In the musical, Annie, there is a song called, “Maybe.” This song frames the small corner in which orphan Annie wonders about the whereabouts and hobbies of her biological parents. Growing up, my sister, an intrinsically talented piano player used to glide her hands over the ivories and order me to sing along in my loud and often off key voice.

Maybe far away
Or maybe real nearby
He may be pouring her coffee
She may be straighting his tie
Maybe in a house
All hidden by a hill
She’s sitting playing piano,
He’s sitting paying a bill
Betcha they’re young
Betcha they’re smart
Bet they collect things
Like ashtrays, and art
Betcha they’re good
(Why shouldn’t they be?)
Their one mistake was giving up me!
So maybe now it’s time,
And maybe when I wake
They’ll be there calling me “Baby”
… Maybe.
Betcha he reads
Betcha she sews
Maybe she’s made me
A closet of clothes
Maybe they’re strict
As straight as a line…
Don’t really care
As long as they’re mine
So maybe now this prayer’s
the last one of it’s kind…
Won’t you please come get your “Baby”
Maybe

While I am most certainly not an orphan, I sang this song frequently enough and loud enough to memorize its words and contemplate its tugging profundity. Singing, I would often try and project how I would feel growing up without knowing my roots, who I belong to, and yearn for a sense of history. Belting the lyrics out time and time again brought me to a deep connection with Maybe. For me and my family, love was never in question, but belonging and history was always in doubt. With two immigrant parents, I struggled for every inch of self-understanding. In my younger years, life was much smoother feigning disinterest and apathy toward my ethnic roots.

In Nadia’s deep pool of reflection she asks children of immigrants: Do you think your parents thought that being born in the u.s. means you are outside the influence of their home country/culture? Do your parents think of you as americans? The old truism says that immigrants are in search of a better life for their children; what were your parents seeking for you?

My parents are legal American citizens, but they will tell you that I am all-American. Two worlds, equal in force, combat for my brainpower and loyalty. In one corner is my Filipino-Spanish blood; a living paradox of the colonizer and the colonized beating in the same heart. In my Filipino existence, there is family-centered prayer and religion, loud gatherings, food, rice, music, raucous dancing, and an almost ridiculous disregard for time and deadlines. No home is complete without an altar in the living room, no dinner is worth having unless it’s eaten three times over. In my Pinay eyes, mistaken identity is my identity. If not Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Hawaiian, Vietnamese, Indian, Mexican, Loatian, Malaysian, Samoan, or Native American – then I was rendered invisible. The only place where I ever felt racially understood was with my own family. Not only did my siblings understand what it meant to be Filipino, they understood what it meant to be Filipino-American; to be raised Filipino while living in the United States. That bond, sealed with the most intimate clarity, can never be broken.

In the other corner is my American world. This is the east coast born, Midwest raised existence. This is where I made a salad for the first time in college and began questioning Catholicism. My American identity is the fast driving, fast talking, eye rolling independent
daughter who couldn’t stand Filipino summer picnics and hated making eye contact with any other Asian Americans because it was a lightning-quick reminder of the awkward reality that I was more comfortable navigating an all White crowd of folks than connecting with another grrl of color. Back then, even if it’s hell, familiarity always triumphed. This side of me that effortlessly understood White society through private schools, privileged friends, also took in the cool absence of any other grrls of color in my White mainstream Midwest manners. She lived in the forefront, elbowing and trying to beat the Pinay out of me. She almost won.

The Pinay, thankfully, overcame. And in the epitome of Filipino spirit did not expel the American out, but, rather, invited her in as a passenger. They both existed in equal position, but only one had the steering wheel.

Endlessly explained in simplistic and binary terms, bi-culturalism is the fusion of two cultures,
yielding a rare lived experience that specializes in multi-understanding, multi-reasoning, and multi-facets. Children of immigrants have a wider periphery than most. It’s both a characteristic and reward of our dueling/dualing lives.

When I think about the years I spent in utter anguish and rage, I wonder why. I wonder what would have helped ease my acidic bitterness. It was not so much that I was different, it was more the fact that everyone assumed that I was just like them. The visual difference was evident, my brown skin spoke more across a hallway than anything. In the face of difference, most people just try to comfort themselves by drawing commonalities. Normally, forging connections in hopes of establishing a relationship is acceptable and expected. Over time, however, relentless emphasis on sameness and commonality qualifies the differences as insignificant and dispensable.

There never was or ever will be an entire reconciliation between cultures, tongues, creeds, and lifestyles. After realizing that separateness was no longer necessary, there were no longer two individuals in the car. There is no longer one passenger and a driver, there is only one driver: Me, a conglomeration of two worlds that is not accepted into either world as a whole. Without fluent Tagalog, or trips to Manila, I am a not a “real” Filipino. Without peanut butter and jelly and baseball, I am “foreign” or “exotic.”

This country, my country of origin, is obsessed with Black and White as the only two races, as the only racial conflict, as the only communities of conflict. In every experience of academia, media, and social conversation about race, Black and White are polarized to model the dynamics and yawn-boring patterns of racial tension in the US. Shameless in its ignorance, the United States frequently groups Asians in one category, one hand glossing over our black hair and smudging our skin until its all yellow. I am Brown.

The Latino community continuously gains signficant ground, but Asians are the wallflowers of the race conversation. Deemed pleasantly invisible and poetic in distinct features, Asians are Asians and nothing more, nothing less. If we continue to operate in the same outdated model of an umbrella-ed Asian category, I shudder to think of how many lifetimes it will take until bi-racial and bi-cultured issues will come to surface.

I grew up to be my own self translator. To this day, I still walk into every room and automatically survey its occupants, my mind quickly calculating likelihoods, conversations, percentages, and potential detonating bombs. After almost three decades, my intuition is dead on accurate. It is a learned survival skill to know when to relax or guard yourself. Navigating the Midwest as a grrl of color was like a stepping through a mine field. Careful, careful.

My parents did not come to this country to give their unborn children a better life. They came to this country to help their families who were alive and poor, sick and marginalized, stuck and helpless. My parents came to work to send their earnings home, to do better not for themselves but for their immediate families. Selfless, sacrificing, and urgent, my parents reaped the benefits of this country for others, never themselves.

I was sixteen when I attended my parent’s naturalization process. Uncertain as to why I was resistant to their American citizenship, I watched with sadness as they proclaimed their allegiance, but could never articulate exactly why. Their legal ties to the Philippines, on paper, were gone. A land I had never seen except through stories of poverty and heat, the Philippines cradled my parents’ hearts and loyalties. Today, I see the reasoning as to why becoming a citizen was necessary for them, but the ceremony rang false to me. I kept questioning the logic, “Why not let patriotism be reflected through human service, merit, decency, and dedication, rather than history tests and ceremonies? Why ask my parents to essentially choose between birthplace and home?” It did and continues to seem like such an unjust choice.

My parents were in constant flux in how to let their children be Filipino-American. Only now I can appreciate how difficult it must be to pass traditions along to your children in a completely unfamiliar environment and then watch it simply be considered and sometimes disregarded. The sound of cultures clashing arrives in the form of unasnwerable questions. Is dating in the US better because we have freer sex with less guilt and more condoms? Is American Catholicism better than Filpino spirituality that celebrates family prayer, tradition, and rosaries? Is it better that college students in the US typically blow off their undergraduate experience in favor of beer, experimentation, and spring break roadtrips? Do I lead a “better” life than my parents?

It depends on who you ask. If you ask any US born citizen, they would say that I have a more comfortable, stable, and privileged life. Is that “better?” I don’t think so. Is it better to leave home and be considered an American adult at 18 or live with your parents until you are more certain of what you want from life and have latent independance? Is it a better life to live with your elders and learn how to take care of them or send them off to nursing homes and/or hire personal nurses? Is it better to have have endless choices with indecision or fewer choices with less freedom?

I am 28 years old an have been married two and a half years. I am childless and live in city where I do as I please and answer my cell phone in restaurant booths. My mother, by the time she was my age, had flown halfway across the globe to work at the United Nations and attend Columbia for two years while she supported her family and sent her siblings through school. She quit Columbia after realizing her benign-tumored ovaries weren’t going to give her the timeframe most woman would have. At 28, she was married with one child and another on the way.

Do I live a “better” life than my mother? Easier, perhaps. Better? I don’t know. I’ve often questioned as to whether I am as strong as my mother. That, also, I don’t know. Our lives, cluttered with various obstacles and failings, cannot be compared. I will never know the pain of leaving my country of origin to rebuild my entire life in support of others. And she will never know the unrelenting pain of isolation and misapprehension.

The question of authenticity used to haunt me. The stiff armor built due to racist, belittling degradation and the humiliation of admitting I cannot speak Tagalog once paralyzed me. I now keep a healthy perspective of authenticity, grounded in the Pinay pride I carry; the knowledge that I am a product of two worlds; two mothers who nursed with radically different idelogies and I am not 50/50. I am 100% original, unprecedented, authentic, and rare.

I still wonder about my roots, my history, and whether I will ever truly find belonging. The difference now, when I sing Maybe, is that I am singing in reminicence of how I once was lost, orphaned by a Black/White only debate. I also resist the notion that bi-cultured, children of immigrants are wondering lost and then suddenly, one day, are self-found. We are in constant state of unfolding, each moment bringing more sense and experience to our natural state of bi-plexity. I have always been in this process. The difference now is that I am less afraid.

Immigration
The Filipino people are the second largest Asian population and one of the three fastest growing demographics in the United States.1 Despite being second in number only to the Chinese, this population remains largely unknown and virtually invisible in the media and public eye. With is history of colonialism, the Filipino people have struggled to sustain its distinct identity, which is influenced, but not determined by Spanish culture and the United States’ long-term military presence.

The story of Filipino women, Filipinas, or Pinays, is richly unique and diverse. Women of Filipino blood face different forms of hardship and discrimination on separate continents, but demonstrate trademark resilience and strength in times of struggle. Under the suffocating blanket of extreme economic poverty, women living in the Philippines are highly susceptible to fall prey to the international migration of female labor – to become nannies, domestic workers, and sex workers around the globe.2 These women go to such measures for the survival of their families or to escape the economic oppression and lack of employment. On the opposite spectrum, other women who migrate to the United States do so for similar reasons, but under drastically different conditions.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 brought waves of educated and highlight skilled Filipinas to the United States. For whatever winds that brought them to North America, there are cultural characteristics embedded in Filipinas that become implanted in the soil of their new homes. Religion is one of them. Unlike other Asian countries which have various religions and practices, the Philippines is 85% Roman Catholic.3 For of Filipinos, religion is closely tied to cultural roots and practices – praying novenas and rosaries, and creating makeshift altars in their homes. For many immigrant Filipinas, their spirituality can be a source of strength and comfort as they face discrimination, sexism, isolation and a longing for community.4 Certain Filipino spiritual values, especially establishing a close community and extending and accepting hospitality, can assist Filipinas in dealing with these issues that stem from painful immigration, reports Thelma B. Burgonio-Watson, the first Filipina to be ordained as a Minister of the Word in the Presbyterian Church. These values can help Filipinas deal with “the more individualistic lifestyle of the mainstream American culture” as they strive to form their own identity.

First Generation, Bi-culturalism
Today, one in five Americans is either foreign-born or first-generation, the highest level in the history of the United States. 5 As Filipina immigrants have brought or continue to birth Filipina American children in the US, a new era of cultural fusion has begun. First generation,6 bi-cultural children are growing up in a world of schizophrenic messages and conflict of upbringing.

Due to the influx of Filipinos after the Immigration and Nationality Act, more Filipinas are being born on American soil with Philippine-born parents. This is the first generation of bi-cultured individuals inculcated with both eastern and western influenced lifestyles. These women vary in terms of geography, language, and class. As Filipinos remain a largely hidden people in the United States, and because Filipinos are subject to the same patriarchal oppression as the rest of the world, Filipino women and their complexity remain mysteriously unknown.

Isolation plays a large factor in their invisibility. This population of women and their families are isolated for numerous reasons. As the Immigration and Nationality Act encouraged highly skilled and educated immigrants, especially medical professionals, to work in the United States, the children of these immigrants were quickly moved into middle to high class neighborhoods. Unlike some ethnic communities who face socioeconomic hardship and live in close proximity for support and/or necessity, Filipino families, products of Immigration and Nationality Act that brought highly-skilled professionals to the middle to upper class of the United States, are often left isolated and are left to assimilate or survive on their own. Thus, a two fold problem occurs.

Immigrants themselves are forced to navigate the cultural conflicts with transitions while their children are silently marked cultural hybrids and are forced to find answers for themselves. In the privacy of their homes, Filipino ethos – collectivism, religion – are enforced. Outside the home, in school, or with peers, they may experience feelings of being ostracized, racial discrimination, or their heritage is ignored altogether.7 Ultimately, bicultured Filipinos may grow to resent or deny their own ethnic identity because it causes so much confusion and pain.

Problems of Verbal Identity:
Pinayism/F/Peminism vs. “Asian American”
The benign nature of the term “Asian American” often generalizes and blurs the very distinct lines that exist between Asian cultures, especially Filipino culture. The term “Asian,” conjures up the more popular and familiar races of Asia: Chinese, Japanese, and Korean. For Filipino Americans, when swept under the term “Asian American,” they experience difficultly in maintaining an authentic identity, especially when the label nonchalantly groups varying peoples and practices under one unifying and non-specific label. When navigating the “Asian” and the “American” components of the label, it might be more accurate and appropriate to insert a hyphen between the two, to represent the merging of two worlds, two distinct globes full of historical roots, practices, and expectation.

Another semantic challenge exists even within cultural vernacular. Filipinas must confront challenge in identifying themselves in their chosen speech when using the letters “F” of “P.” In the seven major dialects of the Philippines, there is no letter “F” in the alphabet.8 This has led to an increasing debate as to whether identify as Filipina/o or Pilipina/o. With over 300 years of Spanish colonization in its history,9 to use the native “P” sound is an avenue of phonetic dissent to challenge the colonizer’s use of the “F” sound.10 Even in simple name, Filipinas must decide how they want to identify.

Pinay is slang in Tagalog, the main dialect of the Philippines, for a Filipina woman; to describe a woman with Filipino descent. This empowering word has evolved to mean many things, but in more contemporary times, it is used to affirm the Filipnas living in the United States.11 Pinayism is one of the first efforts to theorize the contemporary Filipina experience.
As feminism is largely thought to be consumed by White, liberal, middle-class agendas, many individuals across other races, religions, and ethnicity do not identify with the word “feminism” because of its assuming history of speaking for all women’s experiences and western political affiliation. As other critical voices, such as bell hooks who speaks about African American women, have emerged to widen the scope of women’s experiences, Peminism rises. In the echoes of third world feminist theory, peminism resonates with Gloria Anzaldua who advocates for “mestiza consciousness,” which calls for individuals to “[develop] a tolerance for contradictions, a tolerance for ambiguity…She learns to juggle cultures. She has a plural personality, she operates in pluralistic mode. Not only does she sustain contradiction, she turns the ambivalence into something else.” This is particularly appropriate for first generation, bicultured Pinays who experience split lives in their daily existence.

Another strand of separation for Pinays stems from the mainstream, western feminist thought that has segregated the pivotal role and significance of spirituality from the conversation of feminism. A Filipina must seek out alternative tools to deconstruct and find meaning in her bi-cultured identity, which not only includes, but is heavily linked to her religious and spiritual experiences.

Asian Feminist Theology
“There is no one way to do Asian Feminist Theology, and Asian feminist theologians in recent years have increasingly paid attention to their differences, not just their commonalities.”12 This main tenant of Asian Feminist Theology stands as a critical feature for first generation Filipinas negotiating their spirituality, identity, and religious practice in the context of the United States. Asian Feminist Theology is based upon the Asian women’s perspective, but that perspective comes from all over the world, including Asians who have never been to Asia or their mother country.

In one vein, identifying with Asian Feminist Theology, with the forethought that it must come from women living in or having lived in Asia, could be problematic for first generation, bi-cultured Pinays who face discrimination for not being “Filipino enough” (speaking the language, regular visits to the Philippines) or completely American. Some first generation Pinays may not have ever seen land beyond their own state or country, let alone the Philippines or Asia as a continent.

However, an individual will soon come to understand that Asian Feminist Theology is an open invitation that pushes beyond sweeping terms; it is an arena that intentionally seeks a “multivocal” conversation.13 This conversation can withstand and even welcomes the differences of generation and citizenship. Identity encapsulates much more than birthright. It includes the overlapping layers of family history and migration. For split Filipinas who struggle between the individualistic western culture and the culture that promotes the centrality of family and community, Asian Feminist Theology remedies the notion that Filipinas must be one or the other.

There is no one true identity for first generation Filipinas. They exist on the peripheral, translating their own lives at the connecting door of two worlds. They are not just Asian or just American. They are both and more. Asian Feminist Theology may very well be the most hopeful space a bi-cultured Filipina may find in her efforts to find a place that can hold the natural tension of her duality.

In the effort of bi-cultured Pinays to sift through their catholic upbringing in the United States, Asian Feminist Theology stands as a flexible and essential body of re-examination. “Asian feminist theologians find that they have to reinterpret sin and redemption anew in the contemporary context. The traditional emphasis on the individual and spiritual dimension of sin proves to be less than helpful for women. Women are not just sinners; they are the sinned against too.”14

Even though many Filipinas must painfully co-exist with Catholicism and f/peminism, fleeing the Catholic Church is often not a viable or desirable answer. Theologian Rachel Bundang reflects, “I cannot help but see Allan Figueroa Deck’s characterization of Latino theology as similar to my own stance and project. He writes, ‘Among Latinos the unity of the Church does not revolve around the resolution of differences of creed or doctrine…the commitment out of which they write and teach is not so much the confessional…as much as the cultural and social class commitment of their communities, their gente, their pueblos.’”15

F/Peminist theologians must be able to find a place that can hold the exchange, where the goal is not sameness or resolution; where peace is the space that can withstand the action of living in friction. Rachel Bundang asserts, “Theologies and the study of Asian Americans’ religious experiences in the United States are not yet a point where they can even deal with trying to settle on a name like womanist, mujerista, or teologia de conjuto (collaborative Hispanic Protestant theology)…I do not think that naming, in this case, is as important as the struggle to articulate what is yet unspoken, unseen, unknown.”16

Moving the Unknown Forward
What is unspoken, unseen, and unknown is the contemporary spiritual Filipina experience. The American and European feminist movement in the 1970s called for the expansion of the women’s experience by expressing in the written, narrative form. As the attempt to validate Women Studies in the academic realm continues, many have suggested a cease to the narrative, or at least a decrease in using the narrative as a tool for credibility. The narrative, some feminists argue, does not offer empirical data for Women Studies to be deepened or theorized.
The bi-cultured Filipina has yet to be heard, or even asked about her experience. The limited space in which women of color have had for their stories is an outrage and a disservice to all those working on behalf of women’s liberation. Chung Hyun Kyung, an Asian woman theologian, writes, “Throughout my eleven years of theological training, I have written countless term papers and theological essays for highly educated people who were my teachers…I no longer want to write so-called ‘comprehensive’ theology seeking to answer question of privileged Europeans. I want to do theology in solidarity with and in love for my mother so as to resurrect crucified persons – like her – by giving voice to their hurts and pains.”17

According to theologian Rebecca Chop, ‘knowledge is itself always historical, always related to power and interests, and is open to change and transformation.’18 Asian Feminist Theologians argue that because their experiences have been left out of the theological reflection, they must do their own theology.19 For Asian Feminist Theology to advance the narrative cannot be over; it is just beginning.

For bi-cultured Filipinas to become a part of the theological conversation and to fight their own cultural and systematic oppression, they must put their own life stories forward and speak from the marginalized places in which they reside. They must distinguish themselves and affirm their rights to “do theology” by deeply contemplating and offering their split lives as theological testimony and join the Asian Feminist Theology movement to magnify the pieces of their brokenness and strength.

1 United States Census Bureau, 2000.
2 Ehrenreich, Barbara and Horchschild, Arlie Russell. Global Women: Nannies, Maids and Sex Workers in the New Economy. Henry Holt and Company, LLC. Hochschild. 2002.
3 Root, Maria P. Filipino Americans: Transforming and Identity. Sage Publications. Thousand Oaks. 1997.
4 Root, pg 328.
5 Fountas, Angela Jane. Waking Up American: Coming of Age Biculturally. Seal Press. Emeryville. 2005.
6 The term “first generation” has been used to describe both immigrants and also those whose parents are immigrants. For consistency, the term “first generation” is used exclusively to refer or describe individuals who are born in the United States, whose parents emigrated from another country.
7 Root, pg 198.
8 Jesus, Melinda L. de. Pinay Power, Peminst Critical Theory: Theorizing the Filipina/American Experience. Routledge. New York. 2005.
9 Jesus, pg 14.
10 The Spanish colonizers named the islands “lasIslas Filipinas: after Philip of Spain. In 1898, with the American Takeover, the “F” sound was further enforced.
11 Root, pg 14.
12 Pui-lan, Kwok. Introducing Asian Feminist Theology. The Pilgrim Press. Cleveland. 2000.
13 Pui-lan, pg 10.
14 Pui-lan, 80.
15 Pui-lan, 66.
16 Pui-lan, 67.
17 Pui-lan, 28.
18 Pui-lan, 39.
19 Pui-lan, 39.

I missed George Stephanopoulos’ ABC special report last Friday night over the perilous state of our country. All I saw was a brief advertisement explaining the division in our country is destroying our nation. Mhm. Now there’s a new thought – our country is divided.

Neither donkey or elephant identified. Neither pro or anti life or choice. I cannot swallow the pills we are fed to believe that to be active, intelligent, or productive means we must identify and label ourselves. What would happen if I didn’t? What would happen if I made a new language to desribe my own political evolution, my own human search for truth and its governance? I identify catholic and feminist; filipina and spanish; my name is hyphenated for God’s sake – I identify with duality. The existence of two or more elements does not necessarily neutralize beliefs. I believe duality strengthens the ability to articulate and make an argument. Give me an issue and I can argue either side. Ask me what I believe and I’ll say something ambiguous, I’m sure.

It’s not that I don’t have beliefs. Au contraire. The opposite, I believe. Perhaps too much. I believe that we are capable of healing, progression, and risk. I believe in technology, relationship, and human touch. I believe in seasonal admission and selective rejection (aka agree to novelties at the right times of your life and always reject what is not life-giving). Not all we read is true, most celebrities are ridiculous, and we exhonerate the easy, quick, and painless methods of living. Language and earth are grossly stained and misused. Eating at an ethnic restaurant does NOT constitute racial inclusion in our lives and those who don’t think the same are wrong, evil, or misinformed. I do have plenty of beliefs, they’re just unbound. And I don’t like the look of the conventional strings.

Think slowly. What wins the race? Or, rather, who’ll benefit if, and when, the race is ever over? I mean, have you ever really stopped and looked at both sides of the road? The protests, the screaming, the metal detectors. Aren’t you getting sick over our inability to sustain peace? And I don’t mean peace with the symbol of a dove. I mean peace with radical equality, where daily freedoms include hilarity, art, and pleasant news for everyone, para todos? I’m getting just as sick over the Bush jokes as I am over restricted civil liberties. It’s as if we’re running out of ways to express what we want and the only ways to move forward are the old ways – ridicule, alienate the other side, isolate ourselves, buy something expensive to make yourself feel better, drink alcohol, and attend a workshop that recycles the same message.

I identify turtle, a slow creature in our world who is both mobile by water and land. The turtle is anatomically described into two parts. Its upper body is home to vertebrae and ribs while the lower region has been formed from the clavicles and collar bones. Surprise, surprise, it needs both regions to survive and is connected by a bony structure called The Bridge. Its growth can be spurred or interrupted by its surrounding environmental conditions.

I grow. I hope.
I grow I hope.
I hope I grow.