Binondo Girl in Tondo

      Growing up in the outskirts of Tondo bordering Binondo in the 70s and 80s, I was oblivious to anything outside my haven despite the first quarter storm and martial law.  I am a second/third-generation Chinese Filipino, and although my parentage is Chinese, I was born and raised in the Philippines. I grew up mostly embracing my Chinese identity, sheltered from much of everything else except poverty and how to earn a little more by having to tutor a grade four pupil when I was just a freshman in high school. It was at that time that we thought of ourselves as either Chinese or Filipino, yet without fully identifying with either one of them. 

      Much of my childhood interactions were with my Chinese neighbors who lived one floor above our dingy apartment and my classmates in the Chinese school in Mayhaligue.  Perhaps there were non-Chinese in our school then, but I wouldn't have known; to my possibly distorted recollection, most of the people around me would speak to each other in a mix of Fookien, English, and Filipino, in that order of preference and frequency, although sometimes English would be preferred over Chinese. Even though those were the days when neighbors were familiar with each other and it was still safe to play along the streets into the night,  I did not mingle much with our neighbors except for the occasional errands to the sari-sari stores to buy one thing or another. It was much much later on when I was already into my third year  high school that I got to socialize a bit more with our Filipino neighbors.  

      So imagine the "cultural identity crisis" that I had undergone when I went to college at UP. Aside from that, there weren't a lot of Chinese there. The people there also did not seem to know many Chinese up close and personal except the few interactions they had had and their preconceived notion of what the Chinese were. The spring chicken that I was, I was flustered, to say the least. Feeling that I could not resonate with the Chinese from China and seeing myself somehow identifying more with the Filipinos, I  started swinging with the pendulum effect, denying my Chinese identity and wanting to adopt a Filipino identity. 

      When people asked me if I was Chinese, I with my chinky eyes and Chinese monosyllabic surname, I would be quick to say, "Yes, but my maternal grandfather is of Spanish descent," as if being a quarter Spaniard made me more acceptable than being a hundred percent Chinese. The claim to my Spanish ancestry wasn’t even all that accurate, as my maternal grandfather was not of pure Spanish descent either! I began to denounce anything Chinese, barely speaking Chinese unless I was home with my parents. It was at that moment in my life that I went from being happily Chinese to being ashamed of my Chinese ancestry, as I would latch on to the negative generalization of what a Chinese was. I guess it was often the case when one wanted to be assimilated into a bigger environment. 

      Fortunately, a few months into my sophomore year of college, KAISA came around, and the Tsinoy identity was born, and eventually crystallized. Now there was finally a name for who I was and how I felt. It wasn't an overnight transformation, but a long process of coming to terms with my cultural identity as a Tsinoy. I did not have to choose between the two. I slowly came to appreciate that being Tsinoy extended my circle of influence. It allowed me to be fluid in my connections with the Chinese and the Filipinos. It paved the path for me to experience firsthand the artistry and the beauty of both cultures. It also established the legitimacy of a distinct identity, that of a Chinese Filipino After almost two years, the pendulum slowly swung to a still in the middle, balancing my Chinese-ness with my being Filipino. Afterall, there was no denying that the only land I could call my motherland would be the Philippines despite my predominantly Chinese roots.

      Being a "minority" has its struggles. We go from love to hate, from pride to indifference, apathy, and even denial of our own cultural identity. When one's ancestry is different from the land one calls home, it's sometimes easy to choose one culture while denouncing the other, when embracing both would be much better. Coming to terms with our inadequacies and accepting who we are liberated us from discrimination against others and, most of all, against ourselves. After all, quoting from Maya Angelo's poem, Human Family, I tend to agree that "in minor ways we differ, in major ways, we're the same." Indeed, despite our skin and hair color and distinct identities, we are all of the human race.