What does it mean to be an American-born Filipino?

By Maya Liquigan

May 30, 2024

The first time I realized how unrecognized Filipinos are was in grade school when a kid asked if I was Hispanic.

“No,” I firmly stated. “I’m Filipino!”

This was not the first time someone had mistaken me for Hispanic. After being approached multiple times by someone speaking Spanish, I learned the proper response.

“Right, so you’re just half Spanish and half Asian,” he said matter-of-factly.

My blood boils thinking about that utter disregard of an entire country. A country that was conquered by Spain and has a century of presence in America, a fact that I throw at anyone who claims to know my identity more than I do.

Growing up, I winced when filling out official documents. I forced my hand to check the box under Race/Ethnicity that read “Other/ Pacific Islander,” which was my second realization of how unrecognized we are.

My current fascination with my identity as a Filipino-American stems from moving back to Chicago, where my parents lived after immigrating to the United States.

I was only three years old when my parents moved our family of six to the suburbs. The apartment that my extended family, from my grandparents to my cousins, called their home sat empty and silent for years until now. My younger brother and I have circled back to our childhood home, reviving it for our college lifestyles.

The yellowish crackled walls were once home to 20+ people at a time and often filled with double that amount during family parties. The discolored, creaking wooden floors and gray worn-out carpet hold the footprints of three generations of my family. Every family member or friend who left the Philippines was welcomed at this home. My younger self knows these gatherings as a part of Filipino culture.

When I was 20, my younger brother and I moved in and painted the walls. We buffed the wood floors and pulled up the carpet. The more we changed this house, the more curious I became about my family’s roots and heritage. I never put in the effort to learn about my culture before. The guilt of that choice lives in me.

I sink deeper into my guilt every time the random Tita on the train, at the grocery store or restaurant asks the everlasting question, “Do you speak Tagalog?” I don’t.

My parents’ knowledge of the Philippines is limited, and they learned it mostly through family stories.

As the youngest of five children, my mom remembers the least about living in the Philippines. She started fourth grade after migrating and was yelled at for not knowing English. Her status labeled her as “Fresh off the Boat” through grade school, and she was thrown into the Filipino community in Chicago. She recalls the high expectations and responsibilities of the Filo-community, specifically in the choice she did not have when joining the choir.

My father grew up speaking English and was the bridge of American culture for his “FOB” cousins. The ideal “American Boy,” he was living state-side with American clothes and an American accent. His curiosity about his identity came when he was around 14 to 15 years old. A new wave of immigrants was settling in Chicago.

He remembered speaking Tagalog when he was a child but lost touch with it after immigrating. When more family members came to the U.S., he struggled to relearn Tagalog. Eventually, his butchered sentences began to sound fluent and natural. He learned more about Filipino culture from the friends he met in the migration wave, with whom he would teach American slang and style.

Their separate experiences as Filipino immigrants never changed how much they valued their culture, but being in America meant putting effort into being American. Moving to the suburbs was the final cut of the invisible string connecting them to an endless network of Filipinos.

Since moving back to Chicago, I’ve had the pleasure of falling in love with the same beautiful diversity my parents did. Strangely, a part of me has felt this other stubborn tug, a throbbing pull and nostalgic feeling for a place I’ve never been.

The Rizal Center was the setting of my parents’ earliest memories of the Filipino community in Chicago. This thriving, lively representation of what I think it means to be Filipino is named after Dr. Jose P. Rizal, a national Filipino hero who inspired the Philippine Revolution against Spain through his writings. The center was forced to close in 2017-2022 as the Filipino community dispersed outside the city.

In 2023, the Rizal Center reopened their doors. This is where I met Jerry Clarito, the chairman of the board for the Filipino American Council Greater Chicago. Clarito immigrated to the U.S. when he was 30 and has established himself as an authority figure in the Chicagoland Filipino community.

Our conversation began a bit disconnected as we dissected the Filipino community and culture. I was looking for a clear definition of what being Filipino means, but Clarito explained that culture is not static. The beauty of our culture is embracing diversity, he said. I learned from him that the Philippines is its own melting pot of cultures and traditions.

We noticed this new wave of first-generation, American-born Filipinos trying to reconnect with their roots and going through an identity crisis similar to mine. He declared that it cannot be up to the Filipino immigrants to tell us what our culture is. It is our responsibility to find it and define it.

“If you want to find who you are, find your inner self. Your inner self will say ‘I’m this human being,’ first. American or Filipino, they are just labels. It’s just because you were born here that you are called American,” Clarito said. “Then you attach ‘I’m Filipino American,’ because you also honor who you are. Because you know you are Filipino. You have the blood of the Filipino, and I think that’s powerful.”

I am part of this wave of first-generation Fil-Ams who are learning what it means to be the first to truly grow up in America. Filipino-American culture is being created as we speak, by a generation that has to decide what it means to start our culture in a new world.

Our parents and grandparents paved the way for a new life in America. They embraced diversity and taught their children the beauty of it. My parents were part of a wave of immigrants whose culture was stifled by the pressure of assimilating into America. This also allowed them to embrace and learn about other cultures. My grandparent’s generation were the risk-takers who took their culture to a new home and hoped it would thrive.

The answer I was looking for was something concrete. I wanted someone to tell me how to be Filipino.

In the past few months, I’ve tried to make an effort to be more comfortable with my identity. I spent late nights at the Mahjong table with my Titas and Titos. My sister and I watched teleseryes of my mom’s favorite love teams. I downloaded an app to learn Tagalog and learned how to cook my favorite Filipino dishes.

All of this was in the hope that I could restore something in myself. I realized that I was looking for something that was never lost. I am utterly Filipino American, in every way that matters to me.