my goodness... i just finished catching myself up on my kuya gary's blog. i have so much to say about it! i can relate so much about a lot of things he's grown up with (mind you i'm only 2 years younger than him, so we did pretty much grow up in the same generation). oh no, i feel an essay coming on...

for those of you who don't already know me, i was born and grew up in vancouver. contrary to the popular belief that there's a plethera of filipinos here, the only ones i surrounded myself with (short of my ninangs, ninongs, titas and titos... but they don't count because they're adults!) were my godbrothers and godsisters. they are without a doubt the coolest flips i know out here. in school, i had two main circles: the "frimmers" (i was in FRench IMMERsion from kindergarten to grade 12... the majority of them were caucasian), and my chinese friends. neither of these groups had any filipinos in them. of course now my circles have a bunch of cultures in them, still with a big chunk of chinese, some caucasians, and a few non-chinese asians... and still not so many filipinos.

it's a bit weird if you step back and look at it. i know i'm not a traditional filipina (i date non-filipinos, i didn't have a "debut," i can't speak tagalog even though i understand it enough...). i really consider myself to be a canadian-filipina. i was brought up to believe that i'm canadian first, then my ethnic background. but it's not that i'm ashamed of my roots... it's just that i was born in canada, not the philippines. i was brought up in a canadian environment, not a filipino one. and even though my immediate influences (my parents and our close family friends) are all filipino, with their filipino values, morals and beliefs to impress upon me, they've taught this all to me but in a sort of adapted form from when they were young, therefore in a non-traditionally filipino way. they are all very open-minded and realize that bringing up a kid in the filipino way in a non-filipino environment would be difficult. as long as the kid knows to appreciate his or her roots, then i figure it's all good.

a really interesting part that got me was kuya talking about being "white-washed." now i've never considered myself to be that at all, firstly because i don't have enough caucasian friends that i'd consider completely caucasian. the majority of the ones i know are what we like to call "eggs." white on the outside but yellow in the inside. they all have a sort of asian streak in them. one who lived here all her life had to move to the east coast to go to university. the next time i saw her she was telling me how out of place she felt because there were so many blondes and no black-haired students on campus. it took a while for her to realize that she wasn't asian and that she wasn't sticking out like a sore thumb.

the second reason why i've never thought of myself white-washed was because, well, if you've ever been to vancouver you'd know. there's just a ton of asians out here! for example, my chinese friends totally thought of me as an "honorary chinese." i even picked up a few phrases just from being around them so much. i guess you could call me "yellow-washed" if there were such a thing.

i used to consider being called a "banana" was akin to being called white-washed, but not anymore. i've been called a banana, but not because i'm "more white" in the inside, but because i'm just not a traditional asian. i guess being a banana is not as extreme as white-washed. so i guess then me and my friends are a bunch of eggs and bananas.

although it could seem like it, i don't think i really have a problem finding my identity. i know my blood is filipino and i'm really proud of that. it's where my parents are from. but i am also a canadian. it's where i'm from.