From Manila, to Chicago: Part 2

I remember a boy named, Raul, a Puerto Rican.  A smallish boy – a gangbanger – he had a clutch of boys in the neighborhood.  Thankfully, I was never part of this.  But, curiously, he took a liking for me.  He sort of came into my circle. (Well, not really, as I had no circle.)  For instance, I’d go home for lunch, then he’d come by our apartment building and wait outside for me so that he could walk me back to school.  Somehow I felt safe and proud to be friends with him.

Raul wasn’t a very bright boy.  This, mixed with a troublesome nature, made him the butt of even the teacher’s awful jokes and derisions in class.  “Raul, you have no class!” 

So, there it was, I understood it.  Without his ever demanding anything of me, I helped him with his schoolwork.  The stuff of friendship.  I got the protection that probably helped me stay out of trouble, in countless, unknown instances.  He got a better footing with his academics. 

         

Again, not much talking about it, Raul and I learned lessons for a lifetime. 

*

“I’m gonna kick your ass!” was so effective.  Yet, so ineffective at the same time. 

More than 40 years have passed, since those fateful first months in Chicago, I have very rarely been slurred upon by others.  Maybe it has to do with the toughness and confidence I’ve kept building up over years.  Maybe it has to do with the several relationships and circles I’ve chosen to put myself in.  Maybe it has to do with my smarts.  Who knows.

You see, here’s the thing.  Jap and Chink still reverberate within me.  Why?

Filipinos, by and large, don’t have very strong self-esteem.  Today we’re spread around the world, but more often than not, you’ll find us to be more deferential than assertive, more serving than commanding, more friendly than tough-ass.  Why?

For centuries, the Philippines was under colonial rule – by the Spaniards largely, but the Chinese and Americans figure prominently into this.  The northern part of the Philippines was their stronghold, and they came in when the economic and social fiber of development was still in its nascent stages.  More than just neglect to build the economic foundation of the local people, they actually dismantled it!  For example, Chinese merchants got small-time farmers to sell rice, below its value.  Then, in turn, they sold it at above this value.  

Imagine cutting off a baby’s feet, before he can even walk! 

That’s what happened.  We were duly servants in our own home.  Invisible, in a similar vein as author Ralph Ellison posed the Black American.   

Yes, by the late 1800s, the ongoing stirrings of rebellion in the country led to the formation of a national identity (albeit roughshod and patchwork).  The Philippines gained its independence.

But still, why is our self-esteem generally still low, more than a hundred years later? 

My take on this:  This bit about independence is a pipe dream.  The 1900s was the era of the Americans.  Their sheep’s clothing was liberator, which hid the wolf of oppressor underneath.  More powerful than the Spaniards, I believe, the Americans entered our brain (e.g., through books and TV) – and planted themselves within our tongue (i.e., through language, Filipinos became one of the best English-speaking Asians in the world). 

The Americans more or less left.  But I argue that we are still an oppressed lot.  By whom?  By the longtime wealthy, powerful families in politics and business.  You learn not to mess around with them.  Because if you do, you’ll see that corruption is the least of your worries.  You literally put your life in danger.  My parents must’ve known this.    

I challenge any of my kababayan (fellow Filipino) to win me over with the notion that Filipinos are independent.  He or she will fail.  Today we are still under colonial rule. 

*

Shame is a powerful social, behavioral tool in Philippine culture.  It’s a way to command obedience from children by parents and teachers – and from everyday citizens by those in power.

In fact, oddly enough, to feel shame was a sort of badge of honor amongst Filipinos.  So much so that for a child to be scolded with walang hiya (shameless) was doubly shaming! 

For a non-Filipino, this can be a maddening, twisted thing.  I’d agree.

Jap.  Chink.  This made me profoundly ashamed. 

The slur wasn’t even the fucking right nationality!  How odd and cruel can children be.  Damn it, didn’t they know I was not Japanese or Chinese.  It was as if I didn’t deserve the honor of being kicked in the gut with my own nationality.  Instead, it was like having my gut ripped out of me!  More than just invisible, I was now hollow. 

Talk about self-esteem.  Walang hiya.  Talk about shame.  How deep can you go with your nth power? 

Jap.  Chink.  Oh, I can forgive.  But never forget.  

*

Note:  A version of my article was posted on Relativity Online.  

From Manila, to Chicago: Part 1

Jap. 

Chink.

I was 9 years old and newly arrived in Chicago. Jap. Chink. Racial slurs for Japanese and Chinese, that’s what some kids at school called me. Something to do with my squinty eyes.

My new Philippine passport (1968)

America was virtually a Shangri La for a Filipino boy – the “Land of Milk and Honey.”  America was flowing white and brown.  I also understood the figurative meaning of the phrase.  So I set about to list all the toys and clothes I wanted, because in America I could have whatever I wanted to have.  Heady stuff, for a little boy.  I tried to get my sisters (6 and 4 years old) and brother (5 years old) to create their own list, but they noted only a handful of things.  “You can have more, you can have more,” I urged them. 

By most accounts, we had a good life in the Philippines.  Both professionals – Mechanical Engineer and Pharmacist – my parents had a house built in Parañaque, southwest of Manila.  So we lived a middle class suburban life, and accordingly I went to the well-to-do, Catholic all-boys school of St. John Don Bosco nearby.  What’s more, we had two housemaids living us and taking care of us. 

My parents, though, had a sense of a future not looking so bright at all.  The 1960s was the presidency of Ferdinand Marcos, and economically and politically they felt that trouble was afoot.  I never knew how or when they began to plan our departure from the Philippines, but in 1968 my father’s two sisters and their families left from America in May.  We followed suit in September.  In 1972, President Marcos declared martial law.  Foresighted, my parents?  Surely.

*

I was a shy but playful boy on the westside of Chicago, where there were many more Latinos than Filipinos.  Autumn cool was already in the air, and there seemed to be more cloudy days than I remembered seeing in the Philippines.  It was ideal weather, regardless, for recess in the playground. What goes on in the playground was a microcosm of what was to come for us children.  All that made living delightful was there – the running, the climbing, the jumping.  Play was an entire language for us.  No need for words, really.  The groan from exerting on the monkey bars.  The screaming laughter from some sort of chase.  The soft thud of falling down.

Jap.  Chink.  In the playground, I soon learned to retort, “I’m gonna kick your ass!”  My older cousins taught me that, as they, too, were subjected to such slurs.  “I’m gonna kick your ass!”  I kept saying it, until it stopped feeling awkward and stupid to say. 

*

Life in Chicago was a far cry from our spacious home in Parañaque.  For the first few months, we were amongst three families living in a three-bedroom flat.  The three sets of parents – mine, my two aunts and their husbands – each staked out a bedroom.  We children – a total of 14 in the household, with a wide range in age – mostly slept on the living and dining room floor. 

It was fun for a while, but the cramped quarters led a couple of us cousins to fight amongst ourselves.  Never mind the other kids at school. 

“I’m gonna kick your ass!”  Remarkably it must’ve worked.  Soon thereafter I heard Jap and Chink very little.  Shy or not, I saw clearly that there was value in being tough. 

*

But better than being tough, I found that the real ticket into social circles and approval was my academics.  I was a smart boy.  I came to learn that Philippine curriculum was more advanced than that of America.  There, children go from elementary school to high school – that is, from 6th grade to high school.  In America, there were 7th and 8th grades to navigate, before high school.  So, instead of 18 years old, many Filipinos are in the university at 16 years old.  So the curriculum, from early on, was geared along such a timeline.

Cool, totally cool.