Sometimes, I wish I were white.
A part of me feels ashamed of admitting it. There is guilt in acknowledging that you don’t feel fully comfortable in your own skin, that you somehow feel that you were meant to be born somewhere else.
Don’t get me wrong; When I say I sometimes wish I were “white,” I do not simply mean that I dislike my skin tone. The truth is far more complicated and something that most Filipinos do not like saying out loud. The Philippines has been free from foreign colonization for decades now, but the mentality of being colonized remains.
Filipinos, both those who still live in the country and those part of the diaspora, have always glorified Whiteness. This is why the use of skin whitening treatments are so widespread and normalized here, why our standards of beauty are often Western or Latin (notice how a majority of our Miss Universe candidates are half-white or foreign-born), why we see English as the superior language and how we connote good English speaking skills with high intelligence, why so many Filipinos are desperate to leave the Philippines and go to America.
They say that the Filipino Dream is the American Green Card. And there is so much truth there. I do not judge any Filipino who makes this decision, of course, because I know just how difficult it can be to live a comfortable life here. We are often overworked and underpaid, so we look outside the country for better opportunities. Or even if we stay, most Filipinos make it a personal dream and life goal to work for a multi-national corporation because they often pay better than local businesses.
Our government and education system are modelled after the US government and education system. We learn Math, Science, and other essential school subjects in English rather than in our native languages. Our entertainment and media is focused on Hollywood and Western pop culture (with bits and pieces of anime and K-Drama thrown into the mix). Whether we acknowledge it or not, we see everything Foreign as “better” or “superior” and we see everything from the Philippines (including ourselves) as “not as good.”
We are coconuts. Brown on the outside, white on the inside.
Our history of being colonized continues to affect how we view ourselves and the world around us. The word “patriotism” or “nationalism” don’t seem to exist in our vocabularies.
For many Filipinos, including myself, sadly, we sometimes wish we were just born white and American. Not saying that white Americans don’t experience any hardships ever, but being white and American do come with invisible privileges we wish we could be a part of.
Many Filipinos see America as an escape, a chance for a better life. But when they leave the country for the Western world, they are often surprised that the reality of being a “perpetual foreigner” in a seemingly progressive nation is not what they thought it would be. Because even though we may think White and talk White, we are still Filipino, with all that it entails.
In Western eyes, we are still foreign and Other, no matter how hard we may try to assimilate into the dominant culture.
Recently, I’ve tried to do research on this issue. I know many Filipinos and Filipino-Americans who feel this way, who still struggle with unlearning the colonial mentality and internalized racism we have been taught (both explicitly and implicitly) all our lives.
Despite this being a widespread issue, so few articles and resources have been written and shared about the topic. It’s not that Filipinos don’t experience racism or don’t feel its effects (in fact, a survey has found that 51% of Filipinos have said that they have experienced racism at some point), but that we don’t talk about it as much. In our culture, we are taught not to rock the boat. To simply stay silent even in the face of injustice or prejudice.
Filipino-Americans, despite being among the largest immigrant populations in the United States, are often excluded in talks of racism, even among other POC, even among other AAPI folks. We are the forgotten and invisible minority.
I wrote this all out because I had been thinking about it for a long time and yet it’s a conversation that never seems to come up. It’s one of those things that you understand and that most people around you understand, yet no one ever seems to say it out loud.
To this day, I still struggle with comparing myself to the “white ideal.” I still undervalue myself, my works, my skills, my intelligence, my beauty because I don’t fully match up to the Western standard. It doesn’t have to be this way. We, Filipinos, are worthy and valuable. Sometimes, it’s hard to see it because this mentality has been ingrained in our culture for so long, because we have long suffered under the effects of colonization by not one, not two, but three different nations.
I write this in hopes that someone out there will read it and realize that they are not alone. And hopefully, this may even spark a conversation, a way to help address these complex feelings that many struggle with.
A Series of Random Thoughts 