The Land is My Bridge to Her
My Journey Back to My Filipino Heritage
Jan. 1, 2018 — as I stood on the balcony of our 21st-floor apartment, tiny explosions studded the skyline from Manila Bay to the distant mountains and lakes. The honking of cars and muffled cheers from backyards below registered for a brief moment as seconds flew by after the stroke of midnight. The rest became white noise.
COURTESY IMAGE // NINA RANESES
In the moments that my corner of the world revelled in the promise of new beginnings, I was faced with the harsh reality of the end. For me, that past year was characterised by unexpected change, loss, and separation. I’ve never been one to channel that much energy into New Year’s celebrations, but it was all I had. Instead, in the first moments of 2018, I was holding my phone, eyes welling with tears. My grandmother had just unexpectedly passed, and I could not hold her hand and say goodbye. We were separated by over 8,000 miles of land and sea and a 13-hour time difference.
Like so many grandmothers, she was a storyteller, a caregiver, a hand to hold, a shoulder to cry on. I looked forward to the summer days I’d spend at my grandparents’ house, and spent so much of my childhood in her care. And from a very young age, my grandmother represented everything I knew about my heritage. Through her actions and her words, I’d get glimpses into a land and a history that I was separated from because of time, culture, generational differences, and what I would learn later in life was a fear of how the world perceived me based on my cultural identity. I am a second-generation Filipino American, but for the majority of my life, that hasn’t “felt” like the case. I’ve always wondered what it was like to have your cultural and ethnic heritage be a centerpiece of your identity. For the longest time, that was not my reality — to have one of those unchangeable characteristics of your being foster so much joy and community.
Filipino Americans are an admirably resilient group. They always find the means and the courage to celebrate and share their culture with others despite the struggles faced by the diaspora. Through the complicated relationships and harsh realities brought on by American colonialism, immigration law, and harmful stereotypes and generalisations, they mourn and reconcile. They savour the present while they look towards the future. Fil Ams have every right to be upset — and I would be remiss to say that they’ve never been — of what they’ve suffered as a collective. In the United States and throughout the world, the Filipino spirit carries on in an unwavering commitment to family and community. Throughout my life, I’ve always felt like I’ve watched from the sidelines, looking at the beauty and familial nature of the diaspora and wondering what it would be like to be a part of it. I love my Fil Am family very much, and I am grateful for all that I’ve learned through them about my cultural heritage, but I could feel an obstacle between myself and the greater community. I respected the pride that others felt for their culture, for their heritage, but somehow believed I was not afforded the same chance.
From an early age, my relationship with my heritage became intertwined with my relationship with my grandmother. This relationship has always been complicated, simultaneously revolving around my own unfamiliarity and guilt and the feeling of my grandmother’s love. So much of what I know about the Philippines — even after living in the country for a year — I know because of her. I was always greeted by the sound of Filipino news shows in my grandparents’ living room as I entered their Lorton, Virginia, house, and Filipino soap operas were the last thing my grandmother and I watched before we went to sleep. Before I drifted off, she told stories of Japanese occupation and Philippine mythology. She introduced me to the Filipino dishes that to this day bring me warmth, comfort, and memories of childhood. It’s been impossible to discuss my heritage without mentioning the role my grandmother played in it. To me, she was the Philippines — all of the stories, the food, and the culture. My connection to my heritage lived in her, and when she passed, I was afraid it would leave with her. I’ve grieved for my grandmother in the hopes that I would not have to grieve the loss of the strongest connections I’ve ever felt to my roots.
COURTESY IMAGE // NINA RANESES
Those that know me have heard me talk about my complicated relationship with my heritage. It’s one of those unavoidable facts of life for me and so many generations of immigrants’ children. For over two decades, coming to terms with my identity has felt like tackling the world’s most stubborn clump of yarn. Some days, I put in the effort to pull the strings apart, as hard and difficult as it may be. Other days — or rather most days, it’s easy to throw it in a corner and forget the problem exists. The cold, hard truth for any generation of immigrants in this country and their children is that removing ourselves from our family’s past makes life “easier.” Especially in the times that it’s felt “easier” to act as if there are no implications and history behind the way that I look, the pronunciation of my last name, for the religion I was raised around, for the second language that my relatives speak. I always thought it was “easier” for me to just be American, with no other identifier, as if it would prevent ignorance and curiosity and all other forces in this world from taking one look at me and asking: “Where are you REALLY from?” Growing up and going to predominantly white schools in a predominantly white neighborhood, I thought I’d never have to consider my ethnicity as a part of my identity. It was not something I’d considered as a child, and in adolescence — as conversations of race and ethnicity became more relevant among my peers — I strayed away from it even then. But it hurt all the same. I hated when people asked why I couldn’t speak Tagalog, or why I didn’t do certain things or act specific ways “since I was Filipino.” At the same time, I’ve always been uncomfortable with assertions that the way I speak or that my interests or career aspirations make me “whitewashed.” I never felt like “enough” of one thing for anyone, and moving to the Philippines only exacerbated these feelings of uncertainty.
COURTESY IMAGE // NINA RANESES
My grandmother’s death was a turning point, but so were all of the moments that followed immediately after. I was in Manila when my grandmother passed, but in the days following we’d planned to visit Baguio, a city tucked in the Cordillera mountain range in the northern part of the island Luzon. High above the pollution and bustle of the city, Baguio is filled with pine trees and street vendors that sell strawberries and flowers from small carts. Almost everywhere you look you can hear the echoes of farm animals from the mountain villages below. Closer to the edges of the mountains, the air is sweet and fresh, something that I hadn’t been accustomed to since I arrived in the Philippines. On the car ride from Manila to Baguio, I experienced the Philippine countryside for the first time in my life. We passed fields scattered with carabaos and saw the first instance of wide-open sky I’ve seen since I came to the Philippines — untouched by skyscrapers or airplanes or lights from nearby cities. From the beauty of the countryside to the stories my mom told me of her visits to Baguio as a child, I’d never felt more connected to the land that I’d only heard stories about when I was a child. I realized that even though I’d never get my chance to explore it alongside my grandmother, it was worth exploring for myself — which is something I knew she would have wanted.
I have never been able to get over the cruel irony of me being in the Philippines and her being in the United States when she passed. A foreigner on the soil that she grew up on, it felt wrong for me to be there, without her, as she died. From the moment I arrived in Manila, I dreamt of the day my grandparents would visit us there. It would have been such a full-circle, second-generation-immigrant dream come true to have my own grandmother visit me in the Philippines after spending my childhood learning about the town and province she grew up in. At this point, I was still uncomfortable with exploring my relationship with the country of my heritage but recognised the privilege of being able to even dream of visiting our family’s ancestral land, let alone know where that land was. I clung to the hope that travelling around the Philippines with my grandparents would bring to life the stories they told me when I was a child and somehow ignite this deep love of the country I’d always been missing. But that moment would never come.
Those who know me personally know that I am never easily in touch with my emotions. In fact, it is almost impossible for me to confront them. Every few years I think it’ll finally be the year that I get a journal and commit to writing my feelings and experiences down, but every time I end up staring blankly at empty pages, afraid of putting thoughts onto paper, scared to make them tangible and therefore acknowledge them in a way I never wanted to. My relationship with my heritage is perhaps the most private, most difficult of all of my thoughts to articulate. And yet here I am, writing and publishing thoughts that, for most of my life, I could never even force into the pages of a private diary, to every stranger, mentor, friend, and loved one who reads this piece.
I chose to get this reflection out on paper and for everyone I care about to see because I doubt there will be a more poignant time in my life for me to write it. I took my first APIA studies course at the College of William and Mary on a whim, not thinking about the real impact it could have on how I view myself and what role I have to play as an Asian American at this school, in the context of my friendships, in the majority-white industry I am working hard to break into after graduation. But through all of the historical, legal, and theoretical contextualisation I’ve studied in my APIA courses, I’ve already grown so much in terms of what I think of my heritage and how that translates into my role as a part of both the Filipino and Asian American communities. For the first time in my life, I see myself as part of it. I understand now what my family talks about when they say that my grandmother is watching over us — watching over me — with her warmth and her support. It lives on in the people and the experiences I’ve been privileged enough to meet and witness in her absence. It lives on in the support and genuine care of those around me who would educate and include me in conversations about heritage rather than be judgemental or exclusive in the ways that I’d (irrationally) feared. Today, I am no longer watching from the sidelines. I feel the welcoming presence and the warmth of the Fil-Am community and the diaspora everywhere I go.
Being “enough” is a concept I’ve struggled with in many aspects of my life — my identity is hardly the only facet of my personality that I’ve had trouble convincing myself is adequate. However, I’ve found that accepting myself for how I am is the first step in this process, with the key being to truly understand what “acceptance” means. For much of my life, I’ve tried to sweep conversations about my identity and my heritage under the rug. I know I’m not alone. I’ve found solace in reading and hearing of others’ experiences with not feeling “American” enough for their peers but not in touch enough with their roots that they feel disconnected from family. Put simply, I am done being apologetic. Not knowing Tagalog was never my fault, and having a surname that turns into a pronunciation guessing game whenever I meet someone new is also not my fault. I will no longer beat myself for the gaps in cultural knowledge I still have, but rather look for the friendly faces I’ve met along the way to share in the experiences I’ve had instead.
I am incredibly grateful for the people and the experiences that have helped me find my way, but it never ceases to upset me when I think about how I found myself here. How and why did this sense of self-discovery and self-acceptance have to come from the most heartbreaking and traumatic experience of my life? My grandmother’s passing has been the most influential loss in my life and I learned quickly what’s meant when people talk about the grieving process not being a linear one. When she was still alive, everything about the Philippines reminded me of my grandmother, and with her passing, these reminders and feelings have been amplified — and I took the opportunity to take my grief and channel it into something that could help me grow as a person. And the added layer of shared trauma in the wake of hate crimes and scapegoating Asians due to the pandemic has forced me to realize how important this sense of community is — both as an Asian American and as a Filipino American. Between my own feelings of grief and those of the community around me, it is a shame that so many people have finally been brought together by shared tragedy. I look forward to the day that we can come together under better circumstances.
It’s taken me two decades to even attempt to find my place in the complicated, resilient, and beautiful tapestry of the Filipino American diaspora, but I feel a shift occurring that I’ve done all I can to welcome. My grandmother may be gone, but her kindness and warmth have lived on in some of the people I’ve met and the experiences I’ve had since her passing. In the same way that I breathed the fresh mountain air of Baguio days after her passing, I hope to one day visit my grandmother’s home province of Bicol. I look forward to the day I can take the steps she took, see what she saw, and thank her for the journey that led me all over the world and ultimately back to where we all came.
COURTESY IMAGE // NINA RANESES