“You look Chinese, but your last name is Mexican. Is Filipino Mexican-Chinese?” - asked my first white, Irish-Catholic college boyfriend. An unintentionally comical and ignorant question, similar questions have been asked throughout my life. I am 57 years old. This was asked in 1984. Surprisingly, I am asked, much more than I expect, whether Filipinos are Asians. I currently answer, “Yes, that is the box I check on forms.”
My last name is Rivera. My parents are immigrants. I am a second-generation Filipino. My brother and I do not speak Tagalog, but I understand enough Tagalog to interpret the chismis (gossip) at Filipino gatherings. He and I are first generation college graduates. We were born in Florida to Filipino parents, each born and raised in the Philippines, an archipelago of more than 7,000 islands in the Pacific Ocean, east of Vietnam, south of Taiwan, and north of Indonesia.
Checkbox options: Asian, Pacific Islander.
“Asian” is the correct answer on perfunctory government application forms. The codified government definition lists the Philippines along with what I have considered more traditional Asian countries such as Japan, China, and South Korea. Filipinos are not Pacific Islanders according to certain government forms.
There is a box to check-off somewhere.
Exploring identity emerges as part of navigating life. A lifelong journey, who knew the episodic mundane activity of checking off boxes in application forms could inform identity - rightfully or wrongfully? When I ask myself if I am Asian, I answer, “Yes, but …”.
Checkbox: Asian.
Over the past decade, race, culture, and colorism are areas I have been increasingly exploring in my leisure. My lived experiences inform me that checkbox Asian is enough for government forms and happy hour banter. Identity, of course, is more than a checkbox.
When I was younger, I viewed culture as the fun stuff we did in school and university. I was not deconstructing culture through an academic lens. In the 1970s, I was a kid in no rush to grow up, let alone begin to understand the complexities of race and ethnicity in the context of culture. My extent of Filipino culture? Family, food, and future.
Family
My Mom is a lighter-skinned Filipino, and my Father is darker-skinned. I am mistaken for Japanese and my brother for Latino. We were raised Americanized, very differently from friends who were first or 1.5 generation. Americanized meant assimilated into the American culture. My brother and I were teased and called coconuts, which we learned was a derogatory slur meaning assimilated into the American culture. Coconut - brown on the outside and white on the inside.
Food
I eat more Americanized Filipino dishes than authentic dishes. When I was younger, I replaced common Filipino ingredients with traditional American ingredients. Bagoong, a fermented paste from fish or shrimp? Replaced with ketchup. Patis, a pungent fish sauce? Replaced with steak sauce. Dinuguan, described by my parents as “chocolate meat - a dark stew of pork”? Replaced with anything else. My parents lied. Dinuguan was bite-sized pork cooked in pig’s blood.
Future
My parents regularly lectured my brother and me about their lives in the Philippines and the sacrifices they made after immigrating to the United States. They lovingly and faithfully saved money to send us to college. In return for their sacrifices, we would graduate from college to make them proud.
Sending us to Catholic high school was one way to assure we would be accepted into college. Extracurricular activities helped. I was a member of the Polynesian Club - Filipino, Asian, and Hapa members. Hapa is a person who is part Asian or Pacific Islander. Back then, I knew I was neither Asian nor Hapa. I knew I was Filipino. We performed Hawaiian and Filipino dances for high school events and hosted potlucks featuring Filipino foods, always including lumpia, of course. I performed Filipino folk dances, including the crowd-pleaser, Tinikling - the dance where a couple skillfully jumped between the aggressive, rhythmic clapping of bamboo poles.
It was not until putting pen to paper to complete college application forms in 1980 that I came across the option (rather than a requirement) to state my race and ethnicity - Asian, Hispanic, or Other Hispanic. Even though my last name was Rivera (arguably Hispanic), Asian made sense because I was in the Polynesian Club. To this day, I can’t remember if I answered the optional item. Regardless, Filipino was not an option.
Checkbox: Asian.
At UC Berkeley, I was more aware of “being” Filipino-American because I was an active member of the Pilipino American Alliance (PAA), an on-campus student organization in the student union building. PAA shared the floor with Mexican-American and African-American organizations. Our office was on a different floor from the Asian American organizations.
My favorite past-time with PAA? Serving as Social Cultural Co-Chair responsible for producing the annual cultural night. The grown-up version of my high school Polynesian Club, cultural night showcased Filipino costumes, folk dances, music, and singing through sketches about student life. PAA ensured our more than 300 guests were well fed. Cultural night reaffirmed the importance of family and food. Performing for our parents demonstrated how their sacrifices paid off.
1986 PAA Cultural Night Finale, UC Berkeley
My least favorite past-time with PAA? Conversations about race and ethnicity in the context of culture. I often politely excused myself. I majored in Chemical Engineering while many of my PAA friends majored in various ethnic studies and social sciences. I rarely participated in their discussions about race, culture, ethnicity, affirmative action, and political science. I did not need them to know about my ignorance. When they talked about Philippine politics, colonialism, oppression, discrimination, and the impacts of democratization, I was confronted by how much of a coconut I was.
In my fifth year of college, once again I was filling out applications - this time for my first job out of college. I was applying for the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which required selecting from their list of race and ethnicity. Among the choices were Asian or Pacific Islander. The Philippine Islands are in the Pacific Ocean. Geography aside, the codified definitions for Asian and Pacific Islander were clear.
Checkbox: Asian.
In 2009, nearly 25 years after being asked “Is Filipino Mexican-Chinese?,” I reconnected with my Irish-Catholic ex-boyfriend before a Cal Bears versus USC football game. We drank beers, reminisced about college, and talked about being adults. I have not talked to him since, but he came to mind when I was filling out the 2020 U.S. Census Bureau forms with my Mom. No doubt which checkbox option he chose. Meanwhile, Spanish colonialism is a real thing for the Philippines.
Checkbox option: Another Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.
Checkbox option: Not of Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish origin.