A lot of people just can't seem to guess my ethnicity on the first try. I've gotten Mexican, Japanese, Thai, mixed asian and black, but they always fail to guess the one thing that I am: Filipino American. For me Filipino culture is a melting pot of spanish and American history, with other Asian traditions mixed in. As a Filipino I'm proud of my rich heritage, but at times I still struggle with where i fit in, and i know i'm not the only one. my name is Sunshine or Arcilla, I'm 21 years old and I am a first-generation Filipino-American. My name's Alex Gonzaga I'm a junior here at the University of Washington and 20 years old and I'm full Filipino and I like to consider myself a Filipino-American. My name is Emmy Daniels, I just turned 18 in March, and I'm Korean White Filipino and Chinese. I grew up in the Philippines in this province called the La Union. I was born and raised there up until I was about 12 years old and then I came here to America with my mom and my sister. Both my parents were born in the Philippines but I was born in Washington. Born and raised here and live here all my life. My mom she came to America from the Philippines. She came here with eight of her sisters because they wanted to have a better future. When I first got here they asked me to check off a check box am I Asian or am I Pacific Islander, I said I'm Filipino! - I don't know what that I don't know where I fit in this in. In american culture sometimes we end up assimilating a lot and I see it a lot in people that I've met in the past. I witnessed some of my cousins like really put like clothes pins on their nose and sleep through it at night just to hope that their noses would get you know a little bit more like a white person's nose. I would have to probably recall a time in elementary school days probably for me because I have a lot of dietary restrictions that I would often not be able to eat the school lunches and I would bring lunch from home. Like chicken adobo or like lumpia, pinakbet - stuff like that. These things they weren't exactly like accepted well by my friends because I would often get comments like "Oooh what are are you eating?" or like "What's that smell?" I just felt kind of embarrassed because I didn't have what the other kids were having since I always packed home lunch and they always had like pizza, or cheeseburgers and french fries so it felt weird. It's a constant thing that happens to feel like you are, um, not so much marginalized but ..actually yes marginalize for being Filipino. I'd also hang out at school and people are like "oh look there's the white kids" or "there's asian kids" and I'm like "which one am I? I'm kind of like both." There's a lot of different layers when you have to dissect Filipino American culture. I would say that one of the big things is loyalty and being true to your values. Filipinos are talented yes Filipinos are great fighters yes right? but we are so much more My mom, when Miss Universe she won Miss Philippines it was really amazing everyone's like "oh yay, represent our country, represent everything." I feel empowered honestly. I feel resilient - resilience is at the court of being Filipino. Being Filipino just, it encompasses so much more than just a single culture. Embrace yourself and be who you are and be proud of who you are
