Have you ever walked into a place for a date with your man and everyone looked at you two like you just murdered someone?
I’ve had this experience while dating as a biracial person who often has partners who are not my race. I am Filipina and Italian, often getting confused with Latina, which is fine, but people like to throw words like spicy and firey at me and I have to tell them my heritage. Sometimes I have to explain where the Philippines is on a map. It puts the burden of education on me. Sometimes I don’t mind if we’re friends, but randoms are an extra effort on my part.
After a night out my friend and I went into a Mc Donald’s for breakfast and it was like the whole room stopped. I was with someone of Pakistani heritage and we were in an area of Upstate New York that is very white. It was like everyone was staring at us until we left.
What sparked this idea for the blog was the fact that Harry decided to stay just for his father’s coronation and nothing else. Not for photos or luncheons, keeping those events historically white, excluding his family. The stories surrounding Meghan and her first birth with Archie really touched me. When other royals expressed interest in Archie’s skin color before he was born, or when Meghan’s security was cut, those things affected me and were clear messages that non-white royals were not members of the family.
I remember a time when I was invited to a cousin’s birthday party as a teen. I thought I had toned down my goth style enough to participate in things during the party, including pictures. But I do remember being excluded from photos and feeling weird about it. I thought it was my style, maybe my hair? But looking back I think it was more about me being brown-ish, my mixed heritage was what bothered my aunt who was taking the photos.
My grandparents on my mother’s Italian side always loved and treated me fairly, but the other members were weird when I look back at certain situations like the one above.
This is just my experience. My Filipino relatives have always been warm and welcoming. Even on video call across the world, it feels like we are closer than my Italian side. It doesn’t matter about gifts or how often we talk, it always feels like we’ve never been apart and it’s easy to fall into a routine.
Looking at how Meghan has been treated by her ‘family’ makes me recall a few other instances that I was excluded from my Italian side. I have to say that there is nothing lost. My mother and I are low-contact with them. I was genuinely surprised when they called when my father died with condolences because I knew they hated him. Honestly, I was not fond of him myself.
I often hesitate to tell new romantic interests that I am part Asian, specifically that I am Filipina because they either fetishize the Asian side or they think that I’m not ‘Asian enough’ because the Philippines is not as ethnocentric as other nations in Asia.
I have a confession to make, I consider myself a New Yorker not an American. I feel like the Melting Pot of New York is my heart, and the separateness of America as a whole is what is stopping me from embracing that side of me.
