May: AAPI Heritage Month

Artwork by Heidi Kang for revival issue of Gidra. Photo Courtesy by Los Angeles Magazine.

I've been wanting to honour Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month for a few weeks now, but I had so many thoughts and feelings about it, I had to take some time to let it all land before I could write about it. And forgive me if it's still a little all over the place.

Growing up, I was the only Asian girl in class. There was one Asian boy, and one year, we had two Asian boys in my grade. My extended family, which in Filipino culture can get quite big, were my only exposure to other Asians.

Though I am Filipina, I do not speak Tagalog. Tagalog was not spoken in my home as my step-father is Caucasian, so my only exposure to Tagalog was again only with extended family. When I was younger, I could understand it and get the gist of a conversation, but that's long gone. This makes me even more of an outsider.

We were not religious, so we did not really connect with the Filipino Canadian community beyond our extended family, as that community in my area was largely connected through the Catholic church and its events.

When I was younger there were no Asians on TV. The first Asian I remember seeing on TV was Wok with Yan. There were no Asian women on TV when I was growing up from what I can remember.

Seeing Asians in movies was a joke as it was all about Asian tokenism and tropes. Let's not discuss Micky Rooney in Breakfast at Tiffany's, but you should be aware and read about it, if you have not seen it.

Never having seen Asians in media, I related to Caucasian characters and wished I looked like Barbie with blonde hair, blue eyes, and I used to pinch my nose hoping it would narrow.

I tried for a short time in high school to "hang" with the Asian crew and that didn't go well. I didn't feel accepted and was made fun of for not understanding Tagalog and could sense at times that they were talking about me in Tagalog and that just hurt. I was actually called a banana - yellow on the outside, but white on the inside. I moved on from that inter-cultural racism and caste hierarchy pretty quickly.

I have been fortunate enough to be able to visit family in the Philippines twice. The first time, I arrived after over 24 hours flight time, in cut-off jeans, combat boots, my dyed hair and tattoos. I was just a Canadian college student visiting over the Christmas holidays and I stood out like a sore thumb in a country and culture where such brazen femininity was not "normal". I looked Western-exotic in comparison to all the young women there, and though I got a lot of attention, I sensed that I intimidated some of the young men.

There came a moment in time during the '90s and '00s where Asian women started to appear in blockbuster films. When Wayne's World came out with Tia Carrere as the romantic female lead, that was huge! And to see Lucy Liu in Charlie's Angels was kickass! Though both those female Asian roles were still Asian tropes, it felt groundbreaking just to see them!

Sandra Oh, an amazing Canadian actress, changed the game in TV and Film. Her TV career trajectory from Grey's Anatomy to Killing Eve has been truly groundbreaking and Emmy award winning! Her characters do not play into the Asian tropes and that is refreshing and a paradigm shift to see.

In response to the Black Lives Matters protests and starting to educate myself further on Black history, I learned of the intersectionality and solidarity between Black and Asian cultures. To learn of Gidra, an LA community newspaper, founded in 1969 and focused on Asian american issues at that time, feels like a missed opportunity to have had real and fulsome discussions about Asian and Black racism. Thankfully this is now included in a UCLA course about Asian American studies. How I wish there as a course like that when I was in college! Unfortunately this speaks to the colonization of curriculum and don't get me started on how brutal that is, but we'll just leave it at there are many cultures not included in History books and that needs to change. Education must include more than just the white, male view of the world.

Thanks to my visits to the Philippines, I learned a little about the U.S. colonization of the Philippines and enslavement of its people. In speaking with my Lola, she would speak of the past as "before the war" and "after the war" and the impacts left behind by the U.S. I still have much to learn about Asian history - that's part of my journey.

The attacks on Asians recently were alarming and genuinely made me feel sad and scared. I couldn't help but worry about my 70+ year old Mom out there getting groceries and fearing for her safety. I had to talk to my kids about the attacks to ensure they knew what to do if ever they were attacked. They needed to know this was the world we live in.

In response to the #StopAsianHate campaign on social media, I've found myself wanting to be more vocal about my Asian-ness and yet wrestling with the fact that I'm still an outsider to my own Filipino culture due to my Tagalog-language barrier. This just feeds my insecurity at not being accepted as "fully" Asian still after all these years. After much reflection, I see that as yet another one of the lies I've told myself.

My being Asian is not defined by others' perception of me. My Asian-ness is defined as being Canadian-born and raised, with Western culture, values, and opportunities. It's as though I'm carving out a new way of being Asian. I see how and what I do as "Asian" is observed and learned by my mixed-race children. And though there may not be many "old world" Asian practices and behaviours, that's ok cause that's not where we "come from". We are Canadian Asian. We are first and second generation Canadian Asians.

With the Asian voices now being seen and heard in media, such as Amanda Nguyen, John M. Chu, Ali Wong, Mindy Kaling, Jo Koy, George Takei, Ken Jeong, and Daniel Dae Kim (just to name a few of the many), it feels like a real army of voices are sharing Asian stories and experiences. We just need to fan the flames and get all Asian voices singing out, crying out, and shouting out that we are here. This is how representation matters. To see it, is to normalize it, is to accept it.

U.S. President Biden recently signed into law the COVID-19 Hate Crimes Act. This is real change and I'm thankful to see it during my lifetime. I hope that Canada follows suit as its needed here too.

If all Asian voices in North America, both Canada and the U.S., were raised in awareness of its collective power in voting and purchasing, the perception of the sleeping giant will change. We, in all our varying forms of Asian-ness, are awake.