parent. Because I don't have this ability, I feel very detached as a Filipino. And I think that was the intended goal. To detach people from their culture into the accepted normality. If my mom was never around and nobody told me I was Filipino, I would never know.
Language is the core aspect of every culture. If you stop passing it on, then your culture will start to diminish. Will I pass Tagalog on to my kids? If I could teach them I would. But I would have to learn it.... Oh I could just use a learning program to educate them. But how distant would I feel if my own kid could speak more Filipino than me. That ruins a lot of potential for secret talks.
All in all, this shows me that power and success rules over science and culture in this country. "It'd be better to know the language we all speak", "It's better to be like everyone else", "We should have the same mindset so there would be less conflict". The advantages of knowing a second minority language is now a hindrance that gets in the way of being successful.
It took me years of school and experience but now I understand a lot. The more I understand the sadder I get. And when I see my mother, I always pester her why she didn't teach me her language. She blames my father, but I say it much bigger than that and we are all involved.
–––
