I want to talk about the culture of invisibility and silence around discrimination against Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders. There has been a roar of reawakened voices in the wake of horrendous attacks against 3 different small business owners in Atlanta that resulted in the murder of 8 people, 6 of whom were of Asian decent. This brutal display of American Racist Terrorism is yet another example of the multitude of ways that hate has taken root in the hearts and minds of so many Americans.

I am grateful to be alive in a time when so many people are reclaiming their voice, and raising their head in the face of discrimination and facing those that have been allowed to continuously spew hate upon others for generations.

Many of you may not know this but I am a 3rd generation descendant of a Doctor who immigrated to the US from the Philippines in the 1950s. He did not raise my mother, and I never knew him but his name was Ulysses Gonzalez and he died in 2013 without ever meeting me or my sister. Even without a relationship with him or the land from which he came, he lives on through my blood. The first time I saw his picture and the pictures of his children and grandchildren I’ve never met, was the first time I saw my mom’s face, my face, my sister’s face reflected in another’s. 

How could I name myself as other, when these people so lovingly choose to accept me as a part of them?

My whole life I looked different from those I called family. I saw myself reflected in my mom and my sister, but my face was not reflected in the loving gazes of the grandparents, aunts and uncles who helped raise me. I loved them and they loved and cherished me deeply. I learned early the honor of being a part of a chosen family. We were not bound by blood but by love and choice. “You do not choose your family” they say, but they choose me.  Somehow that was enough, maybe even better. And because of that gift, the silence around my difference grew. How could I name myself as other, when these people so lovingly choose to accept me as a part of them? 

But even as I pretended that this world was made for me, it was my imagination and my ability to rewrite stories to include me that gave me the strength and resiliency to thrive in the malnourished folds of multiplicity and diversity.

As a young mixed woman who did not have language to understand my racial experience or identity, I learned a multitude of ways of seeing myself in stories not made for me and in faces that looked little like mine. This ability increased my resiliency by allowing me to “fish” out the meaningful parts of stories that worked for me, or alter the dominant perspective to include me, while leaving the rest to be composted. This is a skill many people living under the pressures of oppression develop to survive in a whitewashed world of repression and forced normalcy.  I moved between the folds, walked in multiple unspoken realities, and shape shifted to fit into places not made for me. All the while unknowingly bridging the space between just through my very existence.

I often hid in a sea of silence and never spoke of the distance or the difference. I tried instead to find commonality, to find community. And so, as a white passing person, in an effort to belong, I folded myself into the seams of whiteness, disassociated from parts of me, and attempted to melt into the pot of homogeneity. But even as I pretended that this world was made for me, it was my imagination and my ability to rewrite stories to include me that gave me the strength and resiliency to thrive in the malnourished folds of multiplicity and diversity.

My spirit is wild and free and wants to sing loudly, dance freely, speak my opinions with conviction, run barefoot through the grass and occasionally be left alone to read.

As a Disney kid my favorite princesses were: Belle, Pocahontas, Jasmine, & Esmerelda. Each of whom I proudly emulated during at least one Halloween.  Growing up in the 90s, these were the princesses that looked most like me and held my values. Belle loved to read and was not impressed by the machismo, Pocahontas had an insatiable curiosity and a deep relationship with place, Jasmine was very outspoken, refused to marry, and had a pet tiger, and Esmerelda fought for freedom and danced freely in the street. Each of these women anchored me in my full power in a world that told me I could be a part of it, if only I would tone myself down, control myself more, and fit in. Each of these women gave me permission to be a fuller expression of the true me. 

My spirit is wild and free and wants to sing loudly, dance freely, speak my opinions with conviction, run barefoot through the grass and occasionally be left alone to read. However such colorful and wild expressions of self are not the way to blend into the sea of white fright. And so as I aged, I learned how to suppress myself.

And from that repressed place, I learned how to be the quiet and judgmental witness. I learned how to read the room before I spoke my truth. I learned how to laugh at my discomfort. I learned how to smile and nod instead of burning it down. I learned to conceal and show just enough of myself to give off the perception of wholeness. I learned to blend, to camouflage, to hide.

It was not until I visited Hawaii that I felt held and seen by a racialized community. Hapa is the term used to describe Hawaiians mixed with outsiders. It was the first time I had a word to hold my racialized identity. Our ancestry is from a different archipelago, but as my mom’s skin darkened from our days at the beach, more and more people read her as native Hawaiian. She held herself differently when we were there, like someone who wholly belonged. It was not until then that I even realized the way her energy and stance shrunk in the company of those who denied her the half of herself that was not akin to them.

I unknowingly learned how to shrink myself from my mother, who was never allowed space to be her full self. Making myself small and unnoticed kept me safe some of the time. But there is no hiding from bigotry. Those on the inside will always find ways to remind outsiders of their status. The question “how did you get so dark?” is not unfamiliar during the summertime. “She’s not your real grandma” was an easy blow for a pissed off cousin. “But you have white privilege” is a common reminder when trying to hold the mixtures that makes me whole. It became easier in many spaces to chameleon. I melded into many spaces and kept parts of myself invisible. I did not name myself and instead let others define me. At the time this felt empowering because I did not have to defend, prove, or justify my existence. In a world that is hell bent on civilizing the other, we sometimes have to choose our battles wisely.   

Everyone is a potential enemy when we fight wars between US and THEM.

When I was with my friends of color is when I felt the brutal fist of race based bigotry come down upon us all. The Oak Park Police loved to terrorize us. Adults loved to assume the worst. Even during our self defense class the cop tasked with empowering young women to protect ourselves had to flex his ability to terrorize me and make his power over me known. It must be named that this is an insidious and subconscious reason that people who can pass (for white) or those deemed “model minorities” distance themselves from our darker skinned brothers and sisters: as a protective factor or a way to hide from the most brutal acts of race based terrorism that are rooted in anti-blackness.

There is no hiding from racial terror. Many people falsely believe that whiteness is a shield against race based terrorism but there is not protection from that sort of hate, fear, and bigotry. Everyone is a potential enemy when we fight wars between US and THEM.

I have had adults treat me like I am inherently bad and act like others need to be protected from me. It is immeasurably damaging to the soul to have adults who are tasked with our care expect the worst and treat us like villains. I was targeted as the trouble maker, ring leader, and sexual deviant by many a youth leaders. That really fueled my mistrust for authority. 

The realization that the land of the free was actually the stolen land with a history of brutality, genocide, and enslavement awoke a rageful, righteous, and rebellious part of me that had been dormant. 

Part of being raised as a white passing person by mostly white people is that I expect to be treated with dignity and respect. I was fed the lies about equity in American and I was allowed to believe them for a good portion of my childhood. 

That is something that has not been the case for most folks of color in this country because racist hate and bigotry will not allow space for the felt experience of equity, dignity and respect for folks of color in most facets of this nation. Instead, youth of color are taught strategies to navigate and mitigate a racist world that will treat them like villains regardless of what they do. Many of these young people, including many of my friends, come to expect discrimination as a normal part of life. 

I however, like many white bodied people, are confronted later in life with the lies surrounding “dignity and respect for all.” The realization that the land of the free was actually the stolen land with a history of brutality, genocide, and enslavement awoke a rageful, righteous, and rebellious part of me that had been dormant.  If there is one thing that will set me off, even now, it is injustice and unfairness. Needless to say, I became very outspoken about that which I perceived to be unjust and that did not help my case when I was targeted as a ringleader and trouble maker. I was willing to stir up trouble if that is what it took to right a wrong. 

“What are you? You’re white, but like not white-white.” And I would tell them: “I’m Filipina” and they would nod in recognition.

In early highschool as a young adolescent trying to find myself, and not having ties to my own Filipina Heritage, I emulated Latina fashion of the early 2000s because I saw something of myself in them. This fine line I danced between appreciation and appropriation gave me space to feel a part of a community. I still remember how many of the Latina Moms of Berwyn were appalled when they gave me warnings or instructions in Spanish only to receive a blank stare from me. They would say with a look of concern and disgust: “your mom didn’t teach you Spanish?” while stepping closer to relay their secret message in whispered English. 

This was much of my experience. Of living in the space between. Of never really fitting, always hoping to find that place where I belonged. Presenting myself in ways that allowed others to see themselves in me so that I would always feel like I was a part of a world that was not made for me.

I can still remember how thrilled I was when someone  (often other people of color)  gave me space to name my fullness. They would say “What are you? You’re white, but like not white-white.” And I would tell them: “I’m Filipina” and they would nod in recognition. And while the question “what are you?” has gotten a lot of flack, that is one of the few times I felt seen in my wholeness. Ironically, it is other white people (and my own internalized shit) who have told me I am “not allowed” to claim my Pacific Islander Identity and name myself as a person of color. How nefarious these systems of oppression are. Constantly trying to keep us all in the shadows. Never fully embodied. Never in our true power. Never really free.

But here I am today stepping out from the space between.

I am Pinay. Tisay. Filipina. Mestiza. Mixed. Pacific Islander. Multiracial.

I am a Person of Color raised within the confines of whiteness setting myself free with the power of my story and my voice.

May we all find the courage, strength and determination to name ourselves into existence. 

Love to all those who have supported me on this journey!