Adulting Is Hard

But then I graduated from college into a recession—but I stayed optimistic & worked through it.

I saw the Twin Towers fall—but I stayed hopeful because I believed in my country.

I bought a house just before ‬the housing bubble burst—I but dug in my heels, confident the market would come around like it always did before.

And then I had a little boy. I watched him grow up as accustomed to school shooter drills and lockdown drills as fire drills. I review current events with him, somewhat impressed but mostly dismayed he knows the timelines and details of school shootings better than I do. I hold him tightly and try not to let on how terrified I am.

But then I hear him questioning the logic of some of our laws and talking about the policy changes that need to be made. I see kids of his generation standing up, demanding change. I watch these kids use social media intelligently to amplify their voices and drown out the propagandists and policy makers who try to ignore them in hopes they will go away.

“I saw the decade end,” Jesus Jones sang in 1991, “when it seemed the world could change in the blink of an eye.”

We’re 34 months & some change from the end of another decade. And when I look at Gen Z, I’m hopeful. Maybe Gen X didn’t change the world outright, but a lot of us brought into the world the people who will.

An open letter to this guy (& people like him):

Back off.

You don’t get to appropriate my culture & ID Filipino just because you love the people & food & music. (To that, of course you love the people bc, yes, we’re pretty awesome. Of course you love the food bc, hello, original Asian Fusion cuisine courtesy of centuries under Spanish colonization & US occupation following millennia of trading w China & India. And of course you love the music bc, DUH.)

You don’t get to appropriate my culture & ID Filipino without understanding & living with the baggage that comes with growing up a brown Asian in the US. As a Filipina, I’ve been told I’m “not really Asian,” that I’m “too dark” to be Asian, that the Philippines shouldn’t be considered an Asian country bc most of the surnames are Spanish. (I’ll take Results of 300 Years of Spanish Colonization for 1000, Alex.) In fact, I can’t think of any Filipinos with non-European surnames.

You don’t get to appropriate my culture & ID Filipino without feeling like you’re a stranger wherever you are because you’re too American to be able to really call the Philippines home but also not white so the current President of the US doesn’t consider you a real American.

You don’t get to appropriate my culture & ID Filipino without feeling—and being made to feel—noticeably out of place as the only non-white person in a room.

By all means, appreciate the Filipino culture. Enjoy the food and music and art and history and everything the Philippines and its people have to offer.

But you do NOT get to appropriate my culture & identify Pinoy until you’ve walked a mile in my Lola’s tsinelas.