2008 Woodie Awards
It doesn't really matter
what we are - sometimes
Kevin Rand
Issue date: 5/5/08 Section: Opinion
But what I didn't realize was, throughout this process, I was learning to fit in wherever I went. I was becoming a social chameleon.
I would visit New York with my family, and all of my dad's side was white, of course, so there was no need to be Filipino anymore.
Then high school rolled around, and I'd developed a tight group of friends outside of my own ethnicity, even though I still carried my childhood with me, just in case I had to be Filipino again.
Plus, I was getting older, more mature, I guess; so it didn't matter as much. I found new Filipino friends my junior year, and it was different this time. I think because we were older it didn't matter that I was half white.
No more, "white boy." And if any Filipino would've called me that, I would've stood up for myself, proudly.
But, really, it didn't and doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore because it just doesn't matter.
I still love rice. I love Nike Airs. I love my deceased Lola and Lolo. I loved their accents and their ways, how they treated me. I was their "apo," their dear child.
I walk around campus today, and it doesn't matter what I am. Most people probably don't even know what I am when they see me, and I really don't care.
I see Filipinos on campus, and it's different for me now. I still identify, but not as much as I used to. I "get it," sort of.
I get what it means to feel like I have an ethnicity - Filipino, Mexican, Indian or whatever.
I also know what it feels like to ignore my ethnicity, to just be whoever I am: that person who grew up with two totally different sides of the family.
I'm that kid who grew up on rice, the one whose dad hated the smell of fish when Mom was cooking. I saw cultures clash, almost every day, in my own house. I know nothing different.
None of us know anything different, but I know we're learning something: how to be ourselves.
We're learning how to be Filipino and white and exactly who we want to be on top of all of that.
I love my culture, but I love myself more.
I'll always be Filipino. This campus will always be Filipino, Indian, Chinese, Samoan, Laotian, Mexican, mixed, confused, gay, straight, preppy, emo, black, white or even "unknown."
It's all of those things, but we're learning to love ourselves even more than with whom we identify.
We won't stop celebrating. Akbayan will, and should, always be here. Today is Cinco de Mayo, and that should always mean something.
Our cultures, whether foreign-based or American-borne, mean something. But we're learning.
We're learning about each other and ourselves. We're learning how much our cultures matter and also how much we, as individuals and as a school or a classroom or a society, matter.
I am Filipino. I am white.
I am all of that - and more.
We are all of that and more.
I would visit New York with my family, and all of my dad's side was white, of course, so there was no need to be Filipino anymore.
Then high school rolled around, and I'd developed a tight group of friends outside of my own ethnicity, even though I still carried my childhood with me, just in case I had to be Filipino again.
Plus, I was getting older, more mature, I guess; so it didn't matter as much. I found new Filipino friends my junior year, and it was different this time. I think because we were older it didn't matter that I was half white.
No more, "white boy." And if any Filipino would've called me that, I would've stood up for myself, proudly.
But, really, it didn't and doesn't matter anymore. It doesn't matter anymore because it just doesn't matter.
I still love rice. I love Nike Airs. I love my deceased Lola and Lolo. I loved their accents and their ways, how they treated me. I was their "apo," their dear child.
I walk around campus today, and it doesn't matter what I am. Most people probably don't even know what I am when they see me, and I really don't care.
I see Filipinos on campus, and it's different for me now. I still identify, but not as much as I used to. I "get it," sort of.
I get what it means to feel like I have an ethnicity - Filipino, Mexican, Indian or whatever.
I also know what it feels like to ignore my ethnicity, to just be whoever I am: that person who grew up with two totally different sides of the family.
I'm that kid who grew up on rice, the one whose dad hated the smell of fish when Mom was cooking. I saw cultures clash, almost every day, in my own house. I know nothing different.
None of us know anything different, but I know we're learning something: how to be ourselves.
We're learning how to be Filipino and white and exactly who we want to be on top of all of that.
I love my culture, but I love myself more.
I'll always be Filipino. This campus will always be Filipino, Indian, Chinese, Samoan, Laotian, Mexican, mixed, confused, gay, straight, preppy, emo, black, white or even "unknown."
It's all of those things, but we're learning to love ourselves even more than with whom we identify.
We won't stop celebrating. Akbayan will, and should, always be here. Today is Cinco de Mayo, and that should always mean something.
Our cultures, whether foreign-based or American-borne, mean something. But we're learning.
We're learning about each other and ourselves. We're learning how much our cultures matter and also how much we, as individuals and as a school or a classroom or a society, matter.
I am Filipino. I am white.
I am all of that - and more.
We are all of that and more.
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