Conversations about AAPI Heritage Month

I think that as a Filipino American (Fil-Am), my experience (as well as other Fil-Ams) has been a little complicated. We’ve always felt a bit of an identity crisis, like we didn’t quite belong here, and we didn’t quite belong there. We weren’t American enough, but we also weren’t Filipino enough. Kong lumaki tayo dito sa US, we’re definitely “othered.” I’m not white, my name is not white-sounding, and so naturally, I’ve been asked, more times than I can even count, “Where are you from? No, where are you really from?” (Other variations of this are “Where you from from?” or “What are you?”)

I don’t mind sharing my ethnicity with people (which is what they’re really asking when they ask me these sorts of questions). I’m proud to share my ethnicity. I love talking about my culture. But when people ask me where I’m “from from”, what they’re implying is that because I look a certain way, I must not belong here. I must be an outsider. And that hurts, because THIS is my home, too. I’m not just Filipino. I’m Filipino-American. Lumaki ako dito sa US. I grew up watching the same shows, worshipping the same boy bands, speaking the same language. THIS is my culture too. And so to automatically be othered by my own home because I don’t look white leads to self-doubt, and also reveals what those people really think it means to belong here.

I know that a lot of Fil-Ams, and a lot of Asian Americans, can relate to this identity crisis. Pag umuwi tayo sa Filipinas, we feel a bit like an outsider as well. Because while we grew up speaking Tagalog (or Cebuano, Ilocano, Kapampangan, Chavacano, etc) with our families, while we grew up eating adobo and pancit and arroz caldo — we didn’t grow up IN the Philippines. We didn’t consume their pop culture, we didn’t watch a lot the same movies, we didn’t listen to a lot of the same music, we didn’t see ourselves represented the way our peers in the Philippines did.

And most importantly — we didn’t grow up in a space where our culture was the dominant one; where our food wasn’t met with wrinkled noses and snide comments; where our noses and our skin and our eyes were just like everyone else’s. We grew up as a minority. We grew up having to navigate and fight against stereotypes tacked onto our identities without our consent. We grew up having to justify our presence in a country we were supposed to call home. We grew up having to stifle half of ourselves, having to straddle this invisible cultural line depending on our setting — the Americanized version of ourselves when we were at school, and the Filipino version of ourselves when we came home to our families. And, we still do all of that, even now, many years later.

Alam ko na I’m not the only one who relates to this. Ito ang experience ng ma daming Fil-Ams, and many Asian Americans. And the recent hate crimes against Asian Americans is almost like a fresh wound reopening over a scab. We’ve long carried these feelings that we never quite belonged here, even though many of us have lived here all our lives, and many of us were born here. But seeing people who look like us get beaten and attacked simply for existing is a horrifying reminder that to many, we still do not belong here. It is a horrifying reminder that to many, this country would be better off if we “went back to where we came from.” And so, how do you tell these people that HERE is where you came from? That you can’t “go back to where you came from,” because you’re from here, too?

There’s so much else I can say about this. About how our food was “gross” until it became trendy; how our eyes were a punchline until they became trendy; how our languages were ridiculed until people realized that knowing a second or third language is actually a pretty cool thing. About how we are othered for the exact same things that white people now find cool and use freely without the consequences that we are subjected to. About how white privilege is never having to wonder if someone treats you a certain way because of your ethnicity. Or wonder if someone likes you because they consider you white-washed enough to be acceptable; they ignore your ethnicity rather than see it as an integral part of who you are.

But the takeaway for all this is, kong gusto mo mag participate at mag participate AAPI Heritage Month — at gusto ko din mag kasama ka sa conversations na ‘to — listen to the stories of your AAPI peers. Listen to their experiences. Listen to learn; mag kingan para mag intindihan. If you love anime, if you stan BTS, if you drink boba, if you use Asian skincare brands, if you love halo-halo and kbbq and hot pot — you cannot cherry pick parts of a culture to appreciate and actively ignore its people. You cannot truly care about AAPI culture without also caring about AAPI people.

At uma-asa ako na we continue having important conversations about the AAPI experience beyond this month. Mag tuloy tayo mag usap ng important conversations about the Black and Latiné and Indigenous experience, mag tuloy tayo mag usap ng important conversations about what it means to be anti-racist and how to continue dismantling systems of power that only benefit you and protect you if you look a certain way. Because every little bit counts — every moment of learning or unlearning something, every moment where you speak up in the face of racism — all of it counts.