Amanda Balomaga Steven Borish 5/1/2011

My parents grew up in the lower middle class of the Philippines during the Marcos Regime and
the placement of martial law. My father, who is half Filipino and half Chinese, grew up in Bicol,
Philippines. His father had fled from communist China to the Philippines and established a noodle house.
My mother grew up in Manila and her dad owned a printing press which also served as a general store.
Both my parents grew up with the privilege of parents who owned businesses, and the money that was
earned was enough to afford Catholic school education, which allowed them to pursue their careers.
In 1988, as a result of her high performance on the CGFNS exams, my mother received an offer
to work as a nurse in Florida. She was granted a work visa, which guaranteed employment and an
eventual green card. It promised better pay as well; in the Philippines, she would be making a bit less
than thirty dollars a month, while in the US, she would be paid ten dollars per hour. So in the summer of
that year, she packed her bags and left the Philippines.
When she arrived in Florida, my mother experienced some culture shocks; although knew the
language very well, she did not fully understand culture. She was shocked by the scantily clad Miami
girls, in short skirts and low cut tops. My mother couldnt understand the living communities segregated
according to nationality in which the Jamaicans lived on one side of town while the Haitians lived on
another. In the Philippines, everyone lived with everyone. She also had to get used to the different
status nurses had in the US. Back in the Philippines, the nurses are expected to do only what the doctor
orders, while in the US, the nurses are given respect and command.
After a year working in Miami, my mother returned to the Philippines. There she met up with
my to-be father, who she had been dating before she left for Miami and had kept in touch with while
she was in Miami. At the time, my father was 22, and working as an Ethics professor in St. Scholastica
College in Manila. The money that he made was just enough for food, lodging, and clothing, but nothing
more. When my mother asked him if he was willing to go with her to the US, he agreed, both because he
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loved her and because the US would give them a promising life. The two had a civil marriage and in 1989
my mother and father flew to San Francisco, California.
San Francisco was their city of choice because my mother had a great aunt and a few other
distant relatives living there. Their first home was a San Francisco garage that they rented from the
people living upstairs. My mom first worked as a charge nurse at a 30 bed nursing home. My father
worked at a Hertz rent-a-car where he experienced a loss of dignity going from a university school
teacher to a car cleaner. In addition, he annoyed his boss because he was always reading computer
books at work. In 1992, my parents moved to condominiums in Daly City. By then my mom had a
nightshift job at St. Marys Medical Center in San Francisco. I was born that summer and my father quit
his job to babysit me while my mom worked.
Before even arriving in the US, my parents already had the progressive ideals that were very
different from those of their peers in the Philippines. This is probably a result of their education and
participation in movements against the Marcos regime. Being in America helped reinforce and
strengthen those progressive ideals; this being the extent of their Americanization. My parents were still
committed to preserving their ethnic identity (Fadiman.229). They wanted to acculturate to the host
culture without having to shed ones past cultural bearings (Garcia-Castanon.200). and to help me do
the same as a first generation child.
Growing up in Daly City, my family and I were surrounded by Filipino culture, which helped them
to preserve ethnicity. Even though my parents were no longer practicing Catholics, they still baptized
both me and my sister because of the deep connection of Catholic faith in the Filipino culture. My
parents attempted to teach me Tagalog by speaking it in the household. However, when I was two years
old and hadnt yet spoken a word, they stopped speaking it around me, believing that the Tagalog was
confusing me. My parents regretted never teaching me Tagalog. To make up for it, when I had English
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Amanda Balomaga Steven Borish 5/1/2011

down, they started speaking Tagalog in the household. As a result, I was able to pick up an
understanding of the language as well as basic words and phrases.
Although I didnt experience the same amount of Americanization as another other immigrant
child would in an environment primarily Caucasian, I still received my share. From Kindergarten to 5
th

grade, I attended a small non-denominational private school in Daly City that was so diverse that I didnt
have many experiences in which I was made fun of what was in my lunch box. However, I was very shy,
so when anyone became curious about what I was eating, I felt uncomfortable at the attention. It was
the worst when my food smelled funny. I would never have the type of food that most of the other
children ate, and I felt left out sometimes. I remember bugging my mother to buy me Lunchables;
everyone else had them and they looked so good and fun to eat. However, my mom refused, telling me
that we have other food you can eat at home.
In 5
th
grade, my parents pulled me out of my private school in the middle of the year and placed
me in a public school in Pacifica, a town over from Daly City. The environment was extremely different;
the town was predominantly white, and there was only one other Filipino student in our class of 60.
While attending this school, I experienced Americanization because the makeup of my peers was much
different than that of my previous school. I remember an event in which we were all supposed to bring
in a food item for a class party. I wanted my mom to go to the store and get a box of doughnuts, but
instead, she made me bring in a bag of Filipino Pasencia cookies. I accepted them reluctantly, and hoped
that someone in our class would like them, since I knew that they tasted good. However, when the party
was over, I brought the bag home, unopened. Nobody had even bothered to try them. I yelled at my
mom about it and told her that I knew this would happen and that she should have gotten the muffins I
had originally asked for.
Another form of Americanization my parents witnessed in me was my occasional and
unintentional lack of respect for my elders. My mother would say something similar to what May Ying
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Amanda Balomaga Steven Borish 5/1/2011

Xiong said about young Hmong people in The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down, I dont see the
respect I gave elders at that age(Fadiman.207). I remember one incident at a Filipino Party when I was
about 12 years old, and I said something rude to one of my aunts. On the car ride home, my mom
scolded me and told me that I needed to watch my mouth. I hadnt even realized that I had said
something possibly offending.
Despite occurrences such as these, it was rare for me to feel like most of the Hmong children
that the ways of their parents and grandparents were no longer relevant, that they were embarrassing
and something they wanted to leave behind as old-fashioned.( Garcia-Castanon.198) This is mostly due
to my parents liberal ideals and open minds. As Ive gone through puberty, I cant say that I never
thought my mother was embarrassing, but this was never connected to her on a cultural level. One
aspect I do find a bit old-fashioned is their stance on dating; they would rather that I do not date until
after college. On the other hand, American culture sees nothing of couples in 7
th
grade, something my
parents would be highly disapproving of. However, I can see where they are coming from and Im not
too sure that it is a feature of Filipino culture. It is most likely because my parents are each others first
loves, and they started dating after they graduated from college.
In many cases immigrant children lose their identities because, the self-hatred and own-group
rejection coupled with the unchecked all-embracing uncritical appreciation of the dominant group
referent class (214). They lose touch with their culture because they aim to be part of the dominant
group the Americans and they dont want to be seen as part of their culture of origin. As a result,
they find themselves in cultural limbo. In the case of my family, my parents didnt have an uncritical
appreciation of the dominant group referent class. In fact, they can be quite critical of the American way
of life, which has made me become quite critical of it as well. As for the self-hatred and own-group
rejection, my parents could never reject their culture, even though they do disagree with many of the
aspects of it. When I was younger, I didnt hate or reject my own culture. I actually embraced it during
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Amanda Balomaga Steven Borish 5/1/2011

middle school, and would often complain how my school lacked other Filipinos that I could relate to. I
would also complain about how everyone at my school who wasnt white was white washed, and
refused to let myself be white washed. I was actually quite pushy with my ethnicity and may have
offended some of my friends.
However, when I hit high school, I began to look at my own ethnicity with a critical eye. I actually
ended up declaring myself Agnostic because I couldnt agree with some of the aspects of Filipino
Catholicism, like the idea of being able to cleanse one of ones sins by just attending church. I also started
rejecting Filipino forms of entertainment, like their film industry. However, this was mostly because
their shows were always so dramatic, clich, and poorly made. Yet I never experienced rejection severe
enough that it could lead to psychopathology or other forms of family dysfunction. (Garcia-
Castanon.199) In fact, my parents did agree with me to an extent concerning the Philippine
entertainment industry. I never fully rejected it; on rare occasion, I found an excellent Filipino movie and
I enjoyed some Filipino folk music.
One strange difference between me and other immigrant children was that my all-embracing
uncritical appreciation was not given to the dominant group referent class. Instead, it was given to
Japanese culture, which lasted my first two years of high school, and then Korean culture, which lasted
my last two years of high school. I viewed them as superior in entertainment to the Philippines and
therefore developed an obsession with the cultures and their language and pop culture. This is most
likely due to the fact that I had decided early on that I didnt want to be white washed and also that
my high school was quite diverse, being located in the heart of San Francisco.
My experience with Americanization was a unique one, due to my environment, the history of
my parents migration, and my parents themselves. Despite a few challenges throughout my life, Ive
still been able to acculturate to the host culture without having to shed my past cultural bearings.