I’m a summer baby. I would spend hours outside under the sun. I adored going to the beach, capitalizing on every opportunity to dive into the salty waves. Every day, the sun would kiss my skin, and I would return home matching the weathered boardwalk I had walked hours earlier.
I hated it. I remember people would make comments about how dark my skin would get. My last name means “small, dark person,” so I struggled against the Eurocentric standards of beauty prevalent in both the U.S. and in the Philippines. Fairer skin was just always praised more. My parents would endeavor to reassure their children, the same boys who refused to respond to their parents in their mother tongue. Yet despite these attempts, my self-worth continued to depreciate.
It wasn’t until I left for Italy that I began to reconsider my beliefs. I was sitting in the terminal, staring at the polaroid I took of me and my parents. Studying abroad was both exhilarating and frightening to me. I would be in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the language and have an entire ocean between me and my family. The apprehension came not only from the financing involved, but also from the fact that I was a sickly kid. In fact, that was my parents’ biggest concern, not the funding required. Even though my health was lackluster, even though I would be a financial burden, my parents still supported my desire to go solo and live in Italy for 10 months.
And then it hit me. My siblings think I’m a spoiled kid. In all honesty, they’re right. If there was something I was ever passionate about doing, my parents were right there supporting me. Even if my “learning experiences” were expensive, they were still willing to pay for it out of their own pockets. Day in and day out, they would sacrifice their time and energy so that I could be “happy.”
To deny my dark skin was to deny my identity, my name and my heritage. My dad would always tell us, “You might have Australian or U.S. citizenship, but your skin will always make you Filipino.” Who was I to deny my own culture—a culture that pours passion into every dish, produces obnoxious love songs and teleseryes, hosts deafening karaoke parties and makes sure you’ve eaten enough?
As Filipinos, we are instilled with the value of placing others before ourselves, and my parents are living examples. They gave up this past weekend to drive, cook food and watch me perform my heart out at Asian Night, all because I asked them to. We are a culture characterized by unending love and sacrifice for our family and friends, our kapamilya.
In the words of a famous vine, “… even though I look like a burnt chicken nugget, I still love myself.” I embrace my heritage, my dark skin, because I am of a people who work hard, act selflessly and love unceasingly. Ako ay Filipino.