Underneath the Dust Jacket: Filipinos in America
“The book’s dust jacket is written in English, but the pages are written in Filipino. I don’t think you’ll be able to read it.”
A Filipino-looking bookstore manager in his late 60's said, as I was shopping for used books at San Francisco’s Union Square. Eager to somehow prove that I’m Filipino enough, I handed him a $20 bill, and spoke to him in Filipino.
He stopped me, saying, “I can’t speak Filipino. My parents were Filipino, but I’m not.”
“Where did a Chinese-American learn to speak Filipino? Did you grow up in Daly City?”
“I’m from the Philippines. My grandparents were Chinese, but I’m Filipino.”
The worn book I held, and that particular conversation, summarized my interactions with Filipinos in California.
I am that book. The chapters of my life are filled with memories of the Philippines, even if my dust jacket is transcribed in a multilingual transcription of English and Chinese. That complicated tapestry is in exact contrast to the bookstore manager.
Having been in the United States for two years, I’ve become curious about the gradients of Filipino identity in the country. On the surface, I feel an invisible, albeit shallow connection with Filipinos in California. Being a stranger in a foreign land forces community formation through common identifiers.
‘Filipino’ is an ambiguous term. ‘Filipino’ can pertain to having lived in the Philippines, having parents from the Philippines, or ‘looking’ Filipino. Being Filipino is used both as an identifier of place and of race, in ways that the term ‘American’ is not.
That ambiguity makes being Filipino a rallying cry for expats, immigrants, and international students yearning for community. It’s the reason why Filipinos love claiming certain American artists are ‘x% Filipino’, even if that term is meaningless.
That ambiguity also leads to a wide variety of experiences and identities.
The shift in mindset from being an expatriate to an immigrant carries permanence. Immigration means rewriting entire chapters and changing how your story ends, so all that’s left of the original story is your old dust jacket. You may need to have the cover reprinted too.
“Riche-Rich! Tell me, what do you miss the most about our home?” the cafeteria lady called out as we ate lunch together at our university cafeteria.
I met Filipinos in the United States with different backgrounds — overseas workers, recent immigrants, second generation immigrants. Patterns of Filipino identities emerged.
The starkest differences in identity come from how different Filipinos define their relationship vis-a-vis America. Whether they see themselves as an expatriate (including visiting students), or an immigrant. That self-declared identity plays an important, distinctive role in their mindset.
Work visas and immigration laws don’t give everyone a choice. But I am not referring to legal immigration status. I am referring to a personal choice:
In your heart, where is home?
Understanding this subtle distinction in mindset reveals two insights on the complexity of Filipino identity in America. First, that there are multiple Filipino identities. Second, that being Filipino carries two implications: place and race.
Expatriates define their sense of being Filipino through their lived experiences in the Philippines. They understand the challenges and realities of living and working in the country, and unearth the tiniest connections to remind them of home.
I met some of these Filipinos. They work all over the Bay Area. Our conversations involve rekindling old memories of home, and carving out a safe space to talk about our fears and insecurities. We talk about the temporariness of our great American adventures. We know that America is not the goal we work towards, but the means towards our goal.
“I work because I want my kids to finish college in Manila, and get a good job.”
That statement encapsulates the expatriate’s two dreams. The dream of progression, and the dream of homecoming. They are fueled by the hope of the eventual — to return. Back to the Philippines.
That is the version of Filipino identity I resonate with.
The Filipino yearning to learn and earn from America. The Filipino’s ambition for a permanent, triumphant return in the arrival gate of NAIA Airport. The Filipino who appreciates the marvels of Amazon, Whole Foods, and Doordash, but is willing to give all that up for a fantastic bowl of homemade sinignag, shopping in a palengke, and being with their family.
That is the Filipino identity that speaks closest to my heart.
And then there are Filipinos who introduce themselves with an asterisk. Qualifying either that their parents were from the Philippines, or that they were from the country but has since called America their home.
“I was originally from Pampanga, but now I live in Redwood City,” my Uber driver said as he drove me down from San Francisco to Palo Alto.
He has lived in the Bay Area for twenty years. He’s not been back to the Philippines since. He’s read novels written by F. Sionil José, and watched movies starring Fernado Poe Jr.. I knew these names only through because I often scoured through the shelves of my university library’s Filipiniana section.
His use of ‘originality’ implied both a recognition of his connection to the Philippines, and an admission that he’s chosen to move on. His chapters have been rewritten through the lens of America, and he’s kept his Filipino identity alive through old stories and his self-identified Filipino ethnicity.
The book’s dust jacket is written in Filipino, but the pages have been rewritten in English.
I did not feel he was any less Filipino than I was (he “looks” more Filipino than I do), even if our memories in the Philippines were a generation apart. Compared to expatriates, he talks about the Philippines with a stronger sense of idealism and romanticization — a stronger emphasis on the ‘good, old days’. He’s kept those memories alive through nostalgia, and preserves the beauty of those memories by suspending it in the past.
In some ways, I envy him — he treasures his memories of the Philippines more than I do. To him, these memories are precious and finite, with little chance of adding to them in the future.
Immigration shifts the affiliation of the Filipino identity from place to race. Migrating is not rejecting the past, it’s moving forward with the past in tow. You embrace what makes you unique and thrive in your new home, knowing the Filipino remains a constant part of who you are. The connection to the past is what binds together the global Filipino community.
Does it really matter why you identify as Filipino?
“Other Filipinos make fun of me and call me a fake Filipino.”
A friend was describing to me his experience during Filipino events. He was born in the Philippines but studied abroad, adopting habits and preferences that made him different from the “average” Filipino.
I wondered: What would happen if I migrated to the United States? I don’t look remotely close to what a Filipino “looks” like. Will I be a fake Filipino too?
It doesn’t matter.
The common thread that binds overseas Filipinos is their willingness to accept anyone into their community. For a culture that’s built with a diverse backdrop of ethnicities and languages, we’re already used to the variance of backgrounds and appearances.
The (sometimes exasperating) trait that leads Filipinos to brag that Bruno Mars is “50% Pinoy”, is the same trait that fosters inclusivity. It doesn’t matter why you call yourself Filipino, you are part of this global family if you want to be. Being Filipino is a choice.
And everyone acknowledges that choice.
Four months ago, I asked the organizer of a ‘Filipino-exclusive event’ whether I can bring my friend. He spent 3 out of his 30 years in the Philippines, barely spoke Tagalog, and looked Australian. The only thing he remembers about the Philippines is having eaten once at Jollibee.
I asked the organizer whether my friend counts as Filipino.
“If he says he is, then of course he counts.”
© Riche Lim 2020
