#personal***

growing up i always found myself in a grey area. i felt like i didn't really belong anywhere or with a certain group of people because of everything i was taught and told ever since i came to this country. (i was born in the philippines, my family came here when i was still young so i've spent most of my life here in the states, i had to learn english, etc.) most of my closest friends/friend groups throughout the years have been either east asian or white, and i always felt like the odd one out. it didn't help, either, that to white people i was "too asian", and that for my east asian friends, because i'm southeast asian, i "wasn't really asian". for the longest time i just accepted it. i thought that was just the way it was, that it didn’t make sense for me complain about it. for a while it even made me feel special.

but as a consequence, i started to resent my background, and everything about it. at first it just lurked quietly, but then i acted on it. i hated the way people said the names i've been given, so i let them give me whitewashed nicknames because it was easier for them. i changed pronunciations, spellings, all that. i hated the way i looked, so i dyed my hair countless times, practically drowned myself in skin-lightening products, and did everything i could to better fit into the western ideal of beauty -- as well as the western ideal of "asian" beauty, i.e. pale/petite/'cutesy'/whatever the fuck ‘kawaii’ shit white people fetishize. and i did all of that in the unhealthiest, dangerous, most self-destructive ways you can imagine. yet no matter how much i altered my appearance, it didn't help at all. i wasn't as pretty as the white girls, or the east asian girls. i still felt so left out from both groups. and it just made this feeling of alienation worse.

i still feel this now, sometimes. my groups of closest friends are still either east asian or white. and i never really bring it up -- why would i, i’m still the only filipina in all of these groups, it’s not like anyone would be able to relate. i mean, yeah, i have good friends now, who i can kind of talk about this stuff with (only the surface, really), but tbh that alone isn't going to get rid of everything i've felt and continue to feel. white people continue to butcher my name(s) even after i've corrected them several times. those who can't tell what my race is come up to me and assume what i am, or ask, as if they're entitled to that information. (or worse, talk to me in the language they assume i speak, like this white douchebag who assumed i could speak mandarin just because i ~look~ like the person who would know mandarin.) they ask me ridiculous, dismissive questions about my culture, be it our food, our language, through whatever limited scope they have about the philippines. white people will come up to me with questions about something related to asians as if i'm an expert, as if we're all the same. it's all so silly and so tiring. and i know i've still got years and years of this racist bullshit to deal with ahead of me. and that really scares me.

you see, growing up, i didn't have any filipina role models. no one to refer to or associate an image of my future success with. and i still don't. i hardly see any people like me on tv, in movies...in people’s stories, even in mine, in any story i might stumble upon here, period. on the rare occasion i do see asian representation in anything there is a 99.9% chance they are east asian.

i hate not having that sense of validation. i hate still having to explain why diversity is important, that white people will literally not think at all about this shit, and how much of a big fucking deal it is, until i slap them in the face with these discussions. (that's not a guarantee that they'll learn as a result of me telling them, or practice what they preach, of course. i just hope that they do.) i hate talking about this honestly and openly with people and knowing that they still don't get just how serious i am, or how terrible this is. i hate that to some it's just "feminist rants", as if i could detach my personal experience from said rants, as if the violence and pain mentioned in these rants aren't precisely the same violence and pain i go through. 

the anger you hear spilling out of my mouth -- why can't you understand that it ate away at my heart, first? maybe you get to point to a paragraph, an article, a gruesome picture, to reference this pain. me, i have to show you my wounds. all of them. and at the end of the day, you might forget about this. i can't.

a very recent example: on monday, two white guys on my bus talked to me. at first they just asked for directions but then they started saying weird invasive things so at first i just pretended i didn't hear them. when one of them asked for my name and i said it wasn't any of their business, they threw a racial slur in my direction. i was stunned and scared and so angry that i couldn't bring myself to say or do anything at all, except get off of that bus, and get home as soon as possible. that was hardly the first time i've been subjected to racial violence, but it worsened my already vulnerable state, and it just got me thinking about all this crap, all those times i've absorbed all the terrible things told to me, and fought back tears and clenched my fists and just said nothing because i didn't know how to say anything. besides, all it takes is for one person to tell you to simply "get over" something horrible for you to want to shut up about everything horrible that may come your way.

with time i've come to embrace who i am, and i no longer try to hide what is an important part of who i am, but shit like this really piles up over time, and it doesn't get any less lonelier. when you've been told and expected to be a good, passive, quiet little asian girl your whole life, and then suddenly have the spotlight turned on you when people want you to explain this shit to them -- calmly of course, "don't be so angry", "don't be sensitive", “god, why are you so loud and so bitchy for an asian girl?” -- how do you expect me to be anything but angry, how do you expect me to do anything but cry? not only for me, but for every single filipino girl who is going through the same thing, right now?

one of the points i'm trying to make in talking about this (other than just letting this stuff out for the sake of my well-being) is that so much of the alienation i’ve experienced -- and still experience, the same one that flared up recently -- has to do with my background. i can't exist apart from it, in the same way i don't have the luxury to be regarded without it -- i will never be seen as a person without my race being involved somehow, without the impression that my race governs everything i do; i don't have the privilege of detachment, of doing virtually anything without my behavior being linked to my status as a woman of color. and the toll that takes on my mental health is pretty fucking huge. (i haven't even gotten into how my bisexuality plays into this and how it's further troubled my attempts to get close to people -- i'll save that story for another day.)

it's odd, how many harmful comments i've let pass (and still let pass) from my friends, how many times i've felt excluded in an activity, a conversation, and said absolutely nothing. my silence still happens more often than i'd like. i know they mean well, or don't mean to, but their intent has no effect whatsoever on how i'll feel. the reason why i don't point these things out is because doing so would all the more make me feel like an outsider -- maybe if i just put up with it, it won't be so bad, it's not a big deal, etc. it's that kind of nonsense that has been drilled into my head for years and i'm still trying to get out of thinking like that. in the times i have brought this to their attentions, i usually regretted doing so. it’s not like i can expect them to cater to me, to act in a fashion that doesn’t close in on my insecurities.

it's always been a choice between asking for too much, or putting up with it and selling myself short. it's a real shame that the latter is so much easier. not comfortable, but easier.

and it's a really scary thing, when white acceptance is desired over the solidarity and the feeling of home within your own community. something like that takes a lifetime to unlearn, if at all. and i wouldn't wish that on anyone. so i know i have to keep talking about this, as hard as it is. 

sometimes the thought of putting together a more comprehensive, better thought-out version of every story i have to tell is tiring in itself, but if i don't -- who will? i know i definitely would have appreciated hearing about these things when i was younger. i might have spent less time hating the color of my skin, and embraced the way it looks in the sun instead. i might be able to speak my native tongue better, might be able to hold proper conversations with my mother in tagalog. i might have looked forward to my visits to the philippines instead of being so anxious about them. and i genuinely believe i might have had the chance to be a happier person.