I’m Using Food to Teach My Son What It Means to Be Filipino
When I was pregnant with my son — who I joke is half “New Jersey” and half Filipino — I used to think, How do I teach him how to be Filipino? How do I make sure he feels connected to a culture and a country he isn’t growing up in?
As a first-generation immigrant, I grew up thinking the opposite. I kept wondering how to make myself less Filipino, more American, more like everyone else, less “weird.” I wanted to fit in in the way that my classmates effortlessly did. I wanted to understand the country and culture in a way that was innate, not learned like it actually was. I wanted my mom to pack me peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and chocolate milk, not chicken adobo with rice and mango juice.
But as I’ve grown older and gotten more comfortable with myself, my identity and my citizenship, I’ve realized that being Filipino isn’t a liability. It’s who I am. I am Filipino and American. It doesn’t have to be either/or. And as I embrace myself and my culture more fully, I want my son to as well.
Because in knowing what “Filipino” means, I’m hoping he can embrace that as who he is, too. So that he doesn’t think of our culture as “weird” or outsidery, but as innate and effortless. To be a part of us, not separate.
I want him to understand where he comes from, how my culture shaped who I am, and how it will shape who he is. That’s not something I can explain through words alone.
So one major way I can think to teach and share this with him is through food.
Food is such an essential part of Filipino culture. A major phrase you’ll hear in a Tagalog-speaking household is, “Kain po tayo.” Let’s eat. Or, “Kumain ka na ba?” Did you eat yet? And even if the answer is, “Yes,” you’ll still hear encouragement to eat just a little bit more.
If you’re visiting Filipino relatives and going from home to home, you will be offered food at every door you walk through. (And if you know what’s good for you, you’ll take some and eat it.)
We celebrate through food — full roasted pig, lechon with crispy skin, an apple in its mouth, its delicious pork belly chopped up with a cleaver, ready for sharing hands. Pancit canton noodles cooked for long life and served with the noodles uncut, to make sure you get the longest life you can.
We mourn through food — comfort each other through a second helping of kaldereta — a tomatoey beef stew cooked with carrots, potatoes, bell peppers and olives. Or sit together, sharing bites of ensaymada — a sweet brioche-like dessert topped with butter, cheese and sugar — as we tell each other stories or try to make each other laugh.
We express our love through food — through the lumpia shanghai we spend time together filling and rolling around a kitchen table. Or through the arroz caldo we make when someone is feeling sick — the gingery rice porridge with chicken that always makes any head cold disappear.
We grow and learn together through food — through the way your mom will teach you to roll out empanada dough. How to put just the right amount of the ground beef, potato and peas filling, and then carefully fold the dough into a half-moon shape, twisting and folding at the edges to create a tight seal.
We find both our commonalities and differences through food and we can understand what region or island of the Philippines a family was primarily located in, just through the food they serve. The food of my father’s family in Bulacan is slightly different from the food of my mother’s family from Marinduque.
The tricky thing I find — and want to be sensitive to — is how to mix our cultures. I love American food as much as I love Filipino food. So then our meals become a manifestation of his mixed DNA on the plate.
He’ll eat both a tapsilog (beef tapa, itlog (egg), and rice) breakfast alongside a serving of waffles and syrup. Thanksgiving will be the traditional turkey and mashed potatoes with palabok and fresh vegetable lumpia. His third birthday party included both pizza and pancit. Dessert is both a Carvel cake and halo-halo (a crushed ice dessert with sweetened condensed milk, ube (purple yam), leche flan, and all sorts of other goodies). There’s room for both sides. For McDonalds and Jollibee. For apple pie and puto bumbong.
My hope is that my son will be proud of his Filipino heritage. He won’t shrink away from the chicken adobo I pack in his lunch alongside a string cheese and a juice box. He’ll tell his friends how delicious it is. “Here, take a bite,” he’ll say. Sarap kumain. Kain po tayo.
