| Subject: Filipinos in Hawaii, USA, Canada, Australia, South America, Europe, Africa, Bangkok [Re: Identity Crisis] |
Author:
Anxious, Bewildered, Confused
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Date Posted: 02/ 6/02 4:21pm PST
In reply to:
Chris
's message, "IMSCF Syndrome ("I'm Spanish-Chinese-Filipino" Syndrome) in America" on 01/16/02 8:55pm PST
Based on my observations and research, most persons especially the young ones with immigrant mothers and fathers encounter identity crises sometime in their lives, racially and culturally speaking. This rings true when you, as a first-generation Filipino living in a country outside the Philippines, are ignorant of your own genealogy and your parents' real history and native culture. As you seek social acceptance, you try to identify with the more visible crowd to the extent of lying about your ethnicity.
In Great Britain, for instance, a pop group's member that has a Filipino mother claims that her mom is Spanish-Pinay. I can't remember her full name but her first is Myleene or Mylene. She was a Popstars UK winner a year or so ago. Going eastward to Asia, a superstar singer named Christina Aguilar stated that her Pinoy father in Thailand is half-Pinoy and half-Spanish. Then from Down Under, there's popular star Kate Ceberano who allegedly said she has a parent who is Hawaiian but is actually Filipino. This certainly proves that SCF (better acronym for it's kinder on the neurons) Syndrome exists everywhere. And don't forget the USA's first and only Fil-Am governor, Ben Cayetano, who told his local paper that he's part-French, probably thinking that having a Marcos name (his father's birth surname) automatically passed on him European genes. When I read this, I was like, "Whoa! Look at this famous face. This man is French-Filipino? Really?!"
I'm not saying that these prominent Pinoys/Pinays have identity crisis and similar problems. But if we can't check their family backgrounds, we just have to bear in mind the fact that most Filipinos have no Spanish blood at all, as Kalani wrote. On a personal level, I know many pure Malayan Filipinos born here in America who classified themselves in last year's national government census as mixed Filipino/Spanish/Chinese.
There ought to be some Philippine History classes in American high schools to properly teach these miseducated people. Something relevant must be done before we vanish in these official surveys. There are Asian Studies courses now offered in several colleges but I don't think this SCF Syndrome is part of their syllabi.
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