“Naiitindihan mo ba?” my relatives ask. Do you understand? To which I always reply, “Conte lang!” with a grin on my face, proud of myself for knowing a whole two words. Just a little.
For a moment, we both laugh. After all this, my relative does a quiet shift in gears, a silent process in their brain that marks me as an “American.” Thankfully, it's usually never a struggle, and the conversation transitions to English. “Good!” they lie.
You see, it's always the same. That’s why I’m an expert on the script. Plug in a different aunt, maybe an uncle. Change out the scenery for my family’s annual Christmas party, with second cousins I can’t count, or the house my mom grew up in, with my Tito Freddy. Sometimes, I try to fake it, with my knowledge of maybe 20 or so words. Tito for uncle. Tita for aunt. “Thank you so much, Tito! I am still learning,” I say. But when I try to use the words, they just don’t sit in my mouth. My own tongue laughs at me.
Recent conversations around language and ethnic identity are about how there isn’t one without the other. For example, Chicana writer Gloria Anzaldua wrote “Ethnic identity is twin skin to linguistic identity—I am my language.” The essence of Anzaldua’s words is that one’s language is key to one’s legitimacy, an inseparable part of your being. But if I apply this to myself, that would mean I am nothing. Nothing more than my English. Nothing close to the Filipino blood flowing through me that I want so badly to claim for my own. Thankfully, my biculturalism is defined differently from Anzaludua’s—extending beyond language.
Yes, I agree with Anzaldua’s position on the importance of language and voices, however, I cannot accept her definition of ethnic identity that neglects people like me who have lost their mother’s tongue. It is not solely Anzaldua that has expressed that one must be able to speak their own ethnic language; I’ve also heard it in the doubts and insecurities of my own mind. The shame we bicultural, monolingual people feel is common, much more common than I would like, and this perception fails to see us as the multidimensional, complex human beings that we are. As a Filipino-American, I may live an ocean away from the Philippines, but my home and heart is rooted in my culture. I am so much more than just language.
To fully understand my context, we have to start from my beginning. I am the only girl, the baby girl, forever different in so many ways from my three older brothers. They were born in the Philippines, mere blocks from the houses where my grandparents never left. Me? I was born in California, an ocean in between. Already feeling robbed of this connection to the islands, it’s always been a big question in my life: Why didn’t my parents teach me Tagalog?
When I asked my mom this question, she told me they were scared. Scared of me being held back in any way or form, either by an accent or in the slightest sign that I couldn’t compete academically with my peers. It’s one of the few things my parents agreed on easily. Better safe than sorry. Even though I heard the reasons many times, I was confused. But whether I understood or not, I had no say in the matter. By the time I asked my mom to teach me Tagalog in the fourth grade, the damage was already done. My parents tried to immerse me by talking to me like you would a two-year-old child, but it was all noise. Like a familiar melody that you can’t quite make the words out to. I was frustrated and angry—but whether I was angry at my own tongue or my own parents, I didn’t know.
Now that I’m older, I think I understand why my parents went out of their way to make sure I was going to have “good English.” The decision was rooted in the immigrant mentality I’ve come to know so well, witnessing it driving so many of my parents' decisions and sacrifices. It’s the mentality that brought us to sunny California in the first place, the driving factor that brought about, perhaps, my entire existence. If it meant the two vital words—opportunity and success—my parents would do anything. The fear of suppressing my future outweighed all and any doubts of me losing touch with our culture. My parents had already left behind their families, their careers, and their communities. In comparison, language was, quite frankly, a small price to pay—especially when English is as widely understood in the Philippines as Tagalog.
Nonetheless, this assimilation contributes to the growing psychological, geographical, and cultural distance between bicultural generations and their roots. To combat this, there are certain bridges that Filipino immigrants use. Growing up, there were these cardboard boxes that my mom would fill to the brim and send to the Philippines. Balikbayan boxes. You could put anything, and it would be Christmas in July. In this magic box, my old t-shirts and pants, my brothers’ used toys, and Colgate toothpaste turned into gold. For Filipino Americans, Balikbayan boxes serve as a tool for solidarity and maintaining communal bonds—a concrete source of connection and support that ties migrant families to their previous, current, and future generations.
In fact, it is the duty of those who migrate to send these Balikbayan boxes back home. Even when you don’t have much yourself, you are expected to give what you can, especially with the thought of family that is worse off. Sometimes, it would take my mom up to two years to save up enough items to justify the delivery cost of one box, but she was patient. Carefully, my mom would stack the items like Tetris, trying to use every spare inch. She would call me over to sit on the box, using my weight to compress the overflow. Each time, one by one, she would write the names of each of my cousins, Titos and Titas on a piece of tape, separating exactly which pasalubong was meant for who. Souvenirs. I would imagine their smiles when they open the box and their name is literally written all over it. Their happiness is our own.
Another way we stay connected is by remembering our stories. Like threads weaving together, the stories of my parents, my grandparents, and my great-grandparents form the fabric of my heritage. By following these intertwined threads, I am able to trace the stories of my past and use them as a reservoir for connection, strength and resilience. For example, I have only met my grandmother once, with all my memories with her existing only in blurry snapshots. Because of this, I know her best through the stories my dad tells me, in the gentle way he describes her caring heart and courageous mind, and now that she has passed away, I cherish these stories more than ever. My parents did not give me language, but they gave me the gift of stories.
Thanks to my parents’ teachings and actions, I feel connected to my Filipino culture. Like most Filipino kids, I grew up on my mom’s home-cooked adobo chicken and sinigang soup, and my family has Pancit Canton in our cupboards and rice pumping in our veins. It's the countless little things that mark my history and upbringing that undoubtedly identify me as a Filipino. Catholic mass every Sunday, the way my parents made my name by combining both of theirs—even the shape of my nose that persists in our DNA. So despite not knowing the language, despite the experiences that lead me to doubt my legitimacy as a Filipino, I do not let myself feel like nothing for more than a moment—my stories and background, soaked in our Pinoy culture, serve as evidence that I am, indeed, Filipino. I am proud to be who I am, a 17 year old Filipino-American girl who is not just one or the other. I am both.
This is not to say that being bicultural is simple. To this day, there are still moments where I feel distant. When my mom speaks Tagalog, she feels at home, no matter where she is. My mom has switched to Tagalog to talk to my friends in the car, disregarding my lack of understanding and leaving me stuck in the front seat, silent in discomfort. Other times, my mom is loud, making jokes, and I cannot understand the punchline. It's true: I am different. But instead of a source of insecurity, these moments serve to remind me that I have already suffered certain costs of assimilation—and I must fight before I lose any more. Being bicultural is a way of living I must continue for the rest of my life, fighting to keep the Filipino culture forever in my heart and mind.
That being said, there are a lot of people like me, this new generation who has questioned where they belong. This feeling of floating, not being rooted in one single identity, will only increase in the next generation. How can we resist this? Odds are, I won’t be able to teach Tagalog to my own children. However, I will pass down what I do have: what my parents taught me and what their parents taught them. Stories, family, and giving. These three are part of the spirit of what it means to be Filipino that I will gladly pass on to my children. The sounds of Tagalog may not sit on the tips of their tongues, but I will teach them how to speak our culture with every inchof their body.
About the author
Muriel is a Filipino-American who like cats, carpool karaoke, and warmth. (e.g. hugs, hot chocolate, and sunlight) She hopes to remind anyone she can that they're not alone.
Description
The "In Between Dilemma" is my story of coming to terms with being monolingual, discerning if I've already lost some invisible battle or if I still have power to fully claim and engage with my culture and Fil-Am community. At the time of writing this, I was in a writing class examining work by Gloria Anzaldua, a scholar of Chicanx theory and feminist theory. Although appreciating her resistance and work, I could not relate to her definition of language and biculturalism. I decided to respond and explore this tension between our realities and upbringing.