This blog post does not intend to draw attention away from the BLM movement because it is most definitely not just a trend, it is an ongoing movement that needs to be supported. So please sign the petitions linked at the end of this post.
That being said, I have been inspired by the BLM movement to share my own frustration and experiences with racism and how it clouded my perspective of who I am.
To this day I can honestly say that I don’t know who I am. I’m either ‘not Asian enough’ or ‘too Asian’.
I was easy picking for being bullied in school because I fit the whitewashed stereotype of “passive nerdy Asian with strict parents”. I remember this group of white girls who loved to bully me in primary school. If it wasn’t the shape of my eyes it was the way I spoke, if it wasn’t the lunch I ate it was the clothes I wore or my parent's jobs.
Adobo was a regular lunch for me until I begged my parents to start packing dry sandwichs just to avoid comments.
Moving onto secondary school, I went to a strict Catholic school. The teachers there are extremely uneducated and small-minded. The treatment of black students was aggressive and inappropriate. The treatment of Asian students was a series of microaggressions every day that we just took because then, we didn’t know better. I’ve lost count of the number of times I had teachers just assume I was “Chinese”, call me by other Asian students names who look nothing like me, or try and tell me of their disappointment of me not living up to their “expectations”.
I was doing A-level English language coursework and the white teacher really tried to tell me that my transcript of my parent's conversations in Kapampangan was wrong when my parents had sat down with me a few nights before and written and spelt every letter and accent with me.
Several times I had teachers say the way I would write was not “proper English” in numerous essays, despite having better grammar than most of the white students' essays. I even had a history teacher directly ask me “Is English your first language?”. Well, I wouldn’t be studying History and English Language and Linguistics at the university level if it wasn’t so…
At university my loss of cultural identity hit me. The courses I'm studying are made up of 85% white students. Every single time I walk into those seminars I literally search the room for another person of colour because, to be frank, white people make me uncomfortable. I feel so much anxiety whenever I have conversations with my fellow white students because in my head I can feel them racially profiling me. So by sitting with another person of colour, I am more at ease and can comfortably have conversations about the work without feeling inferior, but instead equal.
I saw the effects of my loss of cultural identity in a module called Language Variation and Change. With the white students it was apparent there was no expectation of them knowing another language to contribute to the conversation, whereas with the international and minority students it was an unspoken expectation that we should at least know our own home language. I grew up in a household where my parents and I communicated in English but I have a general understanding of Kapampangan. However, I cannot speak it. The fact that I could not speak it was often met with a disappointed reaction. Making me feel that I had nothing of value to contribute to conversations inside and outside of class.
This is where my frustration grew. My parents told me when I was younger that in order to do well and get a good job I should only learn English. Thus demonstrating the toxicity of colonisation and how it has robbed me and my future family of our Filipino heritage. In fact, it’s taken away my ability to communicate with my Filipino family now. My food preferences, the way I dress, music I listen to, the history I know are all so heavily whitewashed. My standard of beauty is ‘skinny white girls with big light eyes and long curly eyelashes’. The friendship groups I had and the way I was treated in them were filled with microaggressions and passive comments. The education I received brainwashed the way I lived my life in my childhood-teenage years.
Now that I am aware, having to reverse this messed up perspective of the world is exhausting. Relearning my cultural identity shouldn’t be something I have to do at 20 years old.
This is why I’m angry. I’m angry that I’m seeing companies like PLT culturally appropriating traditional Chinese silhouettes and patterns. I’m frustrated that my ‘slanty widescreen eyes’ are now dehumanised into the trendy ‘fox eye’ makeup look. I am irritated that the 'asian food' my school bullies are now posting on their insta were my old school lunches that they loved to laugh at. Furious that the stereotypical jobs they used to mock Asian parents for having are now their only source of income. Infuriated that they could piggyback off my hard work in school and take full credit. Enraged that racist white neighbours would pour their rubbish onto their driveway, egg our house on a daily, scream racial slurs at my parents just for moving into a white area. Red at the memory of an old white couple for bullying my family on holiday into leaving the place early. Resentful that racist white pigs like Donald Trump have the power to fuel hate crimes against Asians by ignorantly labelling it the ‘Chinese virus’. I’m disappointed that white friends I had thought it was appropriate to make racial jokes at me and at myself for laughing them off. Scared to leave the house in fear of being attacked by racists who think that all Asians are the same and are to blame for the virus. I’m tired of the passive stereotype pushed onto Asians in order to keep us silent.
My whole life I was bullied into giving up who I was.
Now that I am embracing my cultural identity I recognise where ashamedly till recently I had been no better than white people, and I deeply regret ever holding such pathetic values.
My Filipina heritage is beautiful. It is filled with gorgeous traditional wear, lively traditions and delicious food. Never again will I be ashamed to be Filipina. Never again will I be silent when people are doing me wrong and I will always stand for what is right. However, to my fellow Filipinos, just because I can’t speak the language or watch the same shows does not make me any less Filipino. I’m still learning, so please give me a chance to grow as I reclaim what they stole.
I want to share my platform and give others the opportunity to be heard. So please DM me on insta or twitter @roann_gutierrez or comment below to get in touch and I'd love to post your work.
Compilation of videos from my visit to Philippines 2019.
Please support the BLM Movement by signing these petitions:
Teach Britain's colonial past as part of the UK's compulsory curriculum
Enact The Dana Fletcher Bill, making body cam footage PUBLIC RECORD
OUTSIDE INVESTIGATION INTO THE OFFICER INVOLVED SHOOTING OF ERIC JACK LOGAN
A harsher sentence for a former first grade teacher who molested first graders
Make racially motivated crime an act of terror and declare hate groups terrorist
Justice for James Scurlock, killed by Omaha racist during George Floyd protest
Justice for 1 Year Old Katera Jenkins Barker who was killed by white adoptive dad
Put the Minneapolis police officers who killed George Floyd in prison
Make Juneteenth a Federal Holiday to commemorate end of slavery in the USA.
Also, the Philippines is being threatened by martial law so please sign this petition to prevent this:
The crisis in Yemen is a horrific display of humanitarian ignorance so please educate yourself and sign the petition here:
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