A Filipino-American’s Pursuit of the American Dream: Part 2 of 2.
My thoughts on feeling invisible in America as a Filipino-American and how it has been an excruciating aspect of my existence.
Reflecting on the anniversary of Vincent Chin’s death, I started writing this piece a week prior to the events stirred by George Floyd, Christian Cooper, and Breonna Taylor and others that led to the massive Black Lives Matter protests and chaotic unrest in America. This was not written in response to those events and I am not intending to divert attention from the Black Lives Matter movement. This is not an Asian Lives Matter too piece.
This story is much longer than the typical blog entry and I hope that the swipe culture of today will take the time to digest this — a complex issue that isn’t a story of simple brevity.
If you haven’t read Part 1, read it here.
This is Part 2 of 2.
I get the general impression that American society thinks that racism towards Asian-Americans doesn’t profoundly exist. I understand. Racism isn’t overt — it is expressed at a dog-whistle frequency. Or like a silent and odorless gas.
Because racism is often not overt, accusations of racism have often been dismissed as coincidental or a misunderstanding of semantics.
When Ebens told Vincent Chin, “It’s because of you little motherfuckers why we’re not working,” Ebens grouped Vincent — even though he was Chinese-American — as one of the Japanese people that he and many Americans felt severely damaged the American car industry. The Cincinnati jury made no connection between this and the violent action of cracking Vincent’s skull with a baseball bat and acquitted him of a hate crime.
I thought racism happened mostly to black people.
In my childhood, I was called nip, chink, fresh off the boat, gook, but I didn’t see it as racist. I merely disregarded it as general name-calling, in the way that I was called faggot a lot when I was a kid, but I never regarded it as a derogatory comment about my sexual preferences.
Because I was born on American soil, English is my mother tongue, and I worked my butt off to be an All-American, including serving my country. I felt I earned my way into the dance party known as America. Perhaps I perceived one of the benefits was an immunity from racism. All the effort paid off, seemingly, as my white friends were great to me all my life. At least on the surface. Often, I’d hear “I don’t even see you as Asian. You’re more like a white person.” I regarded it as a compliment.
Shortly after college, I dated a white woman whose mother — she had immigrated from Germany — called me a nigger. Unprovoked. She said that she didn’t believe I was Filipino. She was convinced I was Black. Even so, why would she call me the N word? The racist situation was so new to me, I thought it was a one-off. I didn’t know how to process it.
In the “Who Killed Vincent Chin” documentary, Ebens seemed mild-mannered and reasonable in his interviews. He claimed that in owning a bar and welcoming everyone regardless of their race, he was not racist. It evoked memories of a couple experiences I had as a platoon leader with my platoon sergeant, when I was in the Army back in 1992. Let me explain the relevance by first describing my work connection with him.
A platoon sergeant is the right-hand man of the platoon leader, who is a commissioned officer and a lieutenant. As the platoon leader, I was my platoon sergeant’s boss. I was twenty-three years old, and because of my Asian-ness, probably looked more like seventeen. My platoon sergeant was in his early 40’s, a grizzled out-of–shape veteran who had seen action in Vietnam and his stint as my platoon sergeant was probably his last duty station before retirement. I was his commanding officer and he was respectful of that in the barracks, politely calling me, “sir,” as is the proper military greeting. But often in his actions, he wasn’t respectful of my leadership. At times, my platoon sergeant would act without my consent, which sometimes was borderline insubordinate, but I was being respectful of that as well, because he was the more experienced soldier in my platoon. At West Point, they made a point that my success as a platoon leader was a direct function of my relationship and my willingness to utilize the veteran leadership of my platoon sergeant.
Often, because of the value of his extensive military experience, the platoon sergeant is justified to act like he knows better than the platoon leader. Generally, my platoon sergeant was a nice man. A good family man, a good leader for the soldiers in our platoon. I felt there was always something awkward in our relationship, however. Something I couldn’t put my finger on. He never said anything blatantly racist to my face, but I could see that the respect didn’t exist. I thought the main issue was that I had a baby face. I joked about this for years.
Then sometime last year, I read a New York Times Magazine article entitled, Sir, I Never Thought I’d See the Day I’d Be Working for a Colored Officer, written by Christopher Wolfe, a black officer who had also graduated from West Point. Interestingly enough, he wrote that piece, which described his own experiences with racism at West Point and in the Army, about twelve years after my Army experiences. Ostensibly, America had an entire decade to evolve, so if Wolfe was experiencing racism in 2003, twelve years prior, could my experiences be also racist-tinged? It’s hard to pinpoint, because as I said, it wasn’t overt. I’m still unsure.
The judge from the initial hearing in Vincent’s case, who decided that the crime of killing Vincent Chin was a mere misdemeanor, was once a prisoner of war in a Japanese war camp during World War II. Might he have held a subconscious bias against Vincent because he was Asian, which spurred the judge to give Ebens and Nitz a slap on the wrist?
In comparison, might there have been a possibility that my platoon sergeant associated me with being a “gook” or “Charlie” from his experiences in the Vietnam War, and had a difficult time reconciling that I was his boss, like Wolfe’s soldier did about Wolfe?
In Hollywood, when a female white film producer said to me, “Hey, how’s my little man?” it’s not necessarily racist from a derogatory standpoint, right? I can’t say for sure if it was racist, but her tone of superiority was palpable when I worked with her.
And like the jury in Vincent’s Cincinnati hearing, they couldn’t find enough proof that the killing was a civil rights violation. Just like I can’t find unequivocal proof in my nebulous experiences of racism. It’s been difficult sometimes in the workplace, because when an interaction feels awkward and strange, it’s not clearly obvious that the action is racist. This is what sometimes activates me to fight — it’s a fight to be heard.
Wolfe mentions in his piece, a memo titled Employment of Negro Man Power in War, published in 1925 at the Army War College, which summarized a study of black soldiers. One of the statements that Wolfe cited rang a loud bell for me:
“As a race he (the American Negro, per the study) has not developed leadership qualities. His mental inferiority and the inherent weaknesses of his character are factors that must be considered with great care in the preparation of any plan for his employment in war.”
Additionally, as Peggy McIntosh, the author of White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack, writes, “Whites are taught to think of their lives as morally neutral, normative, and average, and also ideal, so that when we work to benefit others, this is seen as work that will allow ‘them’ to be more like ‘us.’”
As such, I wonder, if the leaders in charge at West Point, or the producers and directors in the film business, predominantly white and male, subliminally felt or feel obligated to teach me the ways of the white people, similar in the way that organized religion likes to convert you into one of them because if you do, you’ll get a ticket to Heaven?
Of course I was regarded differently — I’m not white. I LOOK DIFFERENT. I ACT DIFFERENTLY. I AM DIFFERENT.
I once thought racism existed in people who aren’t nuanced, aren’t sophisticated, or just limited in their scope and exposure to contemporary society. It’s not merely that at all.
Amy Cooper was the progressive liberal who called the New York police on Christian Cooper, a Black man and Harvard graduate, who challenged her for having her dog off the leash in an area in Central Park in which a leash was required. She threatened him by saying, “I’m going to call the police and tell them an African-American man is threatening my life.” After he welcomed her to do so, she called the police. She added a bit of hysteria to pump up the scenario, basically using the deep racial bias against Blacks as a method of gaining favor. Fortunately, the man recorded the event so that the woman wouldn’t be able to concoct a version of her story.
That’s happened to me — in Hollywood, in a popular bar off Sunset Boulevard. I was having a discussion with a white woman who claimed that Los Angeles had no culture. After I challenged her opinion to her embarrassment, she told the bartender that I was harassing her. Instead of clarifying the situation, the bartender, a white man, didn’t bother to ask for my side of the story. He immediately got in my face and told me to leave. I didn’t want to leave. I wasn’t doing anything wrong. The bartender saw my stance as an action of hostility and pushed me in the face. I couldn’t say anything. I felt like I was getting outnumbered and alone and no one would believe my story. Even my best friend — a white male — didn’t come to my aid. So I let it go and left. This is only one of many stories of this kind that I encounter.
All my life, I was just being American. I felt myself never being overly conscientious about my skin color. I never looked at myself in action, but I realize especially now, because of all the Zoom meetings that are part of our new normal routines, I see what people see. Of course I was regarded differently — I’m not white. I LOOK DIFFERENT. I ACT DIFFERENTLY. I AM DIFFERENT.
It’s confusing to stand out when I also feel invisible.
Vincent Chin’s appeals case was heard in Cincinnati in order to preserve impartiality. The prosecutor handling Vincent’s side was replaced for the appeals hearing in Cincinnati because the appeal court panel of judges thought he was biased since Ebens was found guilty of violating Vincent’s civil rights in the second hearing. Presumably, justice would prevail on the evidence presented because the truth is the truth no matter the prosecutor. But the jury in Cincinnati didn’t have the necessary conception about the dynamics happening in Detroit. They didn’t see the murder as racially motivated. Furthermore, I wonder if the prosecution handling Vincent Chin’s side of things had the necessary context to drive their efforts; the context needed to inspire the passion, the deep empathy, the connection needed to understand the plight of the Asian-American situation in Detroit. Or maybe to the prosecutor, the Vincent Chin murder was just another case. He was invisible to everyone.
When the case first broke out, I never knew about it as a kid. In fact, I don’t recall anyone talking about Vincent Chin in my town, even though Alhambra and surrounding towns had a high concentration of Asian-Americans. The entire story was invisible.
Working in Hollywood, I’ve often felt under appreciated and skipped over like I was invisible.
Mentorship was equally hard to come by for a Filipino filmmaker like myself, so I felt rudderless…I had no one on the inside to represent me. I had to make it up as I went along. I made many mistakes.
I recall a situation (of many) in the writers’ room of a streaming network comedy series in which a comedic line of dialogue in the script was flagged as potentially racist. As the only person of color at the table, I made my point known that the line wasn’t racist, but the writers and the producers didn’t regard my opinion. They took it upon themselves to determine that the line was racist.
I have seen a few of my peers with whom I started, most of them white, leapfrog over me into higher positions, all of them with talents no more special than me, except in the talent of obtaining access or being in the right social circles.
While in a TV directing diversity program sponsored by a major TV network — an attempt to open doors for directing opportunities since I ran into a thick glass wall through conventional means — I felt invisible and difficult to gain traction in the program because it felt like the gatekeepers scored more diversity points hiring women and Black people than when hiring Asian-American males. Mentorship was equally hard to come by for a Filipino filmmaker like myself, so I felt rudderless. I had to make it up as I went along. I made many mistakes. As a result, I didn’t muster many job opportunities. I had no one on the inside to represent me. I may have been categorized as a person of color from the standpoint of being qualified for the diversity fellowship, but in essence, I might as well have been a white male — but without the privilege.
Besides drinking the kool-aid, I struggled with my cultural identity.
I identify primarily as a full-blooded American. I was born in America, American English is my mother tongue and I celebrate American traditions.
I’m just enough American to be at the big table, and yet not quite American / white enough to be at the head of the table, or to know how to do that, because I wasn’t given the vital instructions on how to accomplish that, except in terms of acclimating.
It’s never generally assumed that I’m American. Typically, I’m asked, “What is your ethnicity?” to which I answer, “I’m American, but I have Filipino blood too.” Generally, I’m classified as Asian but with an asterisk.
Thinking in hindsight about my childhood, I wasn’t raised to be full-blooded American. I may have been American by day, drinking as much of the kool-aid as I could possibly swallow, but at night, I was raised with Filipino vibes. I had Filipino blood and didn’t intrinsically experience things the way typical American families did. Often during high school and in college, I felt deep shame when I fell short in my quest to be All-American. Like a kind of American imposter syndrome.
Most of my life, I was the only Filipino person in the room. In the Philippines, being totally surrounded by people who were culturally behaving similar to me, felt like an ease I had never felt before…is this what it’s like to be a white person in America?
Deep inside this American-made man is a Filipino soul that I’ve tempered for the sake of being “American.” I’m stubborn and fiery, a cultural aspect the way one might make the same generalization about Italians or the Irish. Frequently, I wasn’t allowed to show my Filipino spirit in the American assimilation, the way Blacks own their spirit or Hispanics and Latinos or Greeks bask in their cultural vibe. In too many occasions, my white superiors frowned upon my outgoing personality because they felt that I was acting out of diabolical self-interest. Out of respect, I elected to check myself, in a sense, to try and be more docile. There were also many cases, in which doing my very best — in regards to acting in the spirit of meritocracy — was also threatening to my peers or my bosses — in the Army and especially in Hollywood. Again, to keep the peace, I often had to dumb myself down. I had ambitions and dreams like everyone else. Why couldn’t I authentically pursue them the way white people did, the way black people did, the way Hispanics and Latinos did, the way Jewish people did?
I went to the mother country last December to visit the Philippines for the first time as an adult. One day, in a massive shopping mall in Manila, I noticed that hundreds of people, all in a normal everyday setting, looked like me. I started crying as I stood there in the middle of the mall. Most of my life, I was the only Filipino person in the room. Being totally surrounded by people who were culturally behaving similar to me, felt like an ease I had never felt before. Suddenly, another thought came to me. Is this what it’s like to be a white person in America?
And yet, I wasn’t quite Filipino enough. In the homeland of the Philippines, I was seen as a foreigner. They all saw me as an American. In my own family, I always felt adopted. Ironically, in America I’m seen as a minority. An immigrant.
It finally made sense why I struggled to find my true self. I thought I operated under an unequivocal identity of being American, but I was absolutely wrong. I was never allowed to be fully American, and as a Filipino person I wasn’t let fully in either. I suffered from cultural schizophrenia.
My closing thoughts.
Thirty some years since the seminal Vincent Chin case, some things have changed dramatically. Technology is dissolving the usual gatekeepers, foodies are into oxtail and Filipino fusion, and performers like Ali Wong and Jo Koy and the Korean movie Parasite have made it to the mainstream. But at its core, has America intrinsically changed since the 80s? Writing this piece a week before the countrywide protests supporting the Black Lives Matter movement in response to the police brutality and racism still prevalent in the country, I wrote an ending stating that America hadn’t changed one bit. It has been encouraging to see America looking at itself in the mirror more critically.
Will white people continue to prioritize the movement to proactively support Blacks and people of color when it intertwines and brings inconvenience in their personal and professional lives?
I’m impressed to see white America mobilizing in solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement to change the racial dynamics in our country. They’re reading seminal books on racism, showing up en masse at protests, posting messages and videos on their Facebook and Instagram accounts about racism and calling out their white community for their ignorance and lack of awareness about white privilege. Monuments glorifying well-known bigots and segregationists are being taken down. The Confederate flag is being eliminated at NASCAR. It’s a positive step in the right direction for sure. But when normalcy finally comes and we all go back to being preoccupied by our new regularly scheduled programming, will white people continue to prioritize the movement to proactively support Blacks and people of color when it intertwines and brings inconvenience in their personal and professional lives? Whether this country makes structural differences in its racial dynamics remains to be seen. I’ve made fundamental differences in myself.
I was angry for a while about drinking the kool-aid, because I felt manipulated for over forty years. That’s a long time having all that sugar in my system. Or like driving around the country all my life with the wrong map. Or like telling me that my dad who hated me my whole life wasn’t my real dad, and my mother knew but never told me my whole life, which if she did, could have relieved so much suffering and confusion and would have drastically changed my demeanor to be less defensive and less cynical.
I want to be clear that I am not blaming white people and white America for why I fell short in achieving my American dream. But as a Filipino-American who has been fiercely loyal to this country, I’m passing on that the playing field isn’t as equal as advertised.
But now, I’ve accepted that the American dream wasn’t the dream I was told it was, and I’ve accepted the choices I made to follow that dream. So now, a year after almost ending my life, I’m making major adjustments. Life is too short to not enjoy and maximize the fruits of the second half of my life, sans kool-aid. My days of being an All-American are over. I want to be the genuinely authentic me and be surrounded by genuinely authentic people and I don’t want to be limited by the glass shackles of America anymore. I am seriously done with dumbing myself down. I am done with diminishing my passion and my exuberance to make my bosses feel better about themselves. I am not trying to take your job? Why put a muzzle on me when I can go Mach 5 to execute the work AND save you money in the process? (Insert shrug shoulders emoji here.)
I’m expanding the circumference of my everyday neighborhood and community. I don’t want to be limited to Los Angeles, or America, for that matter. Heading to Paris to spend good quality time with my homies for a casual long weekend isn’t a big deal. It shouldn’t be. With all the driving time it takes to get around LA, the travel time for either trip is comparable.
The world outside of America certainly has its own warts and defects and yes, racism against Black people is rampant throughout the world. As a whole, however, I’ve found the world to be much more kind, empathetic, compassionate and wise– because they have centuries of world experience under their belt. In comparison, America is a petulant twenty-three year old, and it is imploding. America is an insatiable uber-capitalistic country obsessed with fame and social media followers. I’m still a big fan but I’m not confident that America can make the sweeping changes to be the culturally diverse country it professes to be.
White friends interested in changing the DNA of this country, let’s brainstorm.
First, If you feel a sudden surge to defend yourself, before you react, please take time to process what I wrote. Know I’m not blaming white America. I am merely communicating my experiences. I’m not alone in these experiences, by the way. And please don’t counter with the “but my other Asian friend didn’t experience what you experience.” Believe me, I negated my own experiences for a long time and wanted to kill myself about it.
Second, in your pursuit to make things right, do a deeper dive than just cleaning up the language or being politically correct. It’s great that you’re not saying the N word or that you’re not saying Oriental. But honestly, that’s just window dressing. It takes more that just being a hashtag activist about this stuff. Posting your views and videos on Facebook or Instagram is a nice start, so thank you for that, but here’s how you can do a deeper dive:
- Be daring. SHARE THIS PIECE with your friends. Have long-winded weed-induced discussions about it. Don’t solve the problem. Just continue the conversation.
- Make more connected friendships with people of color. Not just at work or for convenience because your kids are on the same basketball team. Invite us into your home. Get to know our cultures. We’d like to meet your family. And vice-versa. Experience and share each other’s cultural differences. Unlike on a television show, you can have more than one Asian friend in the same room. No one’s going to think it’s a fetish.
- When you see a wrong, stand up for your friends who are people of color. If you don’t know how to recognize the wrong, at least be someone who your friends of color can depend on to help listen about a wrong. You can start by sharing this piece.
- When you travel the world, get in the dirt. I’m not talking about experiencing expensive excursions where you get access to do an immersion with other well-to-do’ers or frolic in exclusive hotels away from normal society. Walk the streets. Talk to strangers. Observe. Experience other cultures as they are. Try the language. Acquire some local knowledge. The unknown is uncomfortable, but I guarantee, you’ll find some dope ass surprises. Being worldly is healthy. Y’all love Anthony Bourdain, so What Would Bourdain Do?
- Cultivate diversity as a holistic and intrinsic part of your life. Diversity shouldn’t just be a checking the box task or a marketing item. Or just a buzzword. It’s healthy and enriching and will expand you spiritually and creatively.
- Be mentors — but not in the “I’ll show you how to be one of us” way. Be more inclusive. And if people of color don’t quite have the muster yet, well, be patient. We could use some real help with the answers. We are in the generation of sharing. So share your secrets.
- Once again, “Asian” is not a race, it’s a census category. I’m not Korean, I’m not Chinese, I’m not Japanese, I’m not Thai. I’m Filipino. I like karaoke, I’m really social at parties, and I know how to dance. I was good at math, but not Asian good. I know, I just stereotyped myself. Calm down.
My Asian-American brothers and sisters, you are not off the hook.
I could write a book on the matters in which we conduct ourselves in our communally disjointed pursuit to live the American dream. In short summary, we must first do better for each other, so there’s that. Racism exists within the Asian community, and we need to tackle that problem. We have to be a stronger community with each other. Let’s stop competing against each other. Let’s take the time for each other. I know you’re busy with your own goals. But seriously, the lip service of galvanizing this community needs to change into something more substantial than just creating Facebook groups. Aside from selectively helping Asian-Americans who can in turn get you where you need to go, how much investment are you making towards unprivileged Asian-Americans to get over the wall?
As someone who makes many efforts to mentor young Asian-American people wanting to find success, particularly in the film business, I say to young Asian-Americans, DO THE WORK. This isn’t just a clichè or a hashtag that you post. Doing the work means you must suck it up and bleed and toil. You know what I find when I mentor? A lot of false bravado and being too soft that gets in the way of the prime opportunities that are floating like butterflies right in front of your face, gifts that your contemporaries from other ethnicities are happy to catch in their net. The mentality has to change ASAP, and I’d get into it in much more detail but this would be yet another book.
Let’s be more inclusive with white people just as we want them to include us. Let’s not alienate them out of our communities. Invite them in with an intrinsic intent. This isn’t just an Asian-American issue, it’s a human issue.
I’m not saying enough in detail about this aspect of “the movement,” but the piece is already much too long, so I need to stop here. More soon.
Anthony Ma, who was instrumental in bringing the story of Vincent Chin in my life and is proactive in the Asian-American community, said to me today, “We’re not trained as Asian-Americans to say we’re special.” He nailed it. Embrace that we are exotic and its ethnicities within the Asian community are distinct and unique. We need to take immense and extroverted pride in that.
And stop drinking the American kool-aid. Kool-aid is actually really bad for you.
Massive gratitude to Alle Hsu & Anthony Ma for their assistance with this piece.
Thanks for reading this article. Feel free to leave a response. I love reading the responses and happy to take time to respond or clarify. I’d appreciate the claps and a follow as it helps the article get to more readers from all over the world.
I’ve been writing a work-in-progress travel memoir about my struggles with depression in Paris called Inside Me Inside Paris, and I’m also writing about my tennis pursuits called Approach Shots. You can find me on Instagram as well.
