Identity

Processing Sexuality & Spirituality: On Queer Identity, Love, and Un-Identifying

Published on by Lisa

There were two rather unexpected events that took place yesterday.  If I look closely, I see how these two seemingly different events perfectly illustrate my life and my identity right now.

At two o’clock yesterday, I went for spiritual direction.  Spiritual direction is a form of spiritual practice where you typically spend an hour or so with a trained and certified spiritual director to help you more clearly recognize grace, God, and love in your life.  The reasons and methods are varied, similar to psychotherapy, but it’s not therapy.  It’s like you become your own personal theologian over your own life.  You investigate the joys, struggles, and thoughts and process them aloud with a director.  They ask questions, dig around, and reflect back what they hear from you.  Quite a simple method, yet very few people utilize this form of practice.  The last time I went for spiritual direction was nearly a decade ago.  My director’s name was John and I still think of that relationship every few months.  It was that impactful.

I went to see Fr. Don Cozzens.  A prolific writer, a progressive thinker, a graceful challenger to the modern US church, I sat with him for an hour to talk about my relationship between writing and my faith.  Specifically, I came to him to talk about this hard stone of fear sitting in my stomach.  A fear to write about what I truly want to write about because of my identity as a Catholic.  I feel uncertain and off balance.  At times I felt unsure how to answer his questions about my identity as a Catholic, as a women of color, as a feminist, as a writer.

He spoke at length about two things: ego and courage.

On one hand the ego of the writer is always pushing. Ego is always afraid of what others think, even when in hiding – which could be mistaken for lack of confidence – but is really about ego.  (That took me a while to understand.) But it makes sense.  On the other hand, it takes the “chasm of courage” to put yourself out into the world, to open up oneself for criticism and challenge.  He remarked, “The challenges you reference – the hierarchy, clericalism, triumphalism, patriarchy of the church – these are big pieces to the block in your writing as you are describing, but I think there is something else.  Something that is not church.”

Oh.

Well, I sat with that for a while.

He was kind and smiled warmly, “Forgive my arrogance.  I’ve only known you less than an hour and am telling you what to do with your life.  But here I go: there is something much deeper than the church you are fearing.  Your friend who lost is job because of his progressive beliefs? It goes deeper than that.  Your fear of being the Catholic community not understanding you?  It goes deeper than that.  So just sit with that.”

I did.  I sat there.

He ended with what he began, “Write. Come what may.”

Four hours later, I left this priest who wrote controversial books for a living and drove to another college campus.  At Kate State, my friend, Daisy Hernandez was giving a talk.  The subject of her lecture was on feminism, women of color, sexuality, and Latina experiences.  It’s hard to not praise her presentation when she gave a shout out to my work. (Insert any gif of shameless dancing.)

One of the things that caught my attention was how many college students brought up the word “queer” which Daisy used to name her sexual identity.  I saw many college students nodding as she spoke and I saw even more wait for her after the lecture, standing there awkwardly, shifting from foot to foot waiting to ask her more about her queer identity.  It was a word I am familiar with as many of my friends who date and love and partner with men, women, and gender non conforming people.  Queer is a word to me to describe the natural continuum of loving, or being attracted to, or being in relationship, or just plain wanting another person.  It’s an everyday word for me. Like “the.”

I thought about how and why I not feel the need to name my sexuality.  I stopped identifying as anything several years ago.  It was a personal decision I came to after years of examining my life, reflecting with my partner, choosing what felt most right to me.  And what felt right was not to use any identifier at all.  I didn’t reject anything, I just didn’t find anything that encompassed my experiences.

The decision to un-identify as heterosexual and my decision to not identify with anything else came shortly after an upsetting experience with a group of friends who questioned my life choices.  Shortly after I was engaged to my partner, I made a comment that I knew I was ready to commit to one person because I realized what love meant.  I didn’t love his gender.  I didn’t love his sexuality.  I didn’t love parts of him.  I just loved him.  That totality and consumption of another human through love wasn’t blind to these parts of his identity, it just didn’t stand out that way anymore.  The more I understood how I loved him, the more I understood how to love others in general.  Gender didn’t matter.  I fell in love with a person who happened to be a man.  Even with all the socialization, the cultural and religious influences in my life, I came to understand that love, for me, was not contingent upon gender, or sexuality, or labels.  I shared with a friend that “it didn’t matter if it was a man or woman.  I knew that I could have dated or not dated anyone and I would have been fine.  I could have loved anyone.  And in realizing that, I knew I was free to love whom I choose.  And I chose him.”

In sharing this in an unsafe place, the comment was deduced to a cheap conversation about sexual attraction and dating history.  My insight was lost in the torrent of questions if I was gay, straight, queer, bi…or what?

It took a few years to tell that story and I look back and shake my head because I still feel the same way.  Why the need for label?  Why the desperate grab to smack a word on my forehead so you know how to treat me.  Why not just get to know me?  Why not get to the know the person I fell in love with?

I fell in love with this person who, at one time, when he was employed as a minister, would dress in his finest suit to attend funerals for people he didn’t even know.  Whether the service was overflowing or just a smattering of people in the pews, he put on his best clothes to pay tribute to someone who died.  He attended because he believed in the inherent worth of every human that walked the earth.  He wore his best suit because he believed that was the least he could do for the one person who came to say goodbye to their brother, father, sister, mother, or spouse.

I have these hazy memories of waking up and seeing him dressing in that black suit and knowing he was on his way to a funeral.  “You don’t have to go, you know,” I reminded him.  “No one would ever know the difference.”  He’d catch my eye in the mirror and flash me a smile that I always found made my heart thunder away, “I’d know.  I like going.  I want to be there.  Someone should, must be there.”

Someone that held that kind of perspective of human life, relationship, and wasn’t afraid to be made vulnerable by the emotionally heavy nature of a funeral is the kind of someone I continue to love to this day.  It’s why I chose and continue to choose to build my life with him and why love is the only door I leave unlabeled.

I don’t need it.  I know where I’m going.

* * * *

Fr. Donald Cozzens.  Ms. Daisy Hernandez.  The two faces of Catholic and feminist agitation yesterday.  It was quite a day.

Are You There, Margaret? It’s Me, God: On Body, Profanity, and Anger

Published on by Lisa

January is a war on our bodies. It’s a war in so many ways. It’s nestled right after a holiday speckled December, full of drink and food sprees, exit fall/begrudgingly hello winter, and January is there. Waiting. Regardless of the bleak gray sky, we wipe our mental boards clean and vow better habits, more living, less poor choices. And some take January and the promise of more living to declare war on their bodies. The dieting, restricting, cold turkey, no holds barred workouts.

It’s no wonder the war is conceded by Valentine’s Day. It’s never sustainable.

Body consciousness is taking center stage.

I’ve been thinking about my body. A lot. Experience has told me that while there’s a temptation to generalize that most women suffer from body hyper vigilance, I know that while the stressors are different, this vigilance very much includes men. Who DOESN’T think, criminalize, criticize, and punish their bodies in January? At the very least, most people take a hard look in the mirror and pick ourselves apart, one limb at a time.

So when I read THIS, a jarring response essay by the profane yet sensitive Margaret Cho about her history of body issues after she received horrid comments about her body and recently inked tattoos, I paused. She goes ape shit on two readers.

Things I could say should be left unheard and unsaid because I am not willing to be the bigger person. I do not take the high road. I take the low road and blows below the belt are my absolute favorite. The best revenge is not living well. The best revenge is revenge.

About 2% of me, all raised-eye brow and all, thinks, “Oh, Cho – c’mon. Don’t take the low road.”

And the 98% of me rejoiced. It was so refreshing, and honest. It was like the part of me that I am in a room with only the closest people I know; where you laugh too loudly at inappropriate things; where you say what needs to be said in whatever words find their way to your tongue without censoring. Dammit, she’s honest. She’s so honest about NOT taking the high road. Cho received staggering points from my respect bank simply because she’s not one of these faux reputation, Tiger Woods family man/I’m actually “addicted” to sexing White women in dirty places facade. Cho claims nothing but herself, which includes CHOOSING to go below the belt.

I couldn’t help but feel ghosts around me. Misty, clammy ghosts that appeared in the room and gently licked my skin, bringing me back to my 10, 14, 17, 23, year old self when words, hate, eye daggers and jokes were thrown at me because of my weight, my skin color, my heritage, my hair, my hairiness, my almond eyes. The ghosts were as real as ever. My breath caught and I suddenly was a little girl being told to go back to my own country. Being called every kind of word used to describe round and full. Then I was a teenager being told to only date my own. Own what? “YOUR own.” Then a running, young woman with a car full of teenage boys speeding by yelling derogatory slurs. Then there was the eroticizing of my racial make up. And then, always, there is teasing. Relentless, torrential, acid rain on the tender skin of growing up girl.

I fly my flag of self-esteem for all those who have been told they were ugly and fat and hurt and shamed and violated and abused for the way they look and told time and time again that they were “different” and therefore unlovable.

The body is a war zone we grow up in. For those who are accepted as “normal” and capable, light skinned and perky, demure or graceful, it’s a playground. But for those of us on the other side of the fence, it’s a battleground. I was never beat as a POW, but there are scars reminding me that Cho is right. When those around you patrol and use your body for shooting practice, how are we not suppose to grow up defensive and use what we can for survival? I dismiss Cho’s critics (or her lone “lost a fan” fan) who call her words too harsh and unnecessary.

How does one measure abrasive behavior when bound in a triggering and defensive situation? Why are we so quick to jump on those who defiantly take below the belt shots in defense when its clear the attack was unjustified? I think those who did not undergo hard times are quick with their high road lectures and low on understanding human psychology.

Being called ugly and fat and disgusting to look at from the time I could barely understand what the words meant has scarred me so deep inside that I have learned to hunt, stalk, claim, own and defend my own loveliness and my image of myself as stunningly gorgeous with a ruthlessness and a defensiveness that I fear for anyone who casually or jokingly questions it, as my anger and rage combined with my intense and fearsome command of words create insults meant to maim, kill and destroy.

If words are used to kill someone’s spiritual and mental livelihood, it makes sense that their vitreous ego’s defense is made of the same ammunition: words.

And call me a crazy Catholic, but I hear a spiritual knock on the door of Margaret Cho. There’s something familiar about her beckoning injured birds to come to her for comfort.

I want to defend the children that we still are inside, the fragile sensitive souls who no matter how much we tried were still told we were not good enough. I want to make the world safe and better and happy for us. We deserve beauty, love, respect, admiration, kindness and compassion. If we don’t get it, there will be hell to pay. I am no saint, but I am here for you and me. I am here for us, and I am doing the best I can.

I think there’s a God, or Buddha, or Spirit, or Life, or Universe, or WHATEVER you want to call the deeper Source of our existence, there in her words; rising up to defend what she knows is rightfully true: our inner selves, fragile and uncertain, still need assurance and community.

I think that when we rise to defend ourselves, what was ugly turns into something divine. Perhaps divine, for some, is equated to some pristine, soft green mountain side with Julie Andrews twirling in mother nature. But for me, rising up to defend our humanity IS divinity. Cho self-stamps herself as damaged and gorgeous, not saintly. And there’s something spring water refreshing about that. There’s something cathartic and necessary about her uproarious defensiveness. It reminds me how acutely human we are at any time, whether on Twitter or working in a factory, or writing in a library. We, at any time, are so vulnerable to the thoughts and words of others that we cannot take each other for granted. We can no longer afford to assume that those around us are not tender. We cannot afford to assume that the memories of those we encounter are blemish-free. And we can no longer mislabel aggressive defense as aggression. Not for those who have been the cork board for thousands of pin jokes. Rising up for ourselves is not rude. It is not unstable. It is not crazy. You haven’t truly lived until you defended yourself against pure spite. As
each one of us designs our path of connection to others, we also design our individualized plan of defense for self-preservation.

There’s a time and a place for healthy and healing and bomb-like anger – which is different from the foul breath of negativity – just as there’s a time and a place for the high road. When you learn the difference and know when to practice the former, it’s become a rite of passage.

If you haven’t yet defended yourself against unwarranted hatred, don’t explain to others to take the high road.
If your body has not undergone physical violation or emotional trauma of harassment, do not assume you can locate and point to the high road.
If your life has not been used as a target for cheap funnies, hasty attempts for laughter at your expense, don’t judge the response of the humiliated.
.

January is a declared war on our bodies. Let’s start a revolution and wave a white flag. Wave it high, unfettered, and free. We surrender to no one but ourselves.

I grew up hard and am still hard and I don’t care. I did not choose this face or this body and I have learned to live with it and love it and celebrate it and adorn it with tremendous drawings from the greatest artists in the world and I feel good and powerful like a nation that has never been free and now after many hard won victories is finally fucking free. I am beautiful and I am finally fucking free.

Pause, Then I Hit Play

Published on by Lisa

“Accept the peaceful change that autumn encourages.”

This was passed onto me from another writer and I’ve been thinking about our changing selves. Today, at work, I took 3 minutes to make a quick playlist for my background music for my busy work and I stared at my selection. A little bit of everything – from country to r&b, from soundtracks to Susan Boyle – scattered my list.

And I thought how true that is. What we like, who are are, what we need, and what we need to hear changes from day to day. For me, this couldn’t be more true right now. Balancing a son, trying to be great life partner, a supportive minister, a truthful writer — I’m a little bit of everything, and that changes from day to day.

What I need to hear today is that I’m good. I’m enough. As I am, as whole and imperfect and striving as I am. I. am. enough.

Tomorrow, things will change. More leaves will fall. I may not see the sun rise as beautifully as it did this morning, but tomorrow, as it should be will be different.

A little bit of everything.

PSA: There is No Such Thing as a “Normal” Child

Published on by Lisa

I get that most books and info centers just want to help.  I get it.  I get that most parents truly do worry their lives away about whether the foods they’re feeding their kids are right, about whether the car seat will protect them in side collision, and whether their speech and mobility coordination is on task or below average.  I get that most information and data is used for two purposes: to comfort or to instill fear.

In my email inbox, I am flooded – on a regular basis – by emails from baby centers, parenting magazine, and mother-centered orgs.  And I noticed that they usually put a question in the very beginning of that email, either the first line of the email or in the subject header.

“IS YOUR TODDLER EATING RIGHT?”

“IS YOUR CHILD SHOWING SIGNS OF FILL-IN-THE-BLANK-WITH-SOMETHING-THAT-IS-INCURABLE?”

“WHY WON’T JOHNNY PLAY WITH OTHER KIDS?”

And here’s my own question:  Have you young parents ever noticed how most “help” books/emails/brochures engage readers by playing on your natural fears as a parent?  In your desire for a “normal” child?  (So to reassure yourself that you are a “normal” parent?”)

Well, I’ve noticed it and it’s starting to get to me.

Being a parent means living in the forest of worry.  I worry.  All the time.  I worry about Isaiah’s future.  I worry that he won’t have friends.  I worry he’ll develop some kind of mental or learning disability.  I worry he’ll accidentally ingest a peanut and not have anyone around to help him or know what to do.

I’m his mother, of course I worry.

But there’s a line between worry and fear.  And I’m giving up the “fear” part.  I decided this yesterday when Isaiah laughed for about an hour straight.  Since the weather has decided that spring is allowed in Cleveland, Isaiah has spent much of his time outdoors, in the grass, absorbing sun and Vitamin D — and the smallest little things (squirrels, feathers, DOGGIES!, blowing leaves, bark, whistling grass, and peaceful neighbors) make his giddy with giggling.

I looked at him and thought, “I think I’m doing alright if he’s this joyful.”

Isaiah is enjoying life, every little inch of it.  And I decided to be the kind of mother that enjoyed it right along with him.  One of the first steps is knowing that there is no “normal” parent and no “normal” child.  We hope and pray that we, Nick and I, continue to find and develop ourselves as adults and that Isaiah does the same at each stage of his life.  The worry is inevitable, but the fear is not.

Letting go of the fear never felt so nice.

How Intimate and Functional is Your Feminism?

Published on by Lisa

I’m presenting at a conference in a little over a week. I was given 20 minutes to talk about feminism, new media, and identity. Twenty minutes.

I remember when I was in college and thinking that writing long papers was one of the biggest challenges. “What am I supposed to write about?” I always looked for fillers to make my number pages increase, as if writing MORE signified more meaning.

Eight years after college, I learned that it’s short papers, abbreviated periods of time that holds true challenge. How do I only have 20 minutes to create this presentation when I have so much to say?

In preparing for this conference, I’ve been writing primers on feminism, my feminism. My perspective. My truth. I have been reviewing the definition of feminism and its futility in the common, everyday world in which we live in. How feminism affects the relationships we claim mean so much to us. How feminism affects our communication patterns in workplaces built on hierarchy and authority. How feminism challenges and/or enhances our expectations of the men in my life (and especially the women in my life!).

How does feminism, YOUR feminism affect you? How personal, how intimate do you allow your feminism to become?

If personal transformation is key, or a precursor to societal transformation, intimacy with feminism cannot be sidestepped. It takes a monstrous force to allow oneself to be vulnerable enough to change, vulnerable enough to change our relationships and beliefs that influence our daily behaviors. That is the function of my feminism — using it as a ladder to climb for a better view, reaching higher [deeper] levels of clarity. It is not navel gazing if we actually USE feminism for self-transformation, instead of using it as a lens to think or muse on our own experiences. Once we’re done musing, it’s time to enact change. Put our lessons into practice.

For me, action and change are found in small-sounding shifts. For example…

I stopped lying.

I stopped lying to people when they ask how I am feeling. I stopped saying that I feel great and have enough energy to be pregnant, go out, cook, take care of myself, work a full time job.

I stopped lying and began saying what is really happening: I’m tired. I’m tired by 2pm everyday and need to sleep. Saying this means I’ve asked for help. Admitting this means allowing others to see that I’m changing and I’m affected by that change. It means acknowledging that I am not as energetic as I once was. It means allowing myself to be seen in my own skin. It means not pretending and letting whatever expectations of me that others held to fall to the ground and stay there.

I stopped lying because the energy in creating a lie – however slight the alteration of the truth it is – distracts and subtracts from the energy bank I DO have.

The result is I am able to see myself as I am: a very pregnant woman, very much in love with this experience, and needing time to Be exactly as I am.

It wasn’t the hugest lie to tell. Perhaps the liberation I feel has more to do with the fact that I am being more FULLY myself, allowing more of the truth in, instead of filtering it out.

It’s meant closing my door to sleep. It’s meant reaching for more water. It’s meant coming to grips with the darker parts of pregnancy that are creeping closer and closer in my insecurity. It’s meant more doctor’s appointments and less bravado.

It means being real.

Feminism, the kind I am presenting, has to do with that kind of liberation. It begins with small lies we tell ourselves to get through the day, it begins with taking down ridiculous facades we don’t even need to begin with, and frees up our identity to pay attention to who we really are, what we are really about, and refocus that energy in what truly matters.

It is my hope, or plan, that beginning in those seeds of truth will allow us to grow into truth-filled bodies where we can recognize the people and places that truly need more energy and hope.

I serve no other person well if I begin from an unstable foundation.

The Complicated Life as a Regular Person

Published on by Lisa

My blog is doing it’s own ecdysis and I’m not sure how to respond.

I am watching it, observing it. Similar to how I am with my stomach.

My stomach is this ever expanding universe of placenta, amniotic fluid, uterus, blood, fat, and baby. Inch my inch, it makes itself more elastic-friendly.

And as my belly grows, my blog is shrinking. Or becoming shy.

Who am I now? Three years ago, I was this bold, feminist writer, searching for meaning, community, and blasting mainstream feminism for its uncaring blind spots and US-centric mannerisms.

And now?

Now I am morphing into my own authentic writing style.

My desire to write has grown day by day and my time to devote to it is decreasing day by day as my energy levels deplete and whatever hormone is responsible for making my brain so scattered increases, I am wondering

Where is my writing going?

I’ll tell you where it’s going — it’s going to a place that I’ve never taken it before. Or, at least, I’m going to TRY and take it to a place it’s never been before: intertwined with my life.

Unbeknownst to most followers of this blog, I have a tiny blog for friends and family to read about my daily life. Unbeknownst to my other blog, I have this blog to write longer, free writes about life, feminism, injustice, irony, and love.

Symbolically, I am ready to merge the two together. I feel this NEED to make things as simple as possible and that means to stop separating my writing audiences. It means to be scared and let people in my circles of life KNOW my writing and try to have some faith in them. I have more faith in putting my words to strangers and faceless commenters than I do people I have to face in life.

It will mean careful writing, truthful writing, brave writing.

THAT means more time, more deliberation.

One of the things that most excites me about this step is my bravery to write like the memoirist that I am. I am not so much a blogger as I am a writer. I am funny. I also like to write about injustice. I am just a regular woman with an extraordinary desire to create and express the usually forgettable details of life. I am excited to return to MY kind of writing. I am excited, in a way, to use humor again. To be me.

And with that, my friends, my plan is to push this blog into a full website in the near future. I’m working on this (among many things), but it’s in the works. I ask for your support, your thoughts about a feminist memoirist website, and overall patience in getting this thing up and running.

My goal is to have it up before my son arrives.

With new life, comes a new beginning.

This is my ecdysis.

The Last Ungendered Day

Published on by Lisa

I started using the self-descriptive term “feminist” about five years ago and although my life’s work to create a better world extends much longer than those five years, the lens of feminism – my feminisms, to be precise – has positively enhanced the way I experience and percieve the mystery of socialization and gender.

Tomorrow, I have my 20 week ultrasound. Before pregnancy, I didn’t know that 20 weeks is a milestone. Usually with prenatal care, an “anatomical” ultrasound is done, which means Adonis and I get to see the baby growing in my uterus. We see the face, ears, feet, hands…everything…including its genitalia.

Many things have surprised me about pregnancy, but none moreso than the impact of hormones in my body. My memory has been underwater, my moods sometimes swingy, but my emotions have been fairly calm. I’ve felt peaceful. One of the few pieces of anxiety I’ve been experiencing relates to gender and finding out the sex of the baby.

I’ve been pretty open about my feelings concerning my pregnancy through my letters to Veronica, my unborn daughter, which I started a long time ago…well before I was pregnant. And one of my fears is not just having a child, it’s about having a son. I think that my fear dwells in my uncertainty if I can teach a child and have a larger impact than the rest of the world. All the lessons this child will learn will have to be undone at some level. It begins tomorrow. It begins the moment the ultrasound technician will say “boy” or “girl.”

And the barrage of texts, emails, FB messages, and comments wanting to know will begin. Along with the pink and blue bull that I don’t believe in.

Facing the reality that I am carrying life within me has meant coming to the reality that I am deeply responsible for the wonder and destruction this child shall bear on the world once it enters this life and takes its first breath.

I am faced with the reality that the men who rape women once had mothers too and I wonder what they learned (or didn’t) about loving and treating women, both in personal relationships and strangers. I think about the way teenage boys careen by the waterfountain at school and mock the budding bodies of womanhood and adolescence out of their own insecurity. I am, essentially, afraid of what boys because, after working with violated women and children, I know what they are capable of.

I don’t want to raise a son contributing to another woman’s disempowerment.

But feminism has also taught me that not only are men capable, and actually prefer, to be loving, active, energetic leaders for goodness and wholeness, it’s also taught me that women are not grouped together in their fight for equality. The bullying, the cut throat competition, the hidden jealousy, the betrayal…raising a daughter now terrifies me just as much as raising a son. After I’ve work with violated women and children, I’m afraid I’ll raise a daughter who doesn’t care about her worth and values her sexuality only at the price set by society and media.

Whether son or daughter, I’m afraid she’ll give up on herself.
I’m afraid, quite simply, they won’t care about the world they way I do and I won’t be able to stand their selfishness.
I’m afraid that when they ask me questions about what I’ve done to make the world better, I’ll look in the mirror and only see a half-worn human and full blown coward.

Somehow, in the years I’ve contemplated and studied gender and advocated that all persons are equal, I’m petrified I’ll find that I’ve only kidding myself because I know the world can and will knock me on my butt with its cruel, streamlined, flick of the wrist power to teach domination, selfishness, individualism, and greed.

Knowing this child’s gender makes it all real, too real, because once I know “boy” or “girl,” I’ll inherit an entire set of specific strategies the world has planned to brainwash my kid. I don’t have anything except what I *think* I know, a lot of guessing, intuition, and a loving partner.

I hope those seeds are enough.

Will they know how to love, truly love themselves and another human being?
Do they know the world is not fragmented and we, all of us, are inexplicably connected?
Does having this much fear dictate what kind of mother I will be?
Who will be there to save me when I’m the one in trouble?

In some funny way, I want this child to forever remain as it is right now – perfect, growing, dependant on nothing but amniotic fluid, oxygen, and my voice. Not only do I fear about this child hurting, but I’m afraid of the harm the child will be capable of doing as well.

Tomorrow I will know if I am having a son or daughter.

Marry Me Because I’m "Asian"

Published on by Lisa

Thanks to Racialicious and to Angry Asian Man for a heads up on this article about how children of immigrants are “looking closer for love,” according to the Washington Post who says that there is a surprising trend occurring for the second generations (children who are born in the United States and their parents are immigrants) and 1.5 generation (immigrants who enter the country at a very young age) who are choosing to marry someone from their own racial background.

The research findings are confounding social scientists who predicted that the most open-minded, Obama-witnessing generation would be increasing the number of interracial marriages. What they’re finding (gasp) is the opposite – that as the number of Asians increase in the classrooms, workplace, campus, and bar lounges, the more second gens are looking for someone who understands the split identity crisis, “As children, they felt divided loyalties, growing up with one foot in their parents’ home country, the other in the United States. Now, as adults, they wonder: Would I be happy with someone as American as I am, or a recent immigrant?”

At first glance, the numbers make sense and the case for same-race marriage solidifies with research: as the immigrant pool increases, so should the pride and yearning for one’s cultural background be reinforced as they decide to match their race with their future spouse.

Was this research done in 1995 when nearly all Asians were swept under the same rug? Has everyone forgotten the wonderful lessons of reality television? Does no one remember the 2006 Survivor “social experiment” where teams were grouped according to race? Grouping Latinos together was fine, grouping African Americans together seemed logical, throwing the Caucasians together never rocked any boats, but throwing all the Asians together was like throwing cats in a bag.

The point wasn’t that Asians don’t get along. The point was showing how ignorant ABC producers were in thinking that people with Asian backgrounds were relatively the same. I guess it’s a hard concept to grasp. Chinese, Koreans, Vietnamese, Japanese, Indian, and Filipinos (just to name a handful of Asian races) are all tremendously diverse cultures whose heritages spells out extremely different experiences, even if they are “American.”

When any one project, research article, or person groups Asian cultures together, it erases the rich lines of difference between them. Growing up, the erasure came from merging all Asians under one roof (“Whenver I see an Asian, I just assume they’re Chinese,” to “Should I take off my shoes when I come to your house?” to “I bet you’ll be a doctor, right?”). But the erasure also came by class. As long as I was a well-educated middle class Asian womyn, I was similar enough to my White friends that they, “…never see race, just the person underneath.” My mother’s accent was “cute,” and my Brown skin was “a tan.”

One mentality erased me by piling on stereotypes all over my actual life so it was kept hidden. The other valued sameness and ignored the rest. Both practices made me invisible. Both practices infuriated me.

I know nothing of holistic medicine or herbal teas. Geishas are as foreign to me as speaking German. “Asian sounding” last names became identifiable only as I built relationships with people from Japan and Korea and China, not because I was born with black hair. I ate rice with a spoon and fork, not chopsticks, and wondered why “gook” and “chink” were thrown at my wide-set brown eyes, Filipino features written across the ocean of my face. I slowly understood growing up that racist comments weren’t hoping for accuracy, they were meant to categorize and control.

Returning to my parents’ homeland reinforced the unique existence of second gens. There is a component of belonging in the Philippines. Physically, I blended in easily and the roots of my culture are born there, but the moment I opened my mouth or talked politics, the differences shine brightly. The westernized tongue was thick in the Philippines and I stood out in my opinions of social action, negotiating personal space, and measuring “progress.” Here in the United States, I physically stand out in most areas of the country (excluding NYC or CA), but my values are a mixture of eastern and western.

To be a second generation citizen in this country is not to straddle two worlds, it means to have a multi-divided intellect that can perceive and think on several different levels of intuition, cognition, and emotive signals. Surviving in schools and in social settings always depended on my ability to quickly perceive and act; to measure and weigh each step before deciding how to proceed accordingly. It was exhausting living that way, but that was the way.

The article does not break down how the research is analyzed, but just say for the sake of argument that the researchers take on the 2006 Survivor mentality that groups all Asian cultures together. Likely, then, it would consider, say, a Chinese-Japanese marriage as same “asian” race, and Filipino-Caucasian as interracial. For that, I only have three words: how utterly lazy.

The author also throws this classic line near the end as well: “Their forebears often met spouses through family introductions or arranged marriages.”

Pardon me, who are “their forebears?”

Because I’ve never heard of any arranged marriages in my family line. The majority of the second gens in my family (20-30 of us) are pretty much in interracial long term relationships (including my gay and lesbian cousins who are not married), and our parents’ marriages were hardly arranged. That might be true in another Asian culture, but not as much in Filipino culture. Here is my poetic dedication to stereotypes:

Asians
We don’t speak English at all
We all eat dogs, cats, and rats
and can’t drive to save our lives
We all run laundry mats.

Our women are fetishes
Our men are sexless and short
We’re always number one
in any academic cohort.

We’re super smart in science and math
and I’m quiet, shy, demure
and if I’ve got a colonized mind
a White man will be my cure!

Cuz I’m an Asian Asian Asian

There are no magic potions that trick your skin into feeling like you belong and I never looked to my primary relationship to fix that. I certainly wanted someone to understand, first hand, how it felt to walk into a room and be stared at or mocked, criticized, or discriminated. But that wasn’t my litmus test. It wasn’t one particular “thing” that I looked for, it was a combination of insight, gentleness, strength, and integrity that attracted me into intimacy.

There are times when I wish Adonis understood my lived experience beyond that of a cerebral reasoning. The smell of Different is incense that never leaves your clothes. Throughout my entire childhood, I felt others mentally burn a word on my forehead and while sometimes I forgot about it, something would and (still does) always happen that reminds me there’s nowhere to hide from the world so long they can see the Brown of your skin or the shape of your eyes. I wish he could deeply absorb what that meant to me, to always be seen as a scary paradoxical mystery.

Our cultural differences have sparked some of the most intense fights and loving conversations and I’d be lying if I said it never bothered me that I feel quite alone in my racial identity. But that’s the story of immigration and children of immigration in this country. Isolation is the birthmark of our parents, disguised isolation is the trademark of second gens.

I was open to loving anyone, but I never considered the notion that someone from a similar ethnic background would take that particular loneliness away. It’s profundity is a part of my fabric and it’s evolved with me as I learned how to be in significant relationships. Undeniably, yes, I wanted someone who could understand the longing that came with being racially different, but that wasn’t the only kind of longing I was limited to. As a person who knows longing so well, I looked for someone who understood it on multiple levels – a longing for intellectual stimulation, a longing for God, a longing for sports and board games.

Each person – regardless of Asian race – will define “home” very differently. For many Filipinos, religion is of utmost priority. Walking into Adonis’ home and hearing them make plans for mass, or tease each other about being late for church, or gripe about the length of Easter Sunday – THAT felt like home to me. The way their four siblings interacted reminded me of being in my four sibling family. The way family was centralized (oh, so very Filipino) and the loud talking, laughing, and efforts to connect as much as possible while everyone was home, that felt very familiar. And while the Sunday brunches’ menu did not include pork adobo, rice, or longaniza, I felt a sense of home in his family. That “sense” of home never translated into Home, but I don’t look for Home anywhere else than in my own reflections and memories.

The intensity and intricacy of our lived experiences is unpatterned. For me, it was not enough to look for someone who had a connection with culture, I was looking for someone who had a connection to their family, to their spiritual side. Among countless filters, temperament tests, and personality traits, I looked for someone who connected this world with the next, who loved to tackle mystery and faith, and trusted that the road would not be easy, but most certainly worth it. And corny jokes. Must love and tell corny jokes.

I guess that’s the Filipino in me.

Finding Filipinas

Published on by Lisa

It can be challenging to find uplifting notes about Filipinas in the news.

When I google “Filipinas in the news,” I am disgusted and disheartened to find stories about Filipinas being chopped up and then loaded into a washing machine, or another Pinay being molested or slain, or another being charged with a death sentence after a brutal slaying of a young child in Kuwait.

That’s more than enough…Tama na…

And after all of those pleasant fields of affirmation, the very bottom of the page has an advertisement to help connect Pinays with “local and foreign men.” (Niiiiiice specificity.)

I shan’t be satisfied with a Ramiele Malubay link from WikiPilipinas, as lovely as she is.

For a quick brief of some great accomplishments of a few Filipina womyn, read over here…

Mabuhay!