Dual Alien

"Dual Alien"

My mother rang the doorbell, and there was an immediate clatter of high heels on a tile floor, echoing towards us from inside the house. It was Thanksgiving Day, and my mother, my father and I were standing on the doorstep of Aunt Gloria's house. It was one of those typical Filipino, garage parties, held by my mother's sister. Aunt Gloria owned a large, dainty town house at the end of a charming, "American Dream" avenue. I was holding a pumpkin pie, as that was the traditional dessert for Thanksgiving in America. The front door swung open, and we were greeted by my aunt. A familiar air of festivities swept over me. But the smell of adobo did not mix well with my pumpkin pie.

Aunt Gloria kissed my mother on the cheek, as they exclaimed greetings in Tagalog. I could understand none of this. Then she turned to my father, who was all smiles. I waited for it to happen. That moment when I knew I would feel humiliated and so out of place being with my father. He was German-Irish, and everyone at this gathering was from my mother's Filipino side. It was almost as if I could see Aunt Gloria's mind shifting from Tagalog to English, and with it, a bit of her spark was lost. She was searching for the right greeting.

"Happy Thanksgiving!", my father said. But it took her a moment's hesitation to reply with an awkward, "Yes. Happy Thanksgiving!". This party was not to celebrate the American holiday, but to honor the Day of the Dead. As coincidental as it may seem, the dates are very close. I felt ashamed to be carrying that pumpkin pie, when all my cousins were holding flowers to place on the graves at the cemetery.

Throughout my years of growing up, the fact that I was half German-Irish and half Filipina never failed to have impact on everything I did, everything I thought, and everything I felt. It was a never-ending conflict of two very different cultures. Showing not only in the color of my skin, but in the person I was underneath that skin. I was frustrated being a "fair brown girl" and a tanned "white girl". The pumpkin pie feeling was something that came over me often.

Whenever family got together on my mother's side, I felt singled out with my father. Like there was an invisible wall between us and the Tagalog speakers. A wall that was held up by more than language. And their attempts to breach this wall always ended up extremely entertaining for them, but humiliating for me. What I like to call "The Filipino Fear Factor", for example, always worked up a good laugh. Relatives would put all kinds of exotic delicacies on my plate, and then have me try them. Then they would sit and wait for my reaction. And let's just say, I did not have a great tolerance for spicy or slimy food. Of course, there was also the "Ultimate karaoke test", a must at every Filipino party. I was always asked to sing. Come hell or high waters, I could not leave a single party without getting forced into at least one song. Which is probably why my singing, henceforth, has been confined to the shower. But hovering above all this, were the questions that I often heard my little cousins asking their aunts and uncles. "Tita, why is she white?". On the other hand, in Chicago, where all my father's side lived, everyone seemed to put unnecessary attention on my mother. I noticed that when my aunts and uncles talked to her, they would use a "simpler" English, because they thought she could not understand. My mother did have a certain accent, but her ability to understand was just the same as mine or my father's. As with my mother's family, the little cousins were never afraid to ask questions. One of them came up to me once, and asked, "Do they speak crazy talk in the Philippines?".

As a child, I did not know how to react to situations like these, I did not know the answers to the questions of my cousins. This frustrated me, because all I wanted was to fit in.

At the end of fifth grade, my whole world was flipped upside down and turned inside-out. My parents and I moved to the Philippines. Half way around the world, to a place right on the equator line, and a Pacific Ocean away. This was not just the typical move. I was dealing with separation from my friends, a new school, a new home. But on top of it all, I was plunged into an entirely new culture. Suddenly, the "Chinese girl with black hair" who lived in a two bedroom apartment, became the "White blonde" whose citizenship automatically entailed that she must live in a gigantic mansion. That is what many of my classmates in America described me as, a Chinese girl with black hair. And here I was, with people who saw me as "white" with blonde hair. When in fact, I am not Chinese, not purely Caucasian, and my hair has always been just brown. In America, we were anything but rich. We lived in a modest apartment, without the big screen TV, or backyard swimming pool. I remember going over to my friends' houses and being fascinated by the automatic garage doors that opened with the push of a button. We never had any of those showcase luxuries. Yet, I found myself being stereotyped as a rich American. The false assumptions, however, turned out not to be the biggest shock. It was language that served as the deeper gap between me and everyone I would meet in the Philippines. The "crazy talk" that had seemed so strange and foreign to me, was now my currency for survival in this new place. Tagalog had my tongue tied in knots, and my mind doing back flips. Because not only were the sounds and sentence structures different in every way from the English I grew up with, but the ideas and concepts were equally foreign. My English, instead, became my "defect". It made me stand out in a crowd, in every conversation.

Gradually, I started to do what any kid would do. I settled in. And that was when I began to realize how my mother had switched places with my father. She was now talking to everybody, handling things, and dealing with people. For as long as