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What Filipin@ American Cultural & Beauty Standards Mean to Me
11:07 AMI recently came across this tweet by user @PoCBeauty asking people on Twitter to share support and encouragement towards those who share their racial or ethnic backgrounds.
As I was reading through many of these replies, I felt comfort in being able to identify with many of those who addressed Philippine and Southeast Asian cultural and beauty standards. Growing up in a less than traditional Filipino home, or Filipino American home for that matter, has definitely impacted my sense of identity not only as an Asian American, but as a Filipino American too.
Over the years, I struggled to find a community to identify with and relate to in a solid way, but I've definitely learned that I'm my own blend of culture, and not what these standards tell me I should be. Here are a few notions touched on in the thread that stuck with me:
Brown is Beautiful.
Skin tone was one of the topics that really hit home for me. Many women who were tweeting emphasized the acceptance and pride that we should each hold for our brown skin, that brown is beautiful, that we should be unashamed of the difference that our color takes in comparison to often lighter toned beauty standards of Western culture and other parts of Asia.
I spent a pretty extensive part of my life stuck in the middle of being either too brown or too mestiza to fit in. Being tugged in both directions of pressure from the predominantly white community I grew up in and my own blood, my aunts, Ninangs, my grandmothers, it took years for me to come to terms with how happy I was with my appearance, and to even accept what I really looked like.
Being held up to this mestiza standard was a double edged sword for my self esteem.
When I was a teenager, I was often told by people that I was too dark for an Asian, that my eyes were huge, that they weren't "chinky" enough. One guy I was dating told me I should try to smile with my eyes smaller more often because I was "prettier that way." Many of the people around me didn't know where or what the Philippines were, only that it was in Asia. With that, I was being held up to what they did know, East Asian stereotypes and standards. Although those standards were nothing like me, I was succumbing to them.
My family praised my racial ambiguity, my mestiza features, pale skin, my wide almond eyes - which was great and all, but it was almost too much praise; I was pressured to maintain or exaggerate my mestiza look. Whenever I'd go out in the sun, I'd be scolded even just for the possibility of getting too dark. I was gifted makeup far too pale for my own skin tone and told to "fix" my curly hair. Back in the Philippines, they even wanted to pay for a nose job to make my nose smaller and more "Westernized." The cosmetic surgeon brought me around the waiting room, asking each patient there, "She's beautiful, except for her nose, right?" then pinching my nose to demonstrate the changes she wanted to make to "fix my face." I was 15 years old.
Moving out after high school, everything took a different turn. For the first time in my life, people told me I was too pale to be Filipino. I was told left and right that there was no way I could be 100%, that I had to be a hapa of some sort, usually getting half white, or half hispanic. More than once, I was told by strangers to get a DNA test after I told them I was full. (I still don't understand why people feel the need to ask "What are you?" to perfect strangers).
It wasn't until I moved to college that I began to accept my glow. I got involved with the Asian American community on campus, and I was taken by surprise. I had never been with such a large Filipino American community in my life before, and although it was nice to be able to relate to a lot of them and feel closer to my roots, I learned that as a PoC, you don't need to fit perfectly into any one group. It doesn't matter whether people think I'm too dark or too light to be Filipino, because the bottom line is that I know that I AM Filipino. After I realized this for myself, my glow became what makes me beautiful, no matter whose eyes are seeing it.
All I gotta say is, stop calling us "exotic." Also, telling me you have "yellow fever" is not how you play the game.
Don't let your culture die with you.
Another idea from the thread is losing your culture after your generation. This is something very close to my heart because of my upbringing. I wasn't able to grasp a lot of my culture until I was much older and sought it out for myself.
My parents moved away from the Philippines at 5 and 12 years old, and spent their childhoods constantly moving to different countries, so their cultural ties are very diverse. My dad's Tagalog skills are limited because he stopped using it after he left the country; my mom's first language is Chavacano.
Because of this, I was only taught random Tagalog words as a child. I'm not able to piece together a sentence or pronounce words correctly for the life of me. My relatives don't make an effort to include my siblings and I in conversations, knowing that we aren't able to speak their language.
I don't know 'mano po' or how to speak to elders. I don't call my brother Kuya, or my grandparents Lolo or Lola. I didn't grow up watching TFC, and I can count the number of times I've been to Seafood City on one hand. I have a vague understanding of Filipino food from the few times a year I see my extended family. My mom cooks certain Filipino dishes on rare occasions, but usually Americanizes the recipe or adds some flare from her childhood living in Chile.
Being inept to pass on my culture to future generations of my family is definitely a real fear of mine. My older brother feels even less of a tie to our culture than I do and has no interest in even visiting the Philippines. This is a challenge I'm seeing in so many Asian Americans that I meet who are chasing their culture and trying to counteract their Americanized upbringing.
Learning about my roots and about Philippine culture from a secondhand perspective makes it difficult for me to even fathom what it would be like two or three generations down the line if somehow the possibility came about that they have no experience at all with their roots. I'm constantly struggling and striving to learn more about and understand my culture in order to maintain the traditions that got cut off a generation ago in my family.
My parents moved away from the Philippines at 5 and 12 years old, and spent their childhoods constantly moving to different countries, so their cultural ties are very diverse. My dad's Tagalog skills are limited because he stopped using it after he left the country; my mom's first language is Chavacano.
Because of this, I was only taught random Tagalog words as a child. I'm not able to piece together a sentence or pronounce words correctly for the life of me. My relatives don't make an effort to include my siblings and I in conversations, knowing that we aren't able to speak their language.
I don't know 'mano po' or how to speak to elders. I don't call my brother Kuya, or my grandparents Lolo or Lola. I didn't grow up watching TFC, and I can count the number of times I've been to Seafood City on one hand. I have a vague understanding of Filipino food from the few times a year I see my extended family. My mom cooks certain Filipino dishes on rare occasions, but usually Americanizes the recipe or adds some flare from her childhood living in Chile.
Being inept to pass on my culture to future generations of my family is definitely a real fear of mine. My older brother feels even less of a tie to our culture than I do and has no interest in even visiting the Philippines. This is a challenge I'm seeing in so many Asian Americans that I meet who are chasing their culture and trying to counteract their Americanized upbringing.
Learning about my roots and about Philippine culture from a secondhand perspective makes it difficult for me to even fathom what it would be like two or three generations down the line if somehow the possibility came about that they have no experience at all with their roots. I'm constantly struggling and striving to learn more about and understand my culture in order to maintain the traditions that got cut off a generation ago in my family.
Culture is more than skin deep.
Many on the thread also tweeted about embracing your culture, or each of your cultures.
This idea that culture is more than skin deep is something I wish I learned at a younger age. It's something that I feel is so important for PoC of all ages and backgrounds to remember, because the inherent cultures, stigmas and struggles of our people are so powerfully rooted in who we are today.
Looking back at my childhood, you could definitely say that I was heavily sheltered from the idea of race. I didn't even know I was Filipino until I was 10 years old after this kid at school kept telling me I gave him "yellow fever" so I came home and asked my mom where we were from.
The Filipino presence in my hometown is so minute that most people my age at the time didn't even know what Filipino was. My culture was overlooked and swept into an overgeneralized group - Asians, a group whose cultural and beauty standards vary so intricately between each individual culture within. The small group of Asian American kids who actually did live in my community was nothing but a struggle to fit into this generalized stereotype.
I think that growing up in a heavily Americanized household definitely hampered my cultural connection, however it stands as nothing compared to my pursuit of my roots. Brown is beautiful, but being Filipino American is much deeper than whether my skin tone satisfies those around me or whether I can correctly recite Lupang Hinirang on the first try. The culture is a community, and the bonds we build with those around us, the planes our parents flew across the ocean to start a better future, a better life, their decision to leave their family and birthplace behind only to land somewhere completely alien and try to learn new customs without forgetting their own, the moments in time 50 years ago that brought our family line to where it is now. Our culture is something that doesn't and shouldn't compare to the cultural generalizations of an entire continent.
To this day, I'm still learning new things about my family's history. Sometimes when time slows down, my dad will sit down and tell me about our family manor in the Philippines and the ducks my grandpa would raise, his memories as a school boy in Manila, about how my great grandfather shortened our last name from De Los Reyes upon arriving in America in attempt to make things easier. My mom talks about about the river she used to play near in Zamboanga, the chickens her dad used to prepare fresh from the yard, the note her dad sent with 6 year old her to the liquor store to buy cigarettes.
They'll tell me about the racial discrimination and slurs they faced when they first moved to America, about trying to make it in a place where not everyone supports immigrants rightfully calling this country home. Not even a month ago, I learned that my great grandfather was a Delano Manong, providing for our family as a farmworker for grape growers in a system working against its laborers.
I spent a long time trying to become more of what myself and others in my social circle thought was "Asian" enough in hopes of being accepted. I chased this falsity of an epitomized Filipino Asian American and simultaneously battled my American upbringing instead of embracing my own unique blend of culture. But what I've learned is that my own upbringing IS Filipino American culture. Filipino American culture is something in and of itself to be proud of and hold close to my heart, despite this degree of separation from Philippine culture that for so long I've seen as nothing but a setback. My American side is just as intrinsic to who I am as my Filipino side, and I just wouldn't be me without one or the other.
TL; DR
It wasn't until the past few years that I was able to grasp even a remote sense of what it meant to be a Filipino American, a first generation female citizen born, raised, living and thriving in America.
I'm definitely still learning what it means for me to be a Filipino American, and it's something I think will always be a dynamic journey, changing as both American culture and its relation to Filipino culture changes. However I think it's safe to say that I've definitely learned to embrace ME. Both my Filipino-ness and my non-Filipino-ness. My unique upbringing.
xx,
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