Racist Cookies? (a follow-up to yesterday's post)

I remember these cookies (image used by permission). In 1999 the Philippine government protested their name and the reference to them as "brown on the outside and white on the inside." I've also seen a petition on the net against purchasing or eating them, though it should be noted that not everyone takes immediate offense at the name.

I understand the protest, but I also think Filipinos need to examine their attitudes toward "white-ness." Skin-whitening cosmetic products are disturbingly popular in the Philippines, and many people openly speak of a fair complexion and European/Western features as beauty ideals. I don't know the answer to this, but do the exaggerated Caucasian features in Japanese animation stem from similar attitudes?

And then there's that other touchy / forbidden topic: why has the Asian female/Caucasian male couple become almost cliché? (There are numerous internet reflections on this phenomenon.) I am part of the trend. I remember how violated I felt when an Asian-American man in my residency program saw a picture of my kids and then questioned my reasons for marrying my husband, implying that his white skin trumped any other reasons I might have fallen in love with him, like his values, his compassion, his intelligence, and his good character.

I was horrified but not surprised when, on my husband's first visit to the Philippines (we were not yet married at the time), a matriarch in my family exclaimed in English, upon meeting him: "A foreigner!" Then, in Spanish "Va mejorar la raza" - [if you marry him,] he'll improve our race. What an ignorant thing to say - and the worst part about it is if it had been pointed out to her as such, she probably would have said, "Why? I'm just speaking the truth." Good thing my husband was well-educated about colonial history, post-colonial culture, and the related social issues, thanks to his studies and travel experiences.

So, are we proud of our "ethnic identity," or do we envy another? Did we express outrage at Filipinos cookies out of self-respect, or does the name bother us (or not bother us) because for some Filipinos, it actually contains a grain of truth? Sometimes there can be a fine line betwee self-love and self-loathing. I think the major problems with the cookie name are its use of skin color as a way to categorize people and its failure to represent Filipinos in general in a meaningful way. But I also think there's still a lot of ambivalence in our country around these identity issues. One commentator notes:

"I remember it being reported in the press, one person saying she (as a Filipina herself) thought there was nothing wrong with [the cookie name] since, (she was of the opinion), most Filipinos wish they had been born white anyway (!) Of course, many others did and do not hold such a view.

"But one wonders why anyone would say in the first place that any Asian would wish to have been ‘born white’. Is it a reference to culture or simply to the standard of living associated with the 1st (read: white) world? I think it is true to say that Filipinos are viewed by some other Asians as being more westernised than them, particularly with regard to American influences. And often this is viewed as something negative."

This commentator hypothesizes that a desire for "white" culture or living standards lies at the root of white-envy, but I thinks it's simpler: looking white, for whatever reason, seems to have been an advantage in the world. So in several countries, not just the Philippines, people buy creams or lotions to rub onto their skin to lighten it. What I don't understand is why racism of this kind - not just the perceived inferiority of non-whites by white people, but also the perceived superiority of whites by non-whites - exists and persists.

Patriotism, Identity, "Race," and Other Constructs

Most people unfamiliar with a book I'm reading this summer might think from its protagonists' names, Juan Crisóstomo Ibarra and María Clara de los Santos, that it's a Latin American novel. But it's actually what Penguin Classics calls "the great novel of the Philippines": Noli Me Tangere, written in Spanish by José Rizal. The novel contributed to a greater awareness of national identity in the Philippines, eventually leading to a revolt against colonial Spain.

José Rizal is revered as our national hero, a patriot who died in the name of freedom from oppression. I don't know that I would face such a fate with courage or acceptance. I have often wondered if I could, but I have also wondered, is it really fair to extol patriotism as a virtue when sometimes people who are born in one country can develop a deep love for another?

Spain first colonized the Philippines in 1565. The Spaniards ruled over the Philippines for over 330 years - longer than their rule over Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador, Argentina, Chile, or Mexico. We are geographically Asian, but in my opinion we are culturally "latino." In the Philippines one can find good paella as well as good spring rolls. Our Spanish surnames and colonial churches remind visitors more of places in the aforementioned Central and South American countries than of other South East Asian locales.

The Philippines declared independence from Spain on June 12, 1898, but this declaration was recognized neither by Spain nor by the United States, which paid 20 million dollars for possession of the archipelago. Spain ceded the Philippines, Guam, and Puerto Rico to the U.S. with terms delineated in the controversial Treaty of Paris. My great-great-grandfather (pictured right) had a seat in the U.S. Congress for a time during our period as an American territory. Philippine independence was finally recognized by the U.S. on July 4, 1946.

I've been thinking about these chapters in Philippine and American history today. I celebrated July 4 in the company of Filipino colleagues and friends but served a decidedly American barbecue - hamburgers, hot dogs, pulled pork sandwiches, cole slaw, s'mores for dessert. I've been in the U.S. since I was a child. I feel very "American," but I also feel at home among other Filipinos and still speak our native language (though not as well as I should). It was my third language at home. English was my second, Spanish my first. My cousins and I may have been among the last Filipinos, as a generation, to learn (or at least hear) Spanish at home. Over the last couple of decades even English has taken a back seat, to our nation's detriment, in my opinion; we had at one time been fully bilingual, but a resurgence of nationalism in recent years has led to some misguided educational changes, including the decline of English usage.

I don't "feel" Asian at all, whatever feeling Asian might be. I hope African Americans won't mind my saying that I feel it would be as valid to call me a Spanish Filipina as it is to call African Americans African American. The ancestral distance is about the same, and in terms of personal affinity it would be a closer approximation of the identity I feel on the inside. On the outside, though, I look Asian - more Asian than other Filipinos, even, because I also have Chinese ancestry. In the Philippines because I have fair skin I am considered more "white" than most Filipinos, those that colonial Spain would have labeled as "indios." This has complicated social implications over there which have in the past been a challenge for me. I'm not white in the U.S., but I'm white in the Philippines. So, in fact, "whiteness" is relative - it's defined by the observer; it has more to do with who's categorizing me than who I really am.

That said, there are Caucasian (as in, blond, blue-eyed) Filipinos and many whose Spanish ancestry still expresses itself. My grandmother's sister has very light eyes, either blue or green. My daughter's are hazel - green in some light, with hints of my brown. She cannot "pass for Asian" at all and had to forego the idea of being cast as a kid in The King and I. My son has a pretty Caucasian phenotype too. Sometimes I still get funny (puzzled) looks from people when I introduce myself as their mother.

So what "race" box should they, or I, check off on those forms that have a race box? How can I explain to them the existence of the race box, when I don't believe in the existence of race as a biological entity - only as a socially determined, historic entity (a useless, destructive one at that)? What becomes of our identity when we look like one "race" but feel a greater kinship with another? Why do human beings judge one another and draw conclusions based on appearance?

No easy questions, or answers, this July 4.