Anonymous,
USA
Throughout my childhood I struggled with my identity as a Filipino American. I grew up in a predominantly white neighborhood where all my friends were white, and the only exposure I would have to being Filipino was with my family or visiting a Filipino restaurant on occasion. Over time I felt disconnected from the culture because I was never able to adapt to fitting in as a Filipino. I never learned Tagalog (the native language of the Philippines) and could barely understand my grandparents and other relatives who predominantly spoke that language. For instance, I would often times slow down my English just so that my relatives in the Philippines could understand how I was doing in school. Growing up I sort of tuned out the idea of trying to fit in, I grew accustomed to my learned helplessness and started to reject my heritage. I used to think that other Filipino Americans were weird for expressing their pride publicly, but who am I to say anything? I’m only doing this as a way of repressing my personal feelings and thinking I can never fit in with people like me. Bottomline is that I am trying to slowly overcome this boundary, expressing pride in what it means to be Filipino and get over my learned helplessness, so that in the end I can look back and tell my children and future generations to be proud to be Filipino like their dad
