Are You Proud of your Ancestry?

Be Proud of Your Filipino Ancestry and Roots

When my kids were growing up in the 1970's my wife and I made it sure they know and be proud of their Filipino ancestry ,even though the Philippines is a foreign country to them. We told them that they should work twice as hard as their non-Filipino classmates in school and other activities to be successful. Thus we believe our four children who are now adults and have children of their own are well motivated citizens of the US and have achieved a fairly successful lives and career here in the US. We told them if you know your past you will have no problem seeing your future.

However, I have friends and relatives here in US who are ashamed of their Filipino roots and do not want to be associated with other Filipino Americans. They are not proud of their brown skin and scared to be associated with any thing Filipino or anything about the Philippines. They believe the Philippines is graft ridden, inferior and a third world country, thus they are not advertising their filipino roots. Some of them even deny it.

A good case in point is the recent news about Jessica Sanchez. Sanchez mother hailed from the Philippines and his father has Mexican ancestry. She grew up in San Diego and can not speak Tagalog. Sanchez came to the limelight when she was runner-up in the TV singing show, 2011 American Idol. Just recently the top ten winners of American Idol had just finished a tour in the Philippines.

There was some controversy that Sanchez should not be included in the Filipino Pride list, because she is not a Filipina and do not speak the local language. There was even a rumor, she does not recognized her Filipino-American roots even though her mother came from Bataan province. I believe she does not want to be categorized belonging to an ethnic group of either Filipino or Mexican. I do not know if this rumor is true, but if it is, I feel sorry for her and her mother who had not raised her to be proud of her Filipino ancestry.

Another example is my cousin-in-law. She is a Caucasian woman with English and Irish ancestry. She married my cousin who is a first generation Filipino-American. When my uncle celebrated their golden wedding anniversary in the Philippines, my cousin's wife refused to attend. She believe the Philippines is a jungle and infested with dengue fever causinng mosquitoes and very unsafe to travel. She even refused permission for their four children to travel with my cousin to attend his parents 50th wedding anniversary.

When I informed her that the Manila-Makati area is as modern and traffic congested as Los Angeles or New York City, she just give me a look of disbelief. I told her that the travel advisory is only for southwestern Mindanao. This is an example of the saying that Discrimination is the cause of Ignorance. This was about five years ago, so I hope her pre-conceived idea of the Philippines has changed for the better today.

So, my dear Filipino-Americans whether you are a second, third or fourth generation Filipino-American be proud of your Filipino heritage. The Philippines is not that bad, in spite of its oligarchy, graft and corruption, election dominated by Family Dynasty and almost 20% of it youth are working overseas. The Philippines has beautiful beaches, affordable standard of living and very peaceful and relaxing place for retirement or build your second home in the tropics. It is populated by hospitable people, its women beautiful and all foreigners are generally welcome.