The Study of Racialism

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Multiracial and Filipino
Posted by Dorian Merina on 6/08/09
[Cover Story in Filipinas Magazine]

In the summer of 1887, Jose Rizal left Europe to return to the Philippines after his first period in exile. He was 26 and had just published his first novel, Noli Me Tangere, with which, he said, he hoped to “awaken” his people “from their slumber.”

The Philippines that was about to greet his arrival was a place in turmoil. The Spanish empire was in decline, corruption at all levels of the government was pervasive and the clergy’s abuse of power had devastated the local population.

Manila was also a place of complex racial categorization. After decades of intermixing in the Americas, the Spanish had brought a strict method of identification to the islands. Charts and diagrams placed people in categories according to a one-eighth, and in some cases, one-sixteenth portion of their racial background. Morisco, chamiso, peninsular, coyote. These were not empty categories: the names held power and legal rights. Fate could be decided by one’s bloodline. It was a method that Rizal was born into and one that he resisted.

When the Spanish passed a law giving preference to mestizos over natives, Rizal fired off an angry letter from London.

“You know that it is sheer folly to make this distinction between mestizos and natives, for it is offensive to the majority and fosters stupid antagonisms,” he wrote.

Throughout his own life, Rizal moved through a number of racial identities— Malay, Tagalog, Indio, Mestizo—and he referred to his Chinese and Indonesian ancestry on more than one occasion. His last and longest companion, Josephine Bracken, was herself Irish and Chinese and their relationship was based in English.

For Rizal, the diversity of backgrounds, language and ancestry formed the basis of a new identity that he spent his life defining: Filipino.

Three years after Rizal was killed by a firing squad in Bagumbayan, U.S. President William McKinley ordered his government to conduct a thorough investigation into the newly-acquired colony to determine exactly what this “Filipino” was. The report came back one year later, in 1900, with the frustrated claim that, despite all best efforts, Filipinos could hardly be pinned down.

“The race is not found pure in any of the islands,” began the report. “But is everywhere more or less modified through intermarriage with Chinese, Indonesians, Ne-gritos, Arabs, and, to a limited extent, Spa-niards and other Europeans.”

The commission’s inability to find a cohesive sense of Filipino-ness provided a convenient cover for a government that was still fighting native forces for control of the islands.

The conclusion was clear: Filipinos did not constitute “a nation” or “a people” and, therefore, they could not possibly govern themselves. To America in 1900, the multiracial character of Filipinos was precisely what justified its subjugation.

A century later, in the 2000 U.S. census, mixed-race Filipinos in America could, for the first time, define their own identities by acknowledging more than one categorical source. More than 6.8 million Ameri-cans checked off multiple boxes and about 21 percent of Filipinos living in America claimed more than one race, according to Census figures.

With the rise of multiracial public figures such as Tiger Woods, Mariah Carey and, now, President Barack Obama, being multiracial has become more familiar to the general society. And, in states like California where ethnic minorities became the majority in 2000, it is where we are heading. But for Filipinos, being multiracial brings with it a distinct history and it gets at the very heart of our identity: What does it mean to be multiracial and Filipino today?

“The first time I really knew I was multiracial was when I went to the Philippines with my dad and I was four and a half,” said Alison De La Cruz, 34, a performance artist based in Los Angeles.

“I realized my Dad is from one place, my mom is from another place and we live here in L.A.”

During Alison’s trip to the Philippines, she was greeted warmly by her father’s extended family, but she sensed a difference in how relatives regarded her. Then in the late 1980s, her family moved to Carson, another city in southern California. At that time, Carson was the scene of a growing number of Filipinos and would soon elect one of the first Filipino mayors in the country. It was also home to a vibrant mix of Latinos, African Americans and other Pacific Islander and Asian groups.

“It became a big deal that I was only half,” said Alison, whose mother is white. “They were like, ‘Well, you’re not really Filipino, you don’t speak the language.’”

The questions persisted.

“By the time I got to high school I had had a lifetime of questions like—who are you?”

Defining Identity
Constantly being asked to define yourself or defend your identity is a common experience for multiracial Filipinos, said Dr. Maria Root, a clinical psychologist.

Despite significant advances in civil rights, many Filipinos still pose the question as a sort of “authenticity test” if a person looks different, she said. “They’ve internalized the racial rules of this country—the hierarchies and who’s legitimate. Basically there’s a lot of hazing that goes on.”

Dr. Root was born in Manila and now lives in Seattle. She’s the author of a number of books on multiracial identity, including Filipino Americans: Transformation and Identity and The Multiracial Experience: Racial Borders as the New Frontier.

For the Filipino community, that has been multiracial for so long, the inquiry leads to a deeper sense of identity.

“I think it really still is a question of who are Filipinos, and that has been compounded by being told who we are,” said Dr. Root.

Indeed, America’s attitude toward Filipinos has changed through the decades.

In the early 1900s, the U.S. enforced strict rules against intermarriage between racial groups, but it wasn’t until an increase of Filipino migration in the 1920s that authorities were forced to revisit the question and legally define who Filipinos were.

In 1933, with the case of Roldan vs. Los Angeles County, the government classified Filipinos as Malay and added them to the list of persons prohibited from marrying whites. Then, the following year, the U.S. Congress passed the Tydings-McDuffie Act, which began the process of Philippine independence from the U.S., but also limited Filipino migration. The rules were adjusted once again in 1947 with the Soldiers Brides Act, which exempted some Filipinos from the immigration quotas.

But the question of marriage remained an issue—most forcefully because the children of these marriages were seen to bring an uncertain status into society.

Then in 1967, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that states no longer had the right to limit marriage between racial groups. The decision opened up marriage across the country. Dr. Root calls the period that followed a “biracial baby boom.”

“Before we had children I had no context about the ramifications of being in a multiracial family,” said Vanessa Vela, 31, a Filipina married to an African American man in Los Angeles.

When she got pregnant with their first child, it began to dawn on her.

“It hit me like a ton of bricks: how am I supposed to navigate all of this?”

Vanessa said the questions began when naming her new child. She and her husband, Jason, talked about it for hours. “Finding a culturally appropriate name was really difficult. I wanted to find a name that was appropriate for both the Filipino and the African American side.”

Finally, when they settled on their son’s name—Malcolm Ernesto Vela Lovelace—not everyone in the family was pleased. Her father-in-law disliked the reference to the slain civil rights leader of the 1960s, known for advocating radical social change.

But the comments also came from the other side of the family. When the couple had their second child, Kaya, two years later, Vanessa’s mother praised her lighter skin and said that it was a good thing she wasn’t as dark as her brother.

At first, her family was very accepting of her marriage, said Vanessa. Her husband’s race “was not a huge issue,” because her parents related to many shared values of her husband’s family, such as an emphasis on religion and the importance of education. But having kids complicated the situation.

Malcolm, now four, has begun asking questions about his appearance, questioning why his hair is different from his mother’s and his father’s. Vanessa said she wants both her children to be proud of who they are. “I want to be sure that my kids can represent all of who they can be,” she emphasizes. “I don’t want them to think about being half.”

She said she continues to create a supportive, loving environment for her children but the choices aren’t always clear.

“It’s about the culture you create in your own family, but I’m not sure exactly what that is yet.”

Susie Ibarra, a 38-year-old mother from New York, agreed.

“It is a big deal. There are a lot of issues,” she said of raising her two-year-old son, Emmanuel. One of those issues is language. “We speak Spanish and English to him and a little Tagalog.”

When Susie and her Cuban-born husband, Roberto, went to the Philippines last year, they took Emmanuel with them. “It’s important for him to be exposed to all his cultures,” she asserts. Her extended family is “like the United Nations” with roots that draw from Mexican, African-American, Cuban, Chinese and Filipino backgrounds.

“I try to look at it more like it’s a gift and a grace. {Emmanuel is] exposed to many things and he has a rich cultural background.”

Not Monoracial
“It’s dynamic—my identity changes depending on where I am,” said James Viloria, 42, of Montreal, Canada. Viloria identifies as multiracial even though both his parents are Filipino. The monoracial term just doesn’t fit. “It suggests some sort of purity that isn’t in the world,” he said.

But this position can be an advantage, too, he said. The perspective has led him to write an award-winning blog in which he describes himself as “a native Montrealer, gay, male, Filipino, Asian, Pacific-Islander, Québécois, Canadian, English-speaking, French-speaking, North American, and more depending on how you see.”

Multiracial people can bring a valuable viewpoint to the conversation, he stated.

“When you grow up knowing that you’re not black or white, in a different way, it helps you.

It allows you to question things,” according to James.

Isis Arias was raised in New York’s diverse neighborhoods of Queens and Brooklyn. She grew up with friends who were Jamaican, Puerto Rican and Asian, but she still got asked about her mix—Filipino and black.

“When I was in college, I used to joke,” said Isis, 25. “People would be like, What are you? And I would say: human.”

Before college, Isis revealed that she wasn’t as connected to her Filipino side, but that changed with a trip to the Philippines in 2005. She went with a group of Filipino Americans, but people were constantly asking about her background.

“There were certain stigmas and certain ideas among people in certain places,” she said. When the group visited the former U.S. military bases in Luzon, some of the multiracial children immediately identified with her.

“When we pulled up, they were like, ‘Oh my god, she looks like us!’” remembered Isis. “I understood what they were saying. They said, we don’t want to go to school because they treat us differently.”

Ultimately, it comes down to a personal acceptance of who you are, admits Isis.

“As long as you know your culture and know who you are, that’s what’s important.”

In the future, as in the time of Jose Rizal, multiracial people may play a key role in helping to determine the balance in a complex, changing Filipino identity.

“When I think of Filipino I think of embracing plurality because that’s what the culture is, that’s what the history is,” said Vanessa Vela, who hopes that someday her young children can be a part of the conversation. “We’re still in the process of making this happen.”

Dorian Merina is a free-lance reporter based in New York City.
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