My Heritage.
5.3.2016.
I have never been one of those “mixed” persons who had to struggle with both sides of their ethnic identity. Maybe it’s because interracial children are so common nowadays. In many places, it is completely normal to see a couple of mixed races hold hands and walk down the street together. It is definitely more acceptable in this day and age, than it was back then.
(Case in point: when my Filipino and Chinese Grandpa DeGuzman first met my dad, after they shook hands in greeting, my grandpa drew back his hand and wiped it on his shirt, intentionally within my dad’s view. Ironically, my dad soon after came to be like a third son to my grandpa..he loved him like a son, and grieved his death like he was grieving the loss of his own son. I remember seeing my grandpa clasp his hands in front of him and cry heavily upon seeing my dad’s lifeless body in the hospital room. My mom said she hadn’t seen my grandpa cry like that since her oldest sister Josephine ran away from home to get married when she was 16.)
But all personal stories aside, the biggest case in point of the non-acceptance of interracial couples would be the anti-miscegenation laws brought about around 1860. It was illegal for people of mixed races, namely black and white people, to get married. It wasn’t until 1967! that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled interracial marriage constitutional. Not that the bigotry and discrimination stopped there. But you all know how the story goes.
You’ll always have the ignorant, prejudice folk squinting their eyes and shaking their heads at couples like Richard and I in different parts of America. That will never change. So long as racism survives, it will never change. Every now and then, people will stare at Richard and I in public, but I never notice. Richard, on the other hand, is very aware of it. Or maybe he’s overly self-conscious, or perhaps, it’s both. Leave it to me to be oblivious. Now, are they menacing stares? I couldn’t say.
I admit. I get self-conscious at times. Wondering if people are thinking to themselves, “What is she doing with him?” Perhaps, I purposely fall into oblivion. So I don’t have to encounter any negative forces that might come my way.
If someone were to ask me if I identified more with my Filipino side or African-American side, it would incite a complicated answer. I identify culturally more with my Filipino side. But I identify socio-politically more with my African-American side.
I was born and raised in Southern California, surrounded by my Filipino mom, grandparents, aunties, uncles, and cousins. I know terms in Tagalog and Ilocano. Sadly, I am not fluent (pretty far from it haha), which in part has to do with the fact that I grew up in an interracial household, and also in part because when my grandpa brought his family from the Philippines to the U.S. in the 60s, he felt that allowing his children to speak Ilocano in an English-speaking land would hinder their learning in schools (especially due to the times). My eldest auntie may have been able to speak it. My mom cannot but understands it fluently when she hears it spoken--both Ilocano (a lesser known dialect of the PIs) and Tagalog. Of course, my grandparents speak both. I’ll never know how to spell the words I do know, but I do know how to pronounce them!
I think a meal is not complete without rice. I will eat Spam or Vienna sausages straight from the can and LOVE it. My mom tells me not to “turn off” the light, but to close it. My grandma’s baby food regimen when I was an infant consisted of smashed up white rice and cooked pieces of salmon, all of which she fed me with her hands, of course. I think I can even remember how yummy that tasted! In the summer between fourth and fifth grade, I participated in Filipino Cultural Night and performed Filipino dances--the candle dance and the fan dance. Two of my best friends in grade school and middle school were Filipino. Did I mention I was Filipino? I think I identify with the Filipino culture more than the African-American one because it is a large part of what I knew growing up. I wasn’t surrounded by my dad’s African-American family. The parties I went to were for my Filipino cousins. I even feel less hip because I wasn’t raised around my dad’s family haha. As ridiculous as it sounds. But even though I rarely see them, I still love them and regard them as my own flesh and blood--well, because they are. And I’d love the chance to get to know them better. And yet, when I do encounter, say, one of my dad’s two remaining brothers, I get all teary-eyed from happiness and sadness and can barely utter a word.
I know I am of both Filipino and African-American heritage, both of which I am happy and proud to be, but I’ve simply been exposed to my Filipino heritage more. I’m a fob in disguise, buttt you wouldn’t always notice.
Despite my tendency to identify with Filipinos, or any kind of Asian, for that matter, I still get self-conscious walking into a Filipino supermarket. The foods are all familiar, but I feel as though all eyes are one me as I walk down the aisles, those around me wondering if I know exactly what it is I am looking at, if I can recognize what product of food I hold in my hand. Most of the time, they are not watching me at all. But I do catch a face or two sneaking a glimpse of the caramel-colored skinned girl every now and then. Many ask at the register, “Are you Filipino?” It doesn’t offend me. But one of these days I should reply, “Are you?” Funny. I feel like a black girl maaaybe mixed with something Asian roaming around the seafood market.
As for my African-American heritage, I learn of it through history books and stories my dad has told me. I learn of the Lancaster-Hamilton legacy. I memorize faces in old photographs and match them against the ones of today. If I were to bring up my cultural connection to the African-American legacy within me, I’d rave on about my dad’s yams, his delectable banana pudding, homemade bread pudding, and this dessert he made up called “apple crisp”, oh, and of course, his DELICIOUSLY-seasoned, perfectly fried, fried chicken, and expertly-chosen, perfectly ripened watermelon (ONE thing related to food he was able to teach me before he passed! And hey, I’ll take it!), the way he made his grits (sweet, like I like mine, milk, sugar and butter), and I’d go on about scrumptious soul food. But I don’t wear traditional African garments (ok, so not a lot of blacks go around doing that), and Kwanzaa is a holiday that I know means something to some people, but does not mean much to me. Perhaps my African-American culture is partly embedded within our family’s religion. I used to be a churchgoer. Haven’t since my dad passed, but Catholicism was critically important to him, and so it is to me.
When I said I identify more with my African-American heritage socio-politically, I meant that I identify with its history. I identify with the struggles that blacks endured through the years and even still today. I identify with the black slave with too little to drink and too many cotton plants to pick. With the ones who marched on Washington, traveled miles by way of the Underground Railroad, and met oppression by a government infiltrated with hard-hearted, backwards bigots. My heart hurts when I think back to what my people had to go through, had to live in, BE in. I cannot recall for I was not there, but I feel their struggles are my own. Their pain is my own. Their victories, I take for granted but I view as my own.
Perhaps that's why the term "nigga" irks me so. Don't you get how long and hard we had to fight to achieve respect in this country? You're simply taking the trash white people threw at us and wearing it with a grin. How can you not get that?
For the longest time growing up, I saw the world through uncolored eyes. The only time I remembered I was black was when I looked down at my arms, my legs, my feet. It’s not like someone was holding up a hand mirror in front of me everywhere I went. And when I looked around the room at my Filipino cousins’ birthday parties, I didn’t say, “Oh. There’s a bunch of Filipinos in this room.” I’d say, “Crap. We have a huge family.”
But the older I got, I didn’t need someone to hold a mirror in front of me to remind me what the color of my skin was. I took it upon myself to postulate what other people perceived about me and my race. Did they think I was black? Could they guess I was mixed? How much of my blackness are they prejudiced against? I began to think people saw one color on me and branded me. In a world, when any color should be equal to any other.
In my lifetime, I have twice been the victim of acts of discrimination, both in Orange County. I won't go into detail but while both were unpleasant, one in particular was infuriating.
When I moved to Athens, Georgia after college and lived there for nine months, I discovered the meaning of two things: cultural shock and good ole Southern hospitality.
I took a bus to the closest Target to my apartment there once, and the moment I stepped inside that store...MAN. I was like one speck of pepper in a tub filled with grains of salt. It looked liked any other Target I had seen before in Southern Cali, but I literally, was the black sheep. I searched for Asians, Latin Americans, Eastern Europeans...and I don’t particularly recall running into any. Yes, there are African-Americans in Georgia, but if you travel to certain parts, you will see that even today, there are blacks who live on the outskirts of town. These are the ones you will encounter on city buses. A perfect example of the inequity of the standard of living for African-American people that still exists in this day and age.
But please. Do not misunderstand me. So many kind-hearted, caring people (who were not black) did I come across while living there. Southern hospitality was no joke. I LOVED the way everyone greeted each other passing each other on the street. You wouldn’t find that on the streets of L.A. Too much suspicion has bred. A lot of the times, if two people cross paths, they either look down or look away. For fear of being shot? Judged? Questioned? Who knows. I do remember though, when my dad was still alive, there seemed to be this unspoken acknowledgment between African-Americans when they passed each other going into a store or on the sidewalk or what not. I remember once my dad nodded his head in greeting (but really almost...understanding?) to another black man he passed when going into the mall. And I remember seeing him do that a lot. Is that a black thing? Like...is a wordless nod saying, I know where you’re coming from, we’re all in this together? I don’t know. I always wondered why he and other black men would do that.
Hmm. I recall as a child in middle school, back in the day when 92.3 was still The Beat, I listened to hip-hop and R&B mostly because I thought that was the music I was supposed to be listening to. I avoided KROQ and for some reason was convinced KISS FM was a less abrasive form of it. At age 10, I felt obligated to listen to what I thought was “black music”. I dare not listen to “white” music--to Rock or Alternative. That is how I identified myself. It wasn’t until maybe like...my 3rd year in high school that I finally began opening up my ears to all the other forms of music. (This is discounting jazz, mind you...my dad played jazz religiously, so...I had an ear for that as well.) But rock? Bleck! Pop? Bleck. (That of course, is no longer the case.) But don’t get me started on early 90’s pop. Even today, I hate it. I can’t stand it. Keep it away from me!
Anyhow, it’s funny how tastes change. And it’s interesting to see how as kids we are affected by what we see and what we hear at home, on T.V., and in public. So many forces persuading you to feel one way about something, not allowing you to figure it out for yourself. Which, in turns, leads people to fall back on their culture, their heritage, their history. They find comfort in sticking to what their predecessors knew.
Did I even like the rap I heard on the radio? Not all of it...perhaps not even most of it. And yet, I set that dial to Power 106 or 92.3 The Beat. “Yee-ye-ah!” I was young. Naive. Trying to find my place in a colorful world.
As I come into my own, learning as I go, forming my own opinions, and fighting for my own beliefs, I try to embrace all of me. The Asian (or “Pacific Islander”) side, the African-American side. And I like to pretend that how ever little Native American is in me makes me a little bit more special. But I’m sure a lot of people can claim that as well. I try to not lose myself in the frivolous portions that occupy all sides of my ethnicity, and to punctuate the significant and wondrous pieces that come together and make me whole.
I’m not going to lie. I like it when people can’t guess what ethnicity I am, and at the same time, I get so tickled when they can decipher my genetic code spot on. I’m actually amazed when they do! I always ask, “How’d you know??” Many say it’s the eyes. Others say, “Because you look part-Filipino.”
To name a few examples...A Puerto Rican man in Georgia thought I was Puerto Rican. (Come again?) A lady at the bakery I worked at thought I was Spanish. Ethiopian people think I'm Ethiopian. An Indian man at H&R Block asked me if I was Indian. Most people can guess I'm part Asian, and then, wait for me to tell them what the other part is (...African-American). One guy at Barnes and Noble thought I was half-white. That was a first.
I myself kinda suck at guessing some other mixed people’s ethnicities. Like, sure, I can tell if someone is half-white and half-Asian. But what kind of Asian, you ask? Well, I’m giving myself too much credit. I suck at guessing at people who are Asian in general. There’s so many types of Asian! And they look quite alike, too! I mean, I’m not even full half-Filipino. My Filipino grandpa is like half Chinese with some Indonesian mixed in there, and my grandma is part Spanish. My other grandma on my dad’s side had Native American (hence my nose) and Caucasian in her.
I’m a mutt. And I like it. =} If only the world could accept mutts. But how can we expect them to accept mutts, when many can barely accept any person who is one “whole” race or another? And why do I write random posts like this that go on for pages? I really don’t know!
Oh, and that's me! Running towards my dad in the backyard of our family's home. My first home.
8Grace Galima Doukenick, Evelyn D. Dotson and 6 others
Comments
Grace Galima Doukenick Love reading your post. I was a part of your young life and remember living in Kansas and the stares and such. I too, went through the Asian thing. Recently been to Alabama... Shocked. We will have to get together. Love the person you've become. Love how open you are. You are like a mini me, I could only wished I could express openly. Anyhoo, ❤️U. Keep writing
Unlike · Reply · 1 · May 5 at 7:09am