The Compound and the Emphasis on Family

I came to find out after my trip that the area in Davao our friends lived in had a high crime rate. While our friends were wealthy, they were surrounded by a lot of poverty and felt it necessary to protect their personal space from the dangerous public space. There were two houses on the compound. My dad’s friend, Fe, owned the biggest house. She and her husband owned one of the largest banana company’s in the Philippines at the time and had built such a huge compound to house their entire immediate family. Fe’s daughter, her husband, and her two small sons lived in the big house with Fe and her own husband, along with the couples two adopted children. Fe’s biological son lived in the second house on the compound with his two daughters, his girlfriend, and his best friend. There were 6 dogs, all of which were pets, a pond with 20 fish, and a turtle. The compound was landscaped magnificently with a large outdoor eating area, two pools, a tennis court, a basketball court, and a field to play soccer on for Fe’s grandsons.
The first thing I found similar to my own life at home was the emphasis on family. The entire family lived together, dined together, went out together, etc. They were each other’s best friends, just as my cousins had been my best friends growing up. 30 people sat at the dinner table each night, you had to go around and kiss all of your elders before you could seat yourself: it’s the respectful thing to do. First lesson: Family is the most important thing in the world

Silly Little White Girl

I never realized I didn’t look like my cousins. I always just assumed everyone knew we were related because, well, I did. It never occurred to me my features weren’t as prominently Filipino as theirs were. The first time my nationality was questioned was when I was 7. It was the first time I had ever been to the Philippines, and the second I stepped off the plane, I was escorted with my father to a car with dark tinted windows and a bodyguard standing outside with a gun slung over his shoulder. The air was so sticky it was almost suffocating, but the second I sat in the car, the air conditioning broke the moisture and I felt more comfortable. I still can’t explain it to this day, but the Philippines have this distinct smell that I’ve never forgotten. It must be a mixture of the humidity and some kind of tropical smell, but whatever it is it’s stuck in my senses. After we were picked up, we drove in traffic for about an hour or so and that’s when I had my first experience talking to a native Filipino boy my age.
My window was down because I was getting cold in the air-conditioned car. I was looking at the McDonalds across the street and realized it looked different than the ones at home. Then, this boy who had obviously been in the sun way too much that day rode up on a bicycle carrying popcorn necklaces. He asked me in broken English if I wanted to buy one for a peso. I took a quarter I had in my pocket and went to hand it to him, but as I did, the bodyguard in the front seat screamed, “Hey!” and reached into the back, snatched my penny, and screamed something in Tagalog at the young boy. He screamed back angrily, glanced at me, and rode away. The bodyguard glared at me, since I had obviously done something wrong, and called me a silly little white girl. My dad leaned over and told me not to listen to him; he was just nervous because he got scared that I had put myself in a dangerous situation. The bodyguard was there to keep us safe. I didn’t understand and sat there feeling insecure the rest of the day until we came to the compound our friends owned in Davao. Why did he call me a white girl in that tone? Didn’t he know my mom was Filipina? Why was buying a popcorn necklace dangerous? And why did our friends live in a compound with huge concrete walls around it and bodyguards with guns at every entrance?

What the heck is my blog about?

Growing up as an Asian American for me was very different than one might think. My maternal grandmother was Filipina and my grandfather was Filipino and Irish. One may guess that my phenotype would suggest some trace of Filipina blood, but in fact, I look completely Caucasian due to my father’s mix of Italian and German blood. My sister and I are usually categorized at first glance as white, but after we tell people we meet about our mother’s Filipina blood, they start to notice the subtle undertones. I, for example, have my mother’s skin tone, and in the summer I become very dark. I also have the thick, nearly black hair that many women on my mother’s side of the family have as well. Interestingly enough, I broke my nose in 5th grade, and after it was fixed, my nose developed a bridge, but up until that point, I had my grandmother’s button nose. However, now my nose appears much more Italian, according to my mother. My sister on the other hand, while much fairer than myself in skin tone and hair color, actually has the shape of my grandmother’s Filipina eyes.
However, while my sister and I may appear white, we by no means ignore our Filipina background. We consider ourselves very culturally Filipina and were semi-raised in what my great aunts like to refer to as “Filipino tradition”. In this blog, I will be recounting my stories of growing up in a large Filipino family, my trips to the Manila and Davao, and my encounters with other Asian Americans beginning in middle school all the way up until my time here at Wheaton. I will be trying to understand why those of an Asian background tend to gravitate towards others of similar phenotype and why my white appearance has always overshadowed my great fondness and attachment to my Asian culture and has never fully allowed me to be completely accepted by other Asian Americans I have encountered.