unbidden apparently a lot of kids of filipino descent out here in the good ol' u.s.a. think that anything filipino is excruciatingly adorable. anything from the manong custom to calling anyone 20-40 years older than you "tita" or "tito" to the food, to the home decor to ANYTHING, is hilariously funny.

the recent one that made me somewhat smile was the accent of an older filipino that a friend of mine almost died to laughing. he wrote it in his blog:

So "Tito" gets up to the podium to do the reading and he reads from the book of wisdom "...the souls of the just are in the hands of God....they are peace..." Except with the thickest filipino accent, he says " da sools op d'just are in da hands of God...they are in PISS"

my other friend showed it to me and laughed as well. i laughed as well - can you just imagine the misunderstanding had my friend not been filipino? but when filipino accents are concerned, i rarely laugh - english isn't our original tongue. that's the english commanded in the philippines.

i dunno why kids out here find anything about the philippines adorably cute. to me it reeks of chivalry, as if they acknowledge the "little brown brother" concept and deal with it by laughing it off.

i wonder if i'm overreacting. coz americans born and raised here already have their own accents - southern, new england (northeast), midwest and western accents, and everything in between. accents are always funny and sitting ducks for teasing.

somehow i bristle when they tease accents uttered by filipinos, especially if they're spoken by someone our parents' age. most of my friends already know how that somewhat offends me - to me, it looks like a subtle, gentle show of shame.

i let it slide. they think it's nothing - it's a cute joke, and always, you never want to go beyond the joke. they'll go, "there's a thousand other important things to pay attention to," but i wonder if this is simply a result of generation gap or a type of stereotyping.

i learned that whenever stereotypes hit me, as soon as i recognize it, i try to soften its approach by laughing at it. but doesn't then make you think of ghosts? ghosts don't exist, they could tease you. so then straighten your accent because the background of your accent doesn't exist here.

i've run into racist events before, from all sorts of people and situations. they get old quick, and you want justice all the time. but it doesn't erase the fact that you always end up wondering if you're imagining things, because in this day and age, how could one person - or a group of people - be so ignorant of who you are?

there also exists a harsher, stranger form of stereotyping - one that's generated by you. that you're not sure if someone else really accepts you for who you are, so you calculate and always make the right moves.

i learned this skill when i looked up one day from my workdesk and noticed, "whoa, i'm the only person of color on duty tonight. hell, i'm the only female!" and unconsciously, because of my insecurities, my work and the rest of the night crew's work, suffered. i lived up to an imaginary standard because i thought i had to prove something to everyone else because i was differnet from them. i set aside that they were people too. it's different from wanting to succeed - i didn't want to get noticed. they were all too different from me, and they can't help me move up in the world.

during informal conversations at work, i decided that i don't hafta be right all the time - just available to make contributions. i decided that i don't hafta keep on thinking i was different all the time. in my workplace, where i spend eight of my 24 hours, there's several times enough when my difference will come out on its own, unbidden and welcomed.

(awwwe, lookie that... an oprah moment. yay!... ahahaha... did that ruin the moment? sorry, just can't pass it up, ahaha. ...)  ¶ 10/13/2004 02:25:00 AM