{"id":6028,"date":"2015-11-28T16:25:36","date_gmt":"2015-11-28T16:25:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blogblog\/?p=6028"},"modified":"2015-11-28T16:28:08","modified_gmt":"2015-11-28T16:28:08","slug":"the-human-race-growing-up-a-mutt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/2015\/11\/the-human-race-growing-up-a-mutt\/","title":{"rendered":"The Human Race: Growing Up A Mutt"},"content":{"rendered":"

It is my father’s birthday today; he would have been 86. \u00a0Happy Birthday Dad!<\/span><\/p>\n

I reflected back upon my childhood growing up with men who were straight out of Japan, China, the Philippines. \u00a0Many came to Alaska the past 100 years, like my maternal grandfather who was Filipino\/Tibetan, and directly after WWII, a flood of Filipino men came to Alaska, my father was amongst them. \u00a0These men married the Native women; they rarely married women who were not indigenous.<\/span><\/p>\n

Most of the Asian men spoke broken English, though there were a few who knew no other language but their own. \u00a0A few learned the indigenous languages though everyone, including the indigenous people like my Alaskan relatives, were forced to learn English; and we were not allowed to speak our own. \u00a0So English was the \u201ccommon\u201d language that we all had to learn in order to communicate and \u201cget along.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Like I said, it was not until a friend mentioned his experience in Korea most recently where he was not even looked at, not acknowledged once they saw that he was a foreigner — that got me to thinking and reflecting back. \u00a0I wanted to \u201csee\u201d his viewpoint.<\/span><\/p>\n

It is true. \u00a0They don\u2019t look at you when they see you are a foreigner.<\/span><\/p>\n

Basically, no matter what country in Asia from which they are from, they generally do not acknowledge foreigners. \u00a0Why is that?<\/span><\/p>\n

It has been my experience, Asians tend to \u201cstick to their own kind\u201d \u2014 even in modern times. \u00a0Why make relationships complicated with cultural differences? \u00a0Relationships are already complex and we make it complicated when we inter-marry. \u00a0Even in the Alaskan Filipino communities, now that their own women come to the United States in this modern day, they stay away from any other nationality, they associate only with one another.<\/span><\/p>\n

I remember how in my childhood, those of us who were \u201cmestizos\u201d \u00a0felt awkward being amongst the \u201cpure-bred\u201d Filipino kids and their families whenever there was a Filipino community event. \u00a0They didn\u2019t really \u201clook at us.\u201d \u00a0At the time, we did not understand why we so-called \u201chalf-breeds\u201d felt \u201cfunny\u201d in their presence. \u00a0\u00a0it wasn\u2019t until many years later as an adult that I came to understood what that was all about. \u00a0While the indigenous people of our land were wide open yet cautious of the foreigners, when they gained our trust, they became a part of our communities. \u00a0Yet the Asians always tended to keep themselves apart. \u00a0Even though it was the Native women (who were married to the Asian men) who worked hard to raise funds to buy a building in downtown Juneau for a Filipino community to host their events, there is little to no acknowledgement from the Filipinos. \u00a0Asians have a very strong sense of pride. \u00a0It\u2019s that strong pride that is a strength and it is the part that sets them apart.<\/span><\/p>\n

Part of why they tend to \u201cstick to their own kind\u201d is because the Asian communities tend to be very tight. \u00a0They are community-oriented. \u00a0They take care of one another; they think in terms of helping one another excel, to help support one another, and to help rejoice. \u00a0If one grieves, they all grieve; if one has achieved something, they celebrate as if each individual achieved the honor. \u00a0They speak the same language. \u00a0They have the same sense of humor, their foods tie them together, they enjoy the familiarity. \u00a0They tend to steer away from the \u201cdifferent.\u201d \u00a0If you are different, they are shy of differences, they are cautious. \u00a0They cannot relate, so why force relating?<\/span><\/p>\n

My father was the youngest of the Filipino men who came to Alaska after the war and married an indigenous woman. \u00a0Although he became friends with the indigenous men, he continued his life-long friendships with all of the Filipino men. \u00a0Over the years, one by one, he buried his comrades. \u00a0Pretty soon there were only the offspring of these men he could relate to if any of them spoke the Filipino language. \u00a0He missed being able to speak his language daily. \u00a0He felt very alone and as each year passed, he buried himself in his gardening. \u00a0And although there were more Filipinos migrating to Alaska, they were young, arrogant men and women who he took no interest for whatever reasons. \u00a0He could not relate to them. \u00a0\u00a0When my father died, an era died with him; he was the last. \u00a0None of his friends were there at his memorial, though all of his friends\u2019 children and grandchildren were in attendance. \u00a0We all knew we were the offspring of a by-gone era.<\/span><\/p>\n

Even though my nationalities are comprised mainly of Asian blood (Filipino, Japanese, Chinese, Malaysian), I am not fully accepted. \u00a0They will glance at me and wonder what I am and once they find out that I am indeed part Asian, they rejoice that I am part Asian blood, but only for a brief moment am I acceptable; \u00a0still there is that arms-length distance because my blood, in their eyes, has been \u201ctainted\u201d with indigenous blood, and Jewish blood and Norwegian and Finnish blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

And of all the Asian nationalities, I have found that the Filipino people are more accepting than any other. \u00a0The Filipino are more joyful, playful and not as harshly judgmental. \u00a0Though they still keep to their own and rarely \u201cstray\u201d to inter-marry, at least nowadays they will look upon you.<\/span><\/p>\n

There is no way around it; I find that Asians are hard-core when it comes to identity. \u00a0It\u2019s just in their blood. \u00a0And I understand them. \u00a0That hard-core identity is also in my blood.<\/span><\/p>\n

I have no judgement about the way things are or were; it just was and it just is. \u00a0In my mind, combined with the awareness of simultaneous lives and if we go back far enough, the fact that we are a mixture of bloods, I figure we are all mutts, so when it comes right down to it, there is one human race, THEN there are nationalities of cultures.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It is my father’s birthday today; he would have been 86. \u00a0Happy Birthday Dad! I reflected back upon my childhood growing up with men who were straight out of Japan, China, the Philippines. \u00a0Many came to Alaska the past 100 years, like my maternal grandfather who was Filipino\/Tibetan, and directly after WWII, a flood of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[19,55,21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6028","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-honoring-others","category-family-friends-relatives","category-natural-sculptures-photography"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6028"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6031,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6028\/revisions\/6031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6028"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6028"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.clarissarizal.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6028"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}