"White people like to believe I'm Caucasian like them I think it makes their life less complicated. 'I'm so so white.' After much therapy, I'm happy and comfortable in my brown skin, though I'm still working out how others perceive me as this Other, Asian person." "This new knowledge was a huge blow to my identity and, admittedly, to my self esteem. So, at age 28 I learned that I was not half white but all Filipina. I didn't find out until I tried to apply for a passport in my late twenties and the truth came out. As it turns out, my biological father was a Filipino man whom I've never met. After she divorced her first husband and re-married my stepdad from Michigan, my whiteness became cemented. My mom wanted me to speak perfect English, so never spoke anything but to me. I embraced this 'hapa-haole' identity (as they say in Hawaii), and loved my ethnic ambiguity. I grew up thinking that I was half-Filipina and half-white, under the impression that my mom's first husband was my biological father. "I was born in the Philippines and moved to Hawaii when I was three. You act white.' And I saltily retort, 'Why? Because I'm not doing your lawn, or taking care of your kids? You need to broaden your idea of what Latina means.' " And white acquaintances often say, 'You are white. I married a white guy and had children who are blonde and blue eyed, and I'm frequently asked if I'm the nanny or babysitter. In shops, I'm treated like every other Latina, followed around, then ignored at the counter. I identify with my mother's culture and country as well as American culture. Even my cousin said a few weeks ago, 'Well, you aren't really Spanish, because your dad is white.' Which gutted me, truly. My Spanish is atrocious and I grew up in rural PA. "But truthfully, I don't feel like I fit with Latinas either. It always felt like the undercurrent of that question was, 'You aren't white, but you aren't black. When I was young (20s) and living in the city, I would get asked multiple times a day where I was from, where my people were from, because Allentown, Pennsylvania, clearly wasn't the answer they were looking for. I've always felt liminal, like I drift between race and culture. "My mother is a Panamanian immigrant and my father is a white guy from Pennsylvania.
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