Spoons, Forks and the Cultures that Use Them

When I was 18, I worked at the Times Square Swatch megastore as a cashier. I was the only Filipino and only Asian there, and once in a while, I would come in with some baon from home for lunch. One night, I had some sort of fish and rice deal courtesy of my mom, which I eagerly dug into—with my spoon and fork. One of my co-workers looked at me with the most puzzled look, as if I was eating duck fetus or something (what was this, Sunday?).

"What?" I said.

"Why in the world are you eating with a fork and a spoon? And where's the chopsticks?" she asked.

This was the single most ridiculous question I'd ever heard, and not because of the (totally forgivable, honestly) cultural misconception about Pinoys and chopsticks. I replied with what I thought was an equally ridiculous question: "You never seen anyone eat with a fork and a spoon? Hahaha."

Hahaha indeed—but the joke was on me. This was my first foray into the world of having to explain eating habits that I assumed were universal. The fork's the broom! The spoon's the dustpan! But as my co-worker started calling the attention of other employees to look at me eating with both basic utensils simultaneously, I began to realize how alien and unique the Pilipino eating style is to the mainstream.

And, as we know, it doesn't just stop with the shovel-spoon. There's kamayan, the hand-eating technique employed by most of the developing world, but which has such a codified set of steps in the Pilipino culture that it might as well be considered an art form. But perhaps more defining is our lack of chopsticks.

Since the Detroit murder of Chinese-American man Vincent Chin in 1982 for being mistaken as Japanese, the countless Asian immigrant communities in America have undergone a reactive transformation, a social merger that has proved less polarizing and, quite frankly, beautiful. The decades since have seen the emergence of the term "Pan-Asianism": No longer are we simply Chinese, Koreans, Filipinos, Vietnamese, etc. in the eyes of mainstream America. We can collectively call ourselves Asian-American, and very proudly. It's something that could only have happened in the environment that the United States creates for immigrant groups. Despite differences between countries that are sometime stark and prejudice-inducing back in the Far Eastern mother continent, the world's largest and most diverse demographic has found a united identity in this term.

For better and for worse. Pan-Asianism has introduced a subconscious sharing of relatively small details with origins in individual cultures. Boba, originating in Taiwan, has become an Asian drink. Lucy Liu, Harry Shum Jr and Andrew Yeun aren't just Chinese and Korean actors, they're Asian. It's become vogue (and then not vogue, and then vogue again) to have Asian Fusion food—an amalgamation of the best things about all these culture's taste buds.

And while much can be said about the Filipino's rising image in this as well as mainstream entertainment's milieu—as dope as it is—it's important to remember and appreciate the little things about Pilipino culture that set us apart. The double utensils, the hands, and the chopsticks.

Well, the lack thereof.

Photo credit: Live in the Philippines

What I Learned About Spirituality from My Grandmother

One of the first things I learned in life was how to pray. My grandmother, who was my main caretaker, taught me the basics of the Catholic dogma as soon as I could speak: the Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary. As I got older, my parents enrolled me in a Catholic school where I spent ten years of my young life, mostly in rebellion against the very practices I was being taught. My mother forced us all to go to church on Sundays, which I despised, on top of going to evening confirmation classes in my last year at the Catholic school. I felt at the time that religious practice was filled with hypocrisy. I would see families gathered together in a forced fashion for an hour, much like mine, pretending to be devout followers of the lessons of peace being preached, only to be cursing at other drivers trying to leave the church lot in haste. An hour in the church did not feel like it was enough to be genuinely in touch with your higher power. It bothered me. I began studying other religions and modes of spirituality in my teenage years. It wasn't the idea of God that I was against, but I needed a practice that would work for me. I always knew that the Philippines’ deep-rooted Catholicism came from its colonial history with Spain, but I began to wonder what came before it. I looked high and low for what Filipinos may have practiced before Catholicism, but I didn’t come up with much. In the meantime, I became very attracted to Pagan spirituality for its secrecy, its mystical nature, its spiritual practices that didn’t seem forced and its rituals that were not bathed in pageantry.

But all along, if my grandmother invited me to pray with her at home, I never hesitated to join her. She is a deeply devout Catholic, yet something about her spiritual practice resonated with me. She never questioned my rebellion or reminded me about church and because of that, I never argued with her about spirituality. Instead, I followed her lead. She would offer simple wisdom in Tagalog: “If you feel troubled, talk to God. Come and pray with me.” I would sit quietly with her and watch her light a candle, take a rosary in her hands and close her eyes. She said nothing aloud, nor forced me to say anything. It was beautiful to just watch her, and wonder what she was thinking, or saying to God. I couldn’t help but notice how similar her practice was to some of the Pagan rituals I'd researched.

Later in life, no matter how much I tried to deny my religious upbringing and break away from my family’s spiritual identity, I found myself practicing the same things as my grandmother. Away from my family in college and confronted with bewildering new situations, I began trying to talk to God on my own. I stopped going to the church, but my practice continued, quietly, in the peace and privacy of my own mind.

Nowadays, I don’t subscribe to any religion, but I feel I’ve found my spiritual practice, and it takes the same form as the practice my grandmother and I used to do together at home: a quiet meditation and a one-on-one conversation with the powers that be. It’s helped me get through a lot of difficult situations when I've felt that there is nothing left for me to do but go back to that quiet place in my mind and heart. I no longer feel like I need to rebel against Catholicism and the Church anymore - I see that it enabled me to seek my own truth and opened me to the possibility of something beyond what's tangible and logical. I understand now that spirituality is more than just a religion, but something deeply personal that transcends man-made rituals and practices. It’s incredibly life-enriching to find and create a spiritual practice, if you can allow your mind and heart to go there.

Does Your Skin Tan? And Other Mestiza Musings

My mom is a 5’1" Pilipina with black hair and dark brown eyes. My dad, an Irish American, is her physical antithesis at 6’1 with red hair and blue eyes. When people first meet my parents, or figure out that I’m of mixed heritage, they usually tell me how lucky I am. They say something about how they love exotic-looking babies. I hear that I'm a mestiza, "the best of both worlds." What most people don’t realize is that these comments make me feel like caricature, a biracial “china doll,” a "halfie." Rarely do biracial people get acknowledged as our own minority group, and because of that, not many people are aware of the unique challenges we face.

I grew up in an area overflowing with diversity. Puerto Ricans, Pilipinos, West Indians, Irish, Italians, Haitians and many other ethnic minorities cohabitated in my community. However, as assorted as these groups were ethnically, there weren’t nearly as many interracial families and naturally people were curious. I often got questions like, "are your eyes real?" "Does your skin tan?" "Do you prefer to date Pilipino or white guys?" "Do you want your kids to be white?" I was always hesitant to reply because I couldn't understand why others felt so comfortable asking me these types of questions when we barely knew each other. People wanted a genuine answer, though, so I forced myself to think of everything from a racial perspective. And when I was asked with which race I identified more, I couldn't help but interpret that question as them asking which parent I preferred. Thus, my parents had become more than just my father and mother; they were representatives of their cultures.

Before we moved, my dad had a particularly hard time living in our neighborhood. He was a close friend to all our neighbors and his coworkers, but working at a bank as the only white guy made him the minority in a neighborhood where about 20% of the population was below the poverty line. He was often disrespected, an out-of-towner who stuck out. As stressful as that was, what really seemed to upset him was coming home to an apartment full of my mom’s parents, siblings and visiting relatives and hearing the room hush the second he stepped foot through the door. The family members who didn’t know him very well would greet him in polite, quiet English but they wouldn't continue speaking until after he left. I didn't think anything of it at the time but once, when it was just the two of us, my dad looked at me with sad eyes and asked, “Do you think your mom’s family doesn’t like me?” What was hard for him to understand was that because English was their second language, they were too embarrassed to speak it in front of him and because he only knew conversational Ilocano, he couldn’t participate in their conversations in Bisaya. What was simply shyness on their part was misconstrued as neglect and indifference.

I find my father’s story important in my journey to finding identity as a person of mixed race because that was the first time that I truly realized that 1) there was such a thing as race and 2) being too concerned with race will often lead to inaccessibility and despondency. For years, I was trying to identify only with my Pilipino side simply because I thought I needed this metaphysical home that I felt having one race would give me. In college, I got very involved in Pilipino organizations on and off campus and learned so much not just about the culture but our place in a global society. What I started to notice, though, was that I spent my free time almost exclusively with other Pilipinos and that realization reminded me of how my dad felt whenever my family would isolate him. I began to wonder: outside the confines of my family's apartment, could others interpret cultural differences as neglect and indifference? In other words, by surrounding ourselves completely with our own ethnicity, were we spreading the idea that “Mabuhay” was only meant for other Pilipinos?

Being biracial has caused a lot of self-analyzing and confusion in my life but now, at 22, I think that what I’ve learned to understand most is that racial identity is no longer important to me. Though I still think preserving culture is imperative, I no longer feel obligated to categorize myself, or adjust my personality based on my appearance. I love my heritage on both sides: the cultures, the history, and the people. More than anything, I love that the world has more than two cultures to offer me.

UniPro's The Vagina Monologues: Breaking the Maria Clara Image, Indeed

Moans, writhes, orgasms … it wasn't your typical UniPro event. On March 9, UniPro hosted The Vagina Monologues: Breaking the Maria Clara Image at Cap21 Studios. Based on interviews with real women, The Vagina Monologues is a play by Eve Ensler featuring hilarious, heartbreaking and uncomfortable confessions from different women about their, well, vaginas, relating to their personal stories of femininity and sexuality.

UniPro’s The Vagina Monologues production starred an all-Pilipina cast, with a special Pilipina twist added to parts of the script. In one monologue, for example, a “lola” ashamedly discussed her “down there.” Then at the end of the play, the cast stood side by side onstage, taking turns to share disturbing facts about victims of sexual violence:

"One in three women on the planet will be beaten or raped in her lifetime. That’s more than one billion women living on the planet today."

"The NDHS revealed that one in five women aged 15-49 has experienced physical violence since age 15."

"One in ten Filipino women aged 15-49 has experienced sexual violence."

Following the play was a panel of representatives from various women’s rights organizations. These distinguished women included Ivy O. Suriyopas, Director of the Anti-Trafficking Initiative at AALDEF; Kristina K. Joyas, a member of AF3IRM (and UniPro’s Director of Staff Development); and Zarah K. Viñola, Vice-Chairperson for FiRE. They discussed ways their organizations are tackling issues that affect Pilipinas, as well as their own definitions of the term “feminist.”

Confronting topics ranging from rape and sexual violence to self-image and self-discovery, the night was emotional and thought-provoking. It was a seamless event and production, organized by Kirklyn Escondo, our Community Building Director, and directed by Precious Sipin and Leslie Espinosa. Music also added to the drama of the play, with Andre Ignacio Dimapilis on the didgeridoo and Andy Jean-Gilles on the djembe drums. Lastly, Stella Ma also spoke on behalf of the NYC Chapter of the National Pacific American Women’s Forum, informing the audience of the recent publication of their Health Resource Guide.

It’s rare seeing Pilipinas onstage, portraying characters with real depth to whom we can actually relate. It’s a stark difference from the roles Asian Americans are usually degraded to: the token Asian friend, unnamed nerd or exotic lover. Let’s not forget the title of our production, which references Maria Clara, the iconic character from Jose Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere. This tragic heroine is known for her sweetness and obedience; she is a symbol (or perhaps a caricature) of the ideal Pilipina. Well, with all the talk of vaginas that Saturday night, the strong and talented women of UniPro’s production of The Vagina Monologues couldn't be any farther from Maria Clara.

Growing Up A Pilipina Military Brat

I grew up a military brat. My father, a naval officer, was stationed in different areas of the country throughout my childhood. I moved around a lot, meaning new schools, new friends and, in my case, an ever-changing understanding of my Fil-Am identity. Growing up in San Diego, I was surrounded by a majority Fil-Am community. According to a study, there were 144,234 Pilipinos in San Diego County in 2009. That is over 44% of the entire Asian population in San Diego, CA. Needless to say, my experience in SD wasn’t any different. I went to church with Pilipinos. I went to an arts academy with Pilipinos. I joined a traditional dance troupe with Pilipinos. Looking back, I didn't realize that I was part of both the minority in the larger US population, as well as the military brat subculture.

My father was later stationed in Pensacola, FL; thus began the big move to the Gulf Coast. This was a complete culture shock for me; there were only a handful of Fil-Ams with whom I went to school in Pensacola. I did well in school, and suddenly was referred to as an Asian nerd. I was hurt by this label; where I came from in San Diego, I had always been on par with the "norm." I also felt alienated from by childhood friends back in California. I began to distance myself from friends in San Diego when an old pal called me “whitewashed,” having learned that I made friends with my Caucasian and African American classmates. That’s when I realized that racism within the Fil-Am community was just as present as the hostility we receive from beyond our own ethnic group.

I started high school in Virginia Beach, as my dad received orders to work in Norfolk, VA. Here, there were many Fil-Ams at the school, but I found it even more difficult to join the community. Many of my peers had grown up together; they had lifestyles and inside jokes I did not know how to be a part of it all. So, I sought out other circles of friends. I found a safe haven with the field hockey team, golf team, literary art magazine and friends I made in my classes. I shied away from Fil-Ams simply because I felt out of place. It wasn’t until college that I joined a Fil-Am student group, rejoining a social circle of other Fil-Ams. I was more mature and interested in learning about the culture. I wanted to be engaged in the global community of the Philippine diaspora.

I was fortunate enough to attend one elementary school, one middle school and one high school before going off to college. My brothers and sister were not so lucky; they’ve attended several different schools just because of my dad’s orders to other ships and naval bases. But, don’t get me wrong: I am extremely grateful that my father joined the US Navy in order to ensure a better life for me and my family. He met my mother in the States, and has since become quite a successful officer in the military. My parents have made many sacrifices to give my siblings opportunities in the US. For that, I am truly blessed.

We military brats may seem to have the best of both worlds. Starting fresh and making new friends can be exhilarating. We learn to be worldly individuals. However, this process can also be quite challenging when you’re a kid. We have a hard time keeping friends after moving away, and can find ourselves in a pool of jealousy when we encounter people who have lived in the same house for most of their lives.

Being a Pilipina military brat has taught me to be adaptive. The brat subculture has taught me to be flexible and open to change. It can be challenging, but it is also a blessing. To all other military brats, I wish you stability and love within a welcoming community. You are certainly not alone.

Photo Credit: Stephen Salpukas