What Are You?

By: Elaine Lehman

 

Growing up in Chicago, my parents created an environment that fostered inquiry about living between cultures and shared histories and made us feel special. I was never forced to take sides. They surrounded us with a diverse group of friends, many who had also come from the Philippines and intermarried distinctly different ethnic groups.

“What are you?” is a pretty silly question to ask someone, when you think about it. But it is a question I have been asked almost every day. I suppose I could two-step and repeat the many attributes with which I have been identified or I identify. I was told that I am intelligent. A maverick. I like that one. But that’s not what people want to hear. They want me to tell them what I am. Or rather, what they want me to be – My particular mix – Filipino and Mexican – resulted in me looking like I could be one of many races and ethnicities. When I lived in New York, I was welcomed into and moved easily among Southeast Asian and Pacific Rim groups. I was even asked if I was Israeli. I never felt the need to hide or explain my bi-racial background.

These last couple of years have been interesting. I enjoy learning about our Philippine cultures and history and about the Filipino American community. But the daily endeavor of Filipinos to make me justify my heritage and to discuss my mixed race makes me perplexed. Especially at a time when it is crucial to come to a consensus about national identity – not just in the Philippines, not just in the United States, but worldwide.

Do Filipinos have a fairly myopic view of interracial marriage or procreation with the likelihood of producing children who are mixed race? And what it means to be mixed race? Yes. But the narrowness in view is not exclusive to our group, past and present. Interracial marriage and concubinage between groups and multi-racial children are not recent phenomena, but part of human history.

Indigenous cultures shaped and were shaped by geography, migration, and interaction. However, responses to the frequency and visibility of interracial relations were uneven and have changed over time. The blood quantum construct introduced by western Europe was enforced formally by law and informally by prejudice and discrimination, imposing social, economic, spatial, and political separation of the races. This led to the emergence of cultural prohibitions against interracial marriage and prevented the widespread acceptance of racially exogamous mixed unions and intermarriage.

Race has been American obsession since the beginning of its history. Interracial marriage was relatively rare in the United States for most of its history, although unions outside of marriage have always occurred. Anti-miscegenation laws in some states date back to colonial times, with the earliest recorded in 1691. According to a recent report, “laws against mixed marriage have been surprisingly rare outside the United States. … Because the regulation of marriage was considered a state rather than a federal prerogative, there was never a nationwide ban on mixed marriage in the United States.” Most anti- miscegenation laws remained until ruled unconstitutional in 1967 by the U.S. Supreme Court in Loving v. Virginia. In 2000, the last anti-miscegenation law was repealed in the state of Alabama.

While the primary racial divide was a color line criminalizing the marriage or concubinage between white from black, the divide over time encompassed other immigrant groups. Several states (California, Arizona, Wyoming, Utah, Nevada, South Dakota, and Maryland) also expressly forbade marriage with Filipinos. Maryland was also one of the states to ban marriages between some peoples of color, and prevented marriage between African Americans and Filipinos, in addition to White – African American and White – Filipino marriages.

Anti-immigration laws, such as the Chinese Exclusion act, resulted in the dramatic curtailment of female immigration and bi-racial families. Later male-dominated waves of immigrants resulted in Filipino-White, Filipino-Mexican, Filipino-Puerto Rican families. As American interests led to increased American activity in the Pacific and Asia, brides and concubinage of American men contributed heavily to bi-racial families. Since 1898, the presence of U.S. military personnel in the Philippines has produced a large number of children, now known as Amerasians. Due to their mixed race and social circumstances, these bi-racial offspring are marginalized in the Philippines and unrecognized by the United States. Their existence is largely ignored by Filipino American communities.

As we seek to increase our Filipino American visibility and representation, there is the tendency to indulge in visceral rhetoric to attack the status of bi-racial or multi-racial peoples in our community. We Filipino American Council of Greater Chicago are working to change this paradigm and to raise awareness about intrinsic Filipino American experience, which comprises mixed families and children – including in our community. For example, John Haines, Navy veteran, proud father of an adult Amerasian daughter whom he supports, and a member of our Advisory Board, crafted Bill HR 1520: Uniting Families Act of 2017- 2018, which has been introduced to Congress.

We have been working to foster inclusivity and cross-cultural awareness and dialogue, together with community and our early leaders and families, such as Alex Gonzales, Bob Mittenthal, Joe and Carman Banez, Toby Urian and Dennis Ordinario. We endeavor to build community through events like Rizal Day and the 47th Ward Aldermanic Forum recently held at our Rizal Center.

A lot of effort is wasted in defining people based on outward appearance. The issue of mixed-race individuals is also a matter of convenience, tinged with residual anxiety over the blood quantum construct that was perpetuated by colonization. Even Jose Rizal, “a Filipino… few persons in this land of mixed blood could boast a greater mixture than his,” according to his parish priest Fr. Leoncio Lopez.

What unifies us is the very spirit of an ideal for all humanity: this transcends false notions of ethnicity and race.

So, the next time you ask someone, “What are you?” accept the answer, “I am”. ###