(Nakakayamot Issue 3, February 17, 2002)

Nabasa nyo na siguro sa internet yung listahan na “You Know You’re a Second Generation Filipino When…” Hindi ko na ilalagay dito yung listahan, nakakasayang lang sa download bandwidth ko at ayokong magdagdag pa ng kalat ng isang bagay na kayamot-yamot. Marami nang basura sa World Wide Web, bakit dadagdagan ko pa?!?!? Gumamit na lang kayo ng search engine at i-search nyo na lang.

Ka-yamot-yamot dahil hindi alam ng sumulat kung ikahihiya ba nya ang pagka-Pilpino nya o ipagmamalaki nya. Halos iisang bagay lang naman ang kinahihiya nya - ang “accent” ng Pilipino kapag nag-i-Ingles. Pero ang babaw rin ng mga bagay na kunwari ay pinagmamalaki nya. .Hindi ko na nga dapat na pinatulan ‘to, pero por da benefit na lang ng iba pang mga batang Filipino-Amerikano o Canadian na akala nila magandang ilagay sa homepage nila ito at dadagdag pa sila sa magkakalat ng basura sa internet eh teka muna. Mag-isip-isip muna sila. Psensya na kayo at i-Inglisin ko lang sandali para naman maintindihan ng mga batang ito.

Second generation Filipino-American/Canadian (SGFAC) - Kids who grew up and were probably born in the US by Filipino parents. There’s a number of websites by these kids on the net that had a list of how to know if they’re a true 2nd-gen. It pointed out how supposedly, a normal 2nd-gen acts and thinks regarding being a Filipino. Some kids were probably amused by it to consider putting it up on their sites wihtout really knowing what the list meant. Unfortunately, I was not amused. In fact, it was disappointing to know that the author of this list minimized being a second-generation Filipino to laughing at other people’s difference, judging people by the clothes they wear, and thinking they’re superior to their relatives just because they’re living in a progressive country like the US or Canada. It was insulting to the kids themselves depicting them as shallow and very superficial. I’m sure that some of them may be but I know of 2nd-gens that have more substance than this.

Let me point out some items on that list that, in my humble opinion, are rude if not outright wrong. The sentences in quotes came from the list. I would like to point out that as much as I want the 2nd-gens to learn from this article, the “you” in the following paragraphs refer to whoever authored that material.

“You make fun of your parents’ accents.”
Have you ever thought about what if your parents didn’t come to America and you lived in the Philippines? You’d probably end up speaking English the way your parents do. If this happened, I’m sure that you wouldn’t appreciate being laughed at just because you talk different.

“As a child, you hated being Filipino”
Is it because you have a flat nose, brown skin and black hair and your non-Filipino friends don’t? Your same friends who envied the golden color of your skin, your shiny raven hair and your cute nose? Or did you hate being Filipino because of your parents’ accent that they didn’t talk the way your friends’ parents talk. Or that you had to eat pansit, adobo, sinigang - a lot of variety when your friends’ dinner always was pizza, mac and cheese, fries, fries, mac and cheese and pizza. I wish I knew what it was you hated about being Filipino when you were a kid…

“Now you wear Pinoy Pride T-shirts”
It takes more than a T-shirt to let people know you’re proud to be Pinoy. It’s the attitude, it’s knowing your heritage and where you came from.

“You still take off your shoes when entering a house”
I thought this was more Asian than just Filipino. I also know that in some parts of Canada, specially in the winter and during rainy weather, it was just common courtesy to take your boots off when you come from the outside so that you don’t drag the mud inside another peron’s house.

“You think you’re all that when you go back to the Philippines because you don’t speak with an accent, your skin is fairer than the natives’, and you have cool clothes - not hand-me-downs from relatives in the States”
I know they’d be impress but it gets tiring after a while and they’d wish you COULD speak Filipino cause then there would so much more you could talk about and if you could THEN you’d be “ALL THAT”, so to speak. The thing about the cool clothes, that might’ve been true before, but with the malls and shops of all designer brands sprouting all over the Philippines like mushroom, they’re not really that deprived of the latest fashion anymore. In fact, and it has been observed that Philippine fashion is more fastly updated than North America. Probably because of their proximity from Japan and Hongkong where the fashion is very influenced by Europe. They say that American fashion tend to adapt to Europe slower and even a year behind sometimes. Your cousins might appreciate the hand-me-downs you send them, but they’re probably saying “hmmm… this went out yearssss ago..” or “this is SOOO last year!”

The skin color? You only look fairer cause you’ve been away from the tropical sun for so long. Give it 2 weeks and a lot of beach outings and your REAL skin color will show - the same skin color as the people you call “natives”.

“You actually believe that you could become a Filipino movie star back home because you think you’re better looking than the Filipinos back home”
(HAHAHA! Ok.. I’ll try not to laugh) Sure… if you can sing good or dance gracefully and you can speak your Pilipino dialogues fluently then you probably can. Otherwise, you might just end up a flash in the pan and knowing the Filipino audience having a short attention span, you’d end up from the “Who’s who” to the “Who’s that?!?!” in just a few months.

“You can’t stand to look at pictures of you as a young child because you looked like a Fob. (Hey, you were a Fob!)”
FOB - Fresh Off the Boat? Which boat?? You didn’t come to America in a boat - you flew in on a plane. You’re not a refugee. Your family didn’t seek political asylum to get to the US. They applied at a legitimate US embassy to be allowed to migrate to the States. You’re not Cambodian nor are you Chinese.

“Sometimes your Filipino accent comes out accidentally and you get embarrassed about it.”
Wait a minute, I thought you didn’t HAVE the accent? I thought you can’t speak Filipino. Where could the accent have come from? Oh yeah… you we said you’re FOB. You must’ve gotten the accent from the Chinese you sailed with to get to the States and you mistook the Chinese accent you have that came out accidentally for a Filipino accent. *sarcasm*

“Your parents’ house still has the furniture you grew up with”
I think the term for that is “RETRO”????

I don’t want to sound condescending or not having any sense of humor at all. Cause if there was some thing I’d find amusing or funny about MY being Filipino, I’d be the first one to laugh cause I have a lot of personal experiences to attest to that. But if you think about it, being a second-generation Filipino is not about accents or dialects, or which food is cool or not, or your designer jeans or your sun-shielded skin color. Nor is it about knowing every single detail of Philippine history or whether you know who your current president is (altho that would be good to know). Its being proud of your parents and your ancestry. That you were the reason that they came to the States or Canada - for you to live the life they never had when they were your age. You are the realization of their dream, hard work and determination. You are the product of so many Filipinos in history who suffered and died so that you would have the freedom to live anywhere you choose and be whoever you want to be. You are the result of the inter-marriage of your Aeta, Malayan, Indonesian, Chinese, Indian, Spanish, Japanese and American ancestors. You are the melting pot of all these races. And this makes you different and a cut from the rest.

This is what a second-generation Filipino should be like, not what some person with nothing better to do and who doesn’t know Jack about his real identity put in a list of 30-something items that means nothing.

You’d probably say “Lighten up” or “What’s your problem?”. I maybe taking this list too seriously. But I think I should. Only because I take my Filipino identity seriously specially now that I’m no longer in the Philippines. I take it upon my and the website’s goal not just to spread humor on cyber space but also to reach out and expand the knowledge of everyone I can touch. If I can make even a single change in a cyber surfer’s life or point of view (like yours), then the website’s existence is all worth it.