Sunday, July 27, 2014

Race? There's A Race?

Playing mini golf on our vacation back in Chicago
I want to begin by mentioning that I am not for one to really post anything political or social/cultural issues to avoid the awkwardness of opinions that turn into arguments or rants to try to change another person’s point of view. Everything I’m about to say is based on my observation and opinion, nothing on research or sources.  With that would like to talk about interracial relationships.
            
            I know that back then it was definitely forbidden/frowned upon if not all cultures then most cultures.  Then through the years as the U.S. grew and immigration became larger to create America, couples in different cultures became more involved. Can’t say that it didn’t take some bloodshed or some family feuds at first, but people got through them some how. The reason I bring this up is, my husband and I have realized that since we’ve been together we have noticed a lot of the public looking at us. I don’t mean a smile and wave or a greeting saying how cute we are. I’m talking about faces of confusion, mean glares and even disgust toward us as we are out in about. We both have noticed it before but never really talked about it until recently.

            Honestly, I’m not mad at them or angry. I’m mostly just sad, that in 2014 there are still these little matters of race as an issue between two people. The surprising thing is, its not just pointed to one specific type of race that has been giving us “looks,” because it’s been a mix of everyone. Grand it has been more of Caucasian and Asian people that have been giving us these stares. I think the most hurtful day was when my husband and I went to get our car washed. After we paid we sat down to wait until our car was finished and this older man sitting across from us gave a mean stare and made this uneasy grunting disgust noise. The better person in me held back any courage I had to stand up and yell at him for being so disrespectful to us. Instead we drove home and that’s when we brought up the question of interracial relationships.

            I know that in my culture, in the Philippines, there is still some bitterness into cross relationships with other countries then our own. Most of it is really just frowned upon the old old generations of our culture. Now a days the Filipino culture is much more open with others especially to people here in America. The most common match ups that I’ve seen in interracial couples between them are Filipino-Caucasian, Filipino-African American (even though older generations really frown upon blacks the most, because of reputation), and Filipino-Filipino. I’ve never had a preference on a person; I think that even if I were to still live in the Philippines I still would feel the same as I do now. If I didn’t marry my husband now and I was back there, because of the environment I would be around I would most likely wind up with someone who is also Filipino. Growing up here I was attracted to other Asian guys, the thing was that they were interested in “white girls” (or so it seemed). I believe this was so because Asian guys thought that the girls were interested in “white guys.” For this to happen I have no idea or what the concept of this is, it’s just how I’ve perceived it, especially walking in the halls of high school. 

            To the pressing matter, again I’m not angry I’m more upset and sad, a bit confused. I know my husband probably feels the same way. It really doesn’t affect us unless they start to hurt one of us or criticizes obnoxiously in public. Honestly, I never thought I would run into this type of problem with us being together, but it really still is out there. It just would be nice if we could go out in public and not have someone judge us with his or her face. No matter what anyone will say to us. I love Michael, not because of his skin or his status but because he’s the person I picked out of anyone in the world. All he had to do was smile and show me his heart.

Us about 3 weeks ago at a Bruno Mars concert in my hometown, Chicago