I am an eldest Asian daughter
I have so much rage inside me I can barely recognize who I am without it.
I was five years old when I was first catcalled on the streets. I can barely remember what I was wearing, whether a Snow White costume or my school uniform. Did it matter? I was walking home from school and holding my mom’s hand. A tricycle driver smiled, “Hey beautiful,” in a way that made me run away. My mom yanked my hand back and scolded me for not knowing how to take a compliment. I didn’t know what catcalling was, all I knew was his sneer didn’t feel safe. Unknowingly, my mom didn’t make me feel safe either.
I was seven years old when I was told my nose was too flat and unflattering. I didn’t understand what was wrong with it. Isn’t a nose’s primary function to breathe in the air as the oxygen goes through my body and does whatever purpose it sees fit? That night, my mother and my grandmom pinch the bridge of my nose for fifteen to thirty minutes, with the illusion it would look better, more sophisticated, like the foreigners or Westerners have it. I grew up seeing noses contoured and noses with high bridges highly praised, and always with “flat noses are unflattering.” I didn’t know my ancestors mourned at the grievances made upon my body, for it not to be good enough.
I was fourteen years old when I realized people were making fun of me for my weight. I didn’t know tank tops are only “appropriate” for the skinny girls. I didn’t realize how thigh gaps were a trend and how dare I didn’t know they were a thing. I was fourteen when I learned to cover up, and with the intonation, skin is only appropriate when skinny.
I was fifteen years old when I saw my parents’ look of disappointment when I told them I wanted to be a teacher. How their eyes went from expectant to sadness, from approval to discontentment. “What about your dreams of writing?” they ask. But I shake my head. The odds of being a successful writer, in a developing country where the arts weren’t valued were almost slim to none. I crushed my dreams before they even had the chance to be planted. I love teaching, I say, and practically speaking, it pays a regular wage. That was my job: to provide stability for my family. It won’t pay much, but it pays the bills. At that moment, it was good enough.
I was eighteen when I started to straighten my hair. I looked better, “hotter,” someone they’d ask their number for. I didn’t know my hair was supposed to emit waves as if I had my day at the beach. They called me names, “salot, Sisa, buhaghag.” Over the years I was always taught “Straight is sophisticated.” I didn’t know my hair reflected my untamed flame, how I was trying hard to be the “perfect Filipina.” They restricted me so much that I never realized I was trying to fit into everyone’s box.
I was twenty-three years old when I was given the impression I was never in the right skin tone. My mom was Filipino whose skin reflected her Spanish grandfather. My dad was Chinese through and through. But with all my time in the mountains, my mom has remarked I’m too dark to be Chinese and my friends comment I’m too light-skinned to be Filipino. I laugh off the statements, but God knows that I know I’ll never truly belong.
I’m twenty-six years old. I’m turning twenty-seven in five days. I’ve reinvented myself so many times that people no longer recognize me. And I’m glad. I’ve carried the rage of my mom and my mom’s mom and all of their ancestors and brought them 8000 miles to the other side of the world. I ran until the extra weight fell off my skin, and lifted all the anger I have in all the times I was never good enough. Every time I put makeup on my face, I refuse to contour the bridge of my nose, and I turned down hair straighteners and disappointed looks of people just to express the waves of my hair. I have all of this rage, no, I have all this love for myself that I refuse to fit into anyone’s box or to belittle myself any longer.
I am an eldest Asian daughter. I have history in my skin, I have passion in my hair. What other choice do I have but to scream? But to whisper? And to simply share my story?
