Update: Ever since I started prepping for this post two weeks ago, the U.S. has decided to reinforce its “ironclad” military alliance with the Philippines, adding four new bases and opening up my home country to the greatest American presence it’s ever had since the 1990s — in the face of heightened tensions with China.
Quote of the week: “[T]he United States and the Philippines are more than just allies. We’re family.” — U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin, giving prime Sister Sledge vibes.
Yesterday, the Pentagon also shot down a high-altitude spy balloon sent by the Chinese government that was recently seen flying over Montana and parts of the Midwestern and Eastern U.S. The Chinese insist it was just a weather monitoring device that strayed off course and now, infuriated: “[We] retain the right to respond further.” All important context for what I’m about to discuss in this post.
But first, let’s journey back to the beautiful emerald island of Madeira, where my husband and I spent our honeymoon two weeks ago:
I’ll admit it: I wasn’t supposed to be working.
But having just launched this newsletter to focus on unheard Filipino stories in the diaspora, I was curious to see if I could find Pinoys in this small, 34-mile-long island and Portuguese territory off the coast of Morocco. At the very least, overseas Filipino workers (OFWs) trying to make their fortunes abroad. And I did.
I met Raisa* at a downtown hotel where we stayed in Funchal, the bustling capital of Madeira. She was training to be a waitress and had been specifically assigned to work at one of the fanciest breakfast buffets I have ever been to, the kind where discreetly moneyed European holidaygoers would dress up in their Sunday best and get waited on by expert, uniformed staff. The kind where grungy Americans like my husband and I couldn’t just roll up to in sweatpants and gorge ourselves on (free!) food.
I caught a glimpse of Raisa as she walked past me in the main buffet area, an impish grin on her face as she clocked me as another wayward Filipino who somehow ended up at this impossibly bougie hotel, in this very beautiful but ultimately very random corner of the world: Sis, I see you too. We were the only people of color in the restaurant.
I wanted to pull her aside and start chatting with her in Tagalog, but the maitre d’s were swift-eyed and vigilant. We were guests; she was staff; no carousing allowed. The rules of breakfast etiquette at this hotel were second-to-none: a nearly synchronized army of waiters who stood by ready to serve you, fill up your glass, and ask if you wanted another espresso. And the maitre d’s hovered in the perimeter like vultures, making sure everything (and everyone) ran like clockwork.
It was all a little too Big Brother for me. I couldn’t muster up enough courage to talk with her then, but I promised to try the next time we’d come back.
The next time we came back to the hotel (for the last few days before our return to the States), I was determined to talk to her. This time, she had been fortuitously assigned to our section of the restaurant. In order for me to chat with her and escape the roving eyes of her supervisors, I called out to her and asked if she could fill up my glass of water.
Our conversation went something like this:
Me: Taga-saan ka pala? (Where are you from?)
Her: Taga-Tondo. (I’m from Tondo.) — Tondo is the second-most densely-populated area in Manila, and includes some of the poorest and largest slums in the city. Coincidentally, it is also the birthplace of many of the Philippines’ greatest minds, activists, and revolutionaries.
Me: Hala! Pano ka napadpad dito? (Whoa! How did you end up here in Madeira?)
Her: Ay, mahabang istorya… magtatagal pa ba kayo dito? (Oh, it’s a long story… are you guys here a while?)
Me: Hindi, uwi na kami bukas. (Oh no, we’re going home tomorrow.)
Her: Ay, sayang. Taga-saan pala yung asawa mo? (What a shame. Where is your husband from?)
Me: Taga-US. (From the U.S.)
Her: Ay, buti ka pa. Meron! (Oh wow, good for you. You’ve got one!)
Raisa gave another impish smile as she congratulated me on making my own fortunes abroad: marrying up and “improving the gene pool” by being with a white man — an American man! — no less. Her tone made it clear how special those men were around these parts — guaranteed ticket holders who would grant you VIP access to the Promised Land of the United States rather than these boring old Europeans who would take you back to their drab satellite towns and make you live in their even drabber and tinier homes.
In Raisa’s eyes, it was a lot easier to marry a white man because he could whisk you away from poverty and you wouldn’t have to work yourself to the bone in some faraway land listening to supervisors who constantly demean you and try to whip you into shape to turn you into the most prized possession of all: the consummate foreign worker, eager to help and bend over backwards to serve, a cheap, convenient, and forgettable cog in the machine to keep the global economy chugging along.
America though. And American men.
Comments like Raisa’s often bother me. My mom (who married a Filipino-American doctor) had gotten a barrage of xenophobic insults back then from his own family, who thought she was a mail-order bride pouncing on their daddy for his money — regardless of having been a career woman all her life. I was subjected to similar jibes from people back in college who asked if I’d already gotten my green card after dating my now-husband. (Plot twist: I had it all along! ) All because of our brown skin, and the propensity for Filipina (and really a lot of other Asian) women to marry white men to gain a big leg up, an advantage, a certain kind of “we’ve arrived.”
These jibes — as insidious as they are — contribute to the same culture of interpersonal violence that makes the climate for actual, physical violence against people who look like me possible. These insults legitimize, normalize, and help actualize violence against Asian women like me here in America.
But somehow, these words didn’t bother me as much coming from Raisa. She was honest about her need, completely open about her desire to marry up and leave this shitty waitressing job on Madeira behind. She didn’t have any illusions about her motivations to find a Western (preferably American!) husband: she simply wanted out.
Which brings me back to the new U.S. bases in the Philippines. They are back, baby. And God knows how long for this time.
According to Foreign Affairs:
[Filipino President Bongbong Marcos] appears to have calculated that strengthening relations with Washington can help deter China from more aggressive moves toward the Philippines.
If so, this would be a fine illustration of a country availing itself of a classic arrangement in international relations known as “offshore balancing,” where in this case a weak country seeks help from a powerful, faraway country to help hold its ground in the face of an imposing neighbor.
That’s why we Filipinos love America. Not just because of their military might, but also because they have uniquely shaped us in their image, blessing us with public schools, public healthcare, public works, Hollywood, fast food (which we’ve since made our own and turned into something much better - Jollibee!), the English language. Their men blessing us with mestiza kids with Filipino doe eyes and Western aquiline noses. We love all of it. And it is — undeniably and irretrievably — part of us. The Philippines is American hard and soft power brought to life.
The violence of America also lives on in the Filipino body.
Specifically, in Filipino women’s bodies — women who have been assaulted, abandoned, abused, manipulated, trapped and tricked into shitty marriages. As these new military bases open up, I pray that the Philippines will push strongly for its own interests and hold the Americans accountable for their behavior as they begin to reclaim their hold on their former colony, its longest-standing ally in the Pacific.
As for my adopted home country, these Stars and Stripes:
With whiteness comes privilege.
With an American passport comes privilege.
With tanks, guns, jets, and the largest defense machinery in the world come colossal privilege — and the need to balance difficult geopolitical realities particularly in places scarred by American imperialism like Asia.
The need to understand the military-industrial complex in America is what makes us the most powerful country in the world, but also that it’s been killing our people on the inside.
How there are no easy answers, just a constant moral wrestling.
Join the wrestle.
It's so interesting regarding where and how we view "mixed marriages," especially as dynamics including generational and gender affect opinions.
I know as the last of three brothers to marry, mom would have preferred I marry a Filipina/FilAm. But as many in my generation (born or primarily raised in the States in the 70s and 80s), we mixed. Many kids are mixed, to the point where I believe FilAm heritage is not immediately recognizable.
I don't believe any of us were explicitly discouraged though I don't think any were explicitly encouraged either. So enlightening to read from different perspectives.