Returning Forward

Doing Theology as an American-Made Mestizo, Pt. 4

The following is the third part of a series reflecting on a Mixed-Heritage Filipino-American Identity in honor of Fil-Am Heritage Month. You can find part one here.

I will be discussing things like Filipino Invisibility, liminality and in-betweenness, tokenism, and the history of Filipino Diaspora. Some of the experiences will be common to radicalized communities, others will be particular to mixed-heritage persons, and others will be specific to me and my family. Ultimately, what I am building toward is a life-long struggle of theological reflection on mixed-heritage experience. Isang Bagsak.

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“Just make sure not to leverage your ethnicity too much.”

I’ve heard this sentiment a few times in academic spaces, the assumption being that I’m not Filipino enough to talk about my experience as a Fil-Am and that, in doing so, I’m really just chasing down diversity points. Enough is a big word in the mixed-heritage conversation.

Am I Filipino enough to talk about my sakada grandfather or my immigrant grandmother? Have I experienced enough racism, tokenism, or microaggressions to admit that it’s hurtful? Have I heard enough jokes about my eyes, been confused for Latino enough times, or had enough people ask me what I think about Manny Pacquiao to consider myself Filipino American? And who gets to decide, anyway?

Mixed-heritage people experience pressure from all sides, within and without, to identify the right way for any given context. The question of legitimate membership in a group always feels contested. We are both-and-neither, betwixt and between, and not quite this or that.

As such, it is both comforting and chaotic to be in places where our non-white ethnicity is expressed and celebrated. If I go to a Fil-Am Heritage Month celebration at my seminary—to eat my childhood food and hear other Fil-Am stories—will I be accepted, or will I be accused of leveraging my heritage to assuage some underlying white-guilt?

I am haunted by the question of belonging.

To Be Kapwa

Many have followed Virgilio Enriquez, founder of Sikolohiyang Pilipino (the Filipino psychology movement), in identifying kapwa as the foundational concept for Filipino worldview.¹ While sometimes rendered in English as simply “others” or “both”, kapwa more the unity of the self and others, together.² “Without kapwa,” says Enriquez, “one ceases to be Filipino… One also ceases to be human.”³

The term, like many indigenous terms, resists one-to-one correspondence with English terms, but Jeremiah Reyes offers a helpful starting place. Instead of translating kapwa as “community” or “fellowship”, which still foregrounds the modern concept of individual selves, Reyes translates kapwa as “together with the person”. For Reyes, “if you want to define kapwa… there is no ‘self'” in the modern sense.⁴

This doesn’t mean there are no individuals. Instead, individuals receive identity from the group rather than the group receiving identity from the individuals. In the framework of Western individualism, the “self” is the starting point for membership in a community of other “selves” that interact together. In kapwa, together “comes first before you break it apart into separate ‘selves’.”⁵ Relationality is not a choice, decision, or preference of individuals, it is a web within which individuals are together.

Furthermore, we mustn’t understand kapwa as the Filipino version of “others-centeredness”. Kapwa does not set the other up over the self any more than the self is set up over the other. They are both, to accept Reyes’s definition, together, so that collective identity is ontologically prior to individual identity.

More could be said on the psychological logic of kapwa. Suffice to say, the Filipino concept of kapwa demands the communal identity and solidarity of all Filipinos, including Fil-Ams. Being together—in community—is what makes any of us human. If one of us is hurting, we all hurt in kapwa. If one is dehumanized, we are all dehumanized. And yet, Fil-Ams do not always experience kapwa.

Reclaiming Kapwa with Tainted Blood

The denials and reclamations of kapwa have added layers for mixed-heritage peoples. It is, as one Filipina-American put it, to feel both ashamed and guilty of being mixed, feel part-oppressed and part-oppressor.⁶

In seeking for permission to identify—to claim their families and their stories—mixed-heritage persons are seeking humanity. We were not meant to be fragmented, invisible, or ambiguously liminal. We are meant to be kapwa—together.

For Fil-Ams, reclaiming kapwa is an act of resisting colonialism and an act of liberation. As a mixed-heritage Fil-Am, my connection to kapwa is always contngent and mediated through my experience with others—whether white or brown—to whom I look for permission to identify and voice various pieces of my identity. My kapwa is up for debate and deliberation in the communities I inhabit, accepted or rejected on their terms. With my kababayan, I am invisible to dominant cultures and Asian American communities alike. Among my kababayan, I can still feel invisible. Because kapwa cannot be complete while others are excluded, my kababayan are not yet kapwa until I am kapwa with them.

Yet, I am the product and recipient of multiple immigrations, multiple diasporas, multiple histories, and multiple cultures. In order to reclaim kapwa with tainted blood, I cannot restore a shared identity with only Fil-Ams or other Filipinos. I remain walang kapwa (without humanity) until my together includes my father and my mother—their families, their histories, and their peoples.

Mixed-heritage people defy monoracial and monocultural logics, but we also present unique opportunities for reconciliation and reimagining a multi-heritage world. Kapwa has the potential to unite Filipinos and Fil-Ams, including mixed-heritage Fil-Ams, and because we must be kapwa with all of ourselves, it connects groups which would otherwise remain without the other.

Returning Forward: Mixed-Heritage Revelation 22

Filipino Invisibility rubs salt into colonial wounds and contributes to the loss of kapwa and the difficulty of reclaiming kapwa with our kababayan, with fellow Asian Americans, with the whole community of creation (kapwa-nilalang). Because we are all meant to be kapwa in the communal Image of God, Filipino invisibility is human invisibility. In failing to see us, others fail to see themselves.

As a mixed-heritage Fil-Am, this erasure has meant that there are parts of my humanity that have too long gone unseen by my friends, my family, and myself. But we are not invisible to God. The Spirit of God is moving unseen in our unseen midst as a healer who is restoring our kapwa in his restoration of all of creation. God will make all things kapwa when heaven meets earth and Christ makes his dwelling here.

It is said that on that day the rulers of the earth will bring their glory into the heavenly city. Out of invisibility, Fil-Ams will bring our history, our culture, our heritage, and our gifts to bear on the new creation.

As a mixed-heritage Fil-Am, I cannot “go back” to where I’m from. I live on stolen land, born to a mother from Europe and a father from the Philippines, and I am not from any of them. I can only be present where/with who I am in kapwa and move forward towards the new creation to which God is calling us. From my past, I carry with me a plurality of stories and cultures. When I enter the heavenly city, I will leave none of them and none of myself behind when I enter through the gates.

Walang makakatigil. Isang bagsak.

1. Virgilio G. Enriquez, “Kapwa: A Core Concept in Filipino Social Psychology,” in Philippine Worldview, ed. Virgilio G. Enriquez (Singapore: Institute of Southeast Asian Studies, 1986); see also E. J. R. David, Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino-/ American Postcolonial Psychology (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2013). ↩︎
2. Enriquez, “Kapwa”, 11. ↩︎
3. Virgilio G. Enriquez, From Colonial to Liberation Psychology: The Philippine Experience (Manila: De La Salle University Press, 1994), 63. ↩︎
4. Jeremiah Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa: An Introduction to a Filipino Virtue Ethics,” Asian Philosophy 25, no.2 (2015): 156. ↩︎
5. Reyes, “Loób and Kapwa”, 156. ↩︎
6. David, Brown Skins, White Minds, 73. ↩︎

The God who Sees Us

Doing Theology as an American-Made Mestizo, Pt. 3

The following is the third part of a series reflecting on a Mixed-Heritage Filipino-American Identity in honor of Fil-Am Heritage Month. You can find part one here.

I will be discussing things like Filipino Invisibility, liminality and in-betweenness, tokenism, and the history of Filipino Diaspora. Some of the experiences will be common to radicalized communities, others will be particular to mixed-heritage persons, and others will be specific to me and my family. Ultimately, what I am building toward is a life-long struggle of theological reflection on mixed-heritage experience. Isang Bagsak.

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2020 was a difficult year for everyone, but in the United States laid a particular burden on the Asian and Asian American communities. Due in part to dangerous media rhetoric and in whole to willful ignorance, hate crimes against Asian Americans skyrocketed. On August 1, 2021, the CBS Sunday Morning show aired a 9-minute special on the history of anti-Asian hate crimes in America. Despite the fact that Filipinos are the third-largest Asian-American subgroup in the United States (accounting for nearly 20% of all Asian Americans), the fact that the Philippines were actively colonized by the United States, and the fact that the first Asians to reach the continental United States were Filipinos aboard a Spanish galleon which docked at Moro Bay, California in 1587… Sunday Morning’s segment did not include a single mention of Filipino-Americans.

Filipino Invisibility

Elizabeth Pisares describes Filipino Invisibility as “an ethnic identity given character by its chronic misrecognition and effaced representation in U.S. culture.”¹ While being overlooked and underrepresented is a common burden experienced by all minority groups, Filipinos are rendered uniquely invisible among not only contemporary culture, but among Asian Americans, as well. In nearly every space where Asian and Asian American stories are shared, heard, and championed, Filipinos are forgotten or otherwise not invited to the conversation. Perhaps this is because it is impossible to highlight Filipino-Americans without highlighting the long history of US imperialism and oppression in the Philippines. As America erases its dark past, it erases Filipinos along with it. Or perhaps it is because of the lingering inferiority complex, a product of too many years of colonial oppression.

Whatever the reason, the lack of representation is striking. During the 2018 Emmy Awards, Michael Che joked that there are 15 seasons of the hit television series ER and yet not one episode features a Filipino nurse. Given the fact that the Philippines are the largest sender of professional nurses to the US—a direct result of US imperialism and the establishment of US-style nursing schools in the Philippines—the oversight is glaring.

When you think of Asian Americans, you probably don’t think of Filipinos. When you think of foreign-born contributors to the US economy, you probably don’t think of Filipinos. When you think of Asian food, you probably imagine orange chicken, pad Thai, or pho, not pancit, lumpia, or adobo. And when you think about American atrocities, you probably don’t think of the Philippine-American War.

The same is true in the religious academy. Scarcity afflicts any search for Fil-Am biblical hermeneutics or theological reflection. In a time when theological and biblical studies communities are taking significant strides towards responding to the needs, challenges, and opportunities afforded by the experiences of Asian Americans, Filipinos find familiar oversight.

To highlight just one example, consider the recent T&T Clark Asian American Handbook of Biblical Hermeneutics. Despite naming Filipinos among six major contexts for Asian American biblical hermeneutics in order of relative size of population (Chinese, Filipino, Indian, Vietnamese, Korean, and Japanese), the editors nevertheless fail to include an example of Filipino American biblical hermeneutics. There are several examples from Chinese-American, Indian-American, Vietnamese-American, Korean-American, and Japanese-American perspectives. There is even one from an Indonesian-American, not included in the books overview of major contexts. But there is not a single contribution sourced from a Fil-Am.

This does not mean that Fil-Ams have not contributed to biblical hermeneutics—Eleazar Fernandez being a prime example. The resources are just fewer and farther between for us than for many of our fellow Asian Americans.

The God Who Sees Us

Being unseen, overlooked, and invisible has its consequences. People who feel underrepresented and undervalued can begin to devalue their own culture, their own names, and their own contributions. When struggles are constantly and unrelentingly erased and dismissed, people begin to feel that their burdens do not matter, not to others and not to God. People who do not feel seen often begin—especially to the majority culture—to build their identity, distancing themselves from the things which make them who they are. Erasure is a key strategy in assimilation.

And yet, Scripture is replete with images of a God who sees the vulnerable. In Exodus, God hears the people’s groaning under imperial burdens, sees their plight and knows their suffering (Ex. 2:24-25, 3:7). It is in this context that God gifts the people with the covenant name of Yahweh, who abounds with compassion for the suffering.

In Genesis, when Abram and Sarai mistreat their servant Hagar to the point that she flees into the wilderness, God seeks her out and blesses her and her child. While God would later give his covenant name to the people through Moses, Hagar is the first person in the Bible to name the unnamed God. She names him El Roi, The God Who Sees Me.

For an unseen people, a God Who Sees is an incredible claim. If the church wants to be anything like the God we worship, it will take having eyes to see the invisible and ears to hear the voiceless. This will require, at minimum, learning and telling the whole story of American beginnings. Because we are not practiced in such things, it will mean developing the skills of seeing, listening, and repenting.

For Filipinos, it will mean resisting and ultimately rejecting our invisibility and proudly bearing the marks of our heritage. It will mean telling our stories to anyone who will listen and especially to those who will not. Because even if no one else sees us, El Roi sees us and delights in the gifts we bring to the table. Yahweh knows our plight, bears our burdens, sees our pain, and hears our groaning—and groans with us.

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No sooner than I finish typing that last sentence, the fear, anxiety, and insecurity set in. I’m only part Filipino, after all. Dealing with Filipino Invisibility has extra layers as a mixed-heritage Fil-Am, who has often been called white, Mexican, Japanese, Hawaiian, or “something extra”, but rarely Filipino. I am just as much my mother’s son as I am my father’s, so what do I do with the parts of me that have benefited from the oppressive erasure of the other parts of me. Which stories win out and which ones recede into the past to rest with my nameless ancestors? This will be the discussion of our final part in this series on doing theology as an American-made mestizo.

Continue reading Part Four: Returning Forward.

1. Elizabeth H. Pisares, “The Social-Invisibility Narrative in Filipino-American Feature Films, Positions 19, no. 2 (2011). ↩︎

Surrounded by Swords

Doing Theology as an American-Made Mestizo, Pt. 2

The following is the second part of a series reflecting on a Mixed-Heritage Filipino-American Identity in honor of Fil-Am Heritage Month. You can find part one here.

I will be discussing things like Filipino Invisibility, liminality and in-betweenness, tokenism, and the history of Filipino Diaspora. Some of the experiences will be common to radicalized communities, others will be particular to mixed-heritage persons, and others will be specific to me and my family. Ultimately, what I am building toward is a life-long struggle of theological reflection on mixed-heritage experience. Isang Bagsak.

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She was old enough to need a walker and talk like the creaking of rocking chair, but she was sweet and genuinely curious about what my fellow students were working on in the Edwards Mill at College of the Ozarks. Ours was a tourist-centered work-study. We wove baskets, loomed rugs and blankets, and milled flour and grits. Her questions were typical—your major, where you’re from, do you like going to school here, that sort of thing, questions whose answers we were practiced in giving with great exaggeration.

One by one, she shuffled along and express her admiration at such hardworking youths. She reminded me of my great-grandmother, who had passed away not a year prior, so I was—for once—genuinely excited to speak to a tourist. But when she came to me, she stopped her shuffling and stared for a moment too long before asking, “And you, are you from here, or Japan?”

The room got dead quiet as she straightened herself up and glared me down. “I’m not from Missouri, no, but I was born and raised in Arkansas.”

Her gaze unmoving, she replied quickly, “Well, I think I’ll be leaving now, thank you.”

She turned and, without another word, left the building with a scowl on her face. A few nervous laughs while some left for the break room to escape the tension. It was neither my first nor last encounter with racism, but it was the first time someone had ever looked at me with such palpable disdain for my heritage.

I shared the story with some other students, who met with several strategies for explaining away the racism. Perhaps she was just embarrassed that she guessed my hometown wrong. Or maybe she realized she was late for something and I and everyone else just mistook her urgency for malice. But my favorite response went something like this: That sucks, but you have to understand that she lived through World War II, so she’s probably got some valid reasons to dislike Japanese people.

“But, I’m not Japanese,” I’d say.

“Oh, but she doesn’t know that, so maybe show her some grace.”

Despite the long history of troubled US-Philippine relations, Americans are largely ignorant to the history and lingering impacts of American colonial aspirations in the pacific. Fil-Ams carry these stories and struggles with them while others benefit from a chronically short historical memory. So, when an old racist with a walker tells me that my presence is unwelcome, it does not matter that she misidentifies and misremembers. All that matters is that her anxieties are comforted.

But unless we are willing to throw out the Old Testament (and, admittedly, Christians aren’t well-known for appreciation of the Old Testament), we are forced to admit that histories and struggles matter to the formation of peoples and persons. It matters to the formation of Americans as much as it matters to Filipinos and Fil-Ams. It matters to the formation and theological contributions of the churches in America and in the Philippines. And it matters to my career as a theologian.

A Brief History of a Long Oppression

Spanish Colonialism

The Philippines are a string of roughly 7,000 islands that were originally inhabitted, as they are today, by a multiplicity of tribes with impressive intercommunal systems of mutual benefit and collaboration. These were clans with developed political, economic, and military aspirations, connected to the outside world through extensive trade and the exchange of goods and ideas alike. A far cry from the “barbarians” Miguel de Legazpi described, Ferdinand Magellan arrived in 1521 to find diverse, dynamic societies well-versed in shipbuilding, metallurgy, pottery, weaving, weaponry, construction, and artistry.

Magellan’s expedition was, by most accounts, an utter failure. Despite being commonly miscredited with circumnavigating the globe, Magellan’s journey meets a bloodly end just over a month after making landfall in the Philippines. Consumed by delusions of conquest, wealth, and glory, Magellan engaged Datu LapuLapu (a Filipino chieftan), but was outwit, humiliated, and killed, along with most of his men. When all was said and done, the fleeing Iberians limped home withonly one of the five original ships and a mere 18 of the original 260 men.

But the Spaniards would have nothing of resistance or native autonomy, and four subsequent expeditions led to the eventual subjugation of the Philippines under Spanish colonial rule with the capture of Maynila on June 3, 1572. Not only did the Catholic church bless the conquest, but it also provided a theological framework for justifying and implementing the oppression. For the next three centuries, Filipinos were subject to constant exploitation, abuse, rape, slavery, brutality, and injustice of every kind, the price to pay for civilization and the cross.

But Spain could not maintain their dominance forever. Through the resolute actions of Filipinos like Jose Rizal, Andres Bonifacio, Emilio Aguinaldo, Marcelo H. Del Pilar, and Apolinario Mabini (among many others), the Philippines were able to gain control of the strategic island of Luzon and declare their independence, establishing the first Asian government based on a democratically developed constitution.

Alas, the way of empire is never keen to respect the sovereignty of indigenous peoples. So, in 1898, Spain sold to the United States the islands that were no longer—and were never—theirs to sell, marking the end of one war (the Spanish-American War) and the beginning of another.

American Colonialism

The Philippine-American War (the “Forgotten War”) lasted three years (1899-1902). In response to continued resistance efforts in both the Philippines and the United States, President William McKinley advanced the idea of Benevolent Assimilation on the claim that, through prayer, he had come to realize that the Filipinos were unfit, uncivilized, and in need of parental discipline baptized in the blood of Christ. Republican Senator Albert Beveridge of Indiana called the island inhabitants people of “savage blood”, noting that one “must never forget that in dealing with the Filipinos we deal with children.”

Massive propaganda campaigns ensued, culminating in the 1904 “Philippine Reservation” at the St. Louis World’s Fair. The U.S. captured and imported over a thousand Filipinos and detained them in the largest human zoo in recorded history, so that Caucasians could come and see first-hand the savages and their need for American benevolence.

By 1913, American military occupation had resulted in the deaths of an estimated one and a half million Filipinos. In an act of particular (though not unique) cruelty, General Jacob Smith—renowned for his misconduct during the Civil War—issued the famous “Kill Everyone Over Ten” order. His soldiers marched through the islands, killing thousands.

For this and more, the Americans atoned with schools, teachers, military basis, and foreign exchange programs aimed at turning the Philippines into an oriental version of the American Dream. This well-oiled, well-funded, well-planned system of colonialism resulted in a reality where a majority of Filipinos came to believe that they were lesser humans, accepting white supremacy and American elitism. The US, reaching maturity as an imperial superpower, drew heavily on its new colony to supply cheap labor for its Hawaiian sugar fields, Alaskan fisheries, and California farms.

These “little brown monkeys” would find an unwelcoming America, only to be hunted, beaten, dragged by horse, hung, and murdered. The most memorable—and yet, largely forgotten—incident was the 1930 Watsonville Riots, when hundreds of white vigilantes attacked Filipino dance clubs and roamed the streets for days, beating and shooting on sight.

Neocolonialism

The US, like the Spanish before them, did not recognize the humanity of the Filipinos. However, the independence of the Philippines—established in 1898 by natives—was finally (and begrudgingly) recognized on July 4th, 1946. Upon recognition, America refused the promised benefits to most Filipinos who had fought alongside US citizens in World War II, a petty slight for losing their colony. A small price to pay for freedom by a people who had already paid too much.

However, the effects of colonialism continue to haunt the islands and its descendants. Contemporary Philippine society is filled with messages that advance American and Western elitism and the idea that Filipinos are second-class. The US still maintains a military presence in the Philippines. Skin-lightening remains one of the largest industries in the islands as the people try to live up to the American ideal. The construction of economic dependence in the 20th century continues the dark legacy of colonial oppression.

Today, Filipinos demonstrate uniquely high rates of mental health issues, such as suicide ideations and depression, but psychological research on Filipino and Fil-Am experiences remains sparse. Colonial mindsets have led to depression, anxiety, bitterness, and innercommunal conflict. Without significant efforts, these trends will continue.

Surrounded by Swords

There’s a Filipino riddle that goes, Isang magandang señora, libot na libot ng espada. Roughly translated, there is a beautiful lady surrounded by swords. For nearly half a millennia, the Philippines have been accosted on all sides and held under ruthless and dehumanizing oppression. Official colonialism has ended, but the swords remain.

The pressures to assimilate and forget the atrocities of our colonial past are powerful. Growing up, I did not hear any of these stories, neither from the American school system nor from my grandmother. It wasn’t until the summer of 2020 that I learned that my grandmother was an immigrant, that my great-grandfather was a sakada, or even heard his name: Alberto Subia.

These stories are not so much hidden as they are forgotten. Theologically speaking, we are purchasing salvation at the price of denial and minimizing sin. We are refusing that which makes us human by cutting ourselves off from our families, our histories, our cultures, and our lands. We are refusing to become the kind of people the Spirit intends by avoiding hard ethical questions with far reaching implications for God’s world and and its many inhabitants. We must think theologically of the swords.

As a mixed-heritage Fil-Am, I receive all sides of this history. The swords live within my family and within myself. Members of my family have benefited from colonial structures and members of my family have suffered the same. What does it mean to do theology from a place threatened by swords from within and without, haunted by the ghosts of colonizers and revolutionaries alike? The next two posts will engage this question by confronting Filipino Invisibility and suggesting Multi-Heritage reading humanity, community, and the New Heavens and New Earth.¹

Continue reading with Part Three: The God Who Sees Us.

1. Much of the information given above can be found in EJR David, Brown Skin, White Minds: Filipino-/American Postcolonial Psychology (Charlotte: Information Age Publishing, Inc., 2013); Luis H Francia, A History of the Philippines: From Indios Bravos to Filipinos (New York: Abrams Press, 2014), ↩︎

(in)visible to Everyone but Me

Doing theology as an American-Made Mestizo, Pt 1

The following is the first part of a series reflecting on a Mixed-Heritage Filipino-American Identity in honor of Fil-Am Heritage Month. I will be discussing things like Filipino Invisibility, liminality and in-betweenness, tokenism, and the history of Filipino Diaspora. Some of the experiences will be common to radicalized communities, others will be particular to mixed-heritage persons, and others will be specific to me and my family. Ultimately, what I am building toward is a life-long struggle of theological reflection on mixed-heritage experience. Isang Bagsak.

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“Ah, I knew there was something different in there!”

“Really? Nothing about you would have told me you’re Filipino.”

“You know, I could tell you weren’t just a normal white guy.”

“So do you, like, eat the food and stuff?”

“What part? How much?”

These questions, however innocent and genuine, often carry assumptions about what it means to meet the mark of ethnic credibility for mixed-heritage people—what it means to count as one thing or the other. You would not know it from my name and, depending on your own social location, you may not recognize it in my face, but I am the product of multiple immigrations. I inherit a complicated European lineage from my mother and, from my father, the stories and struggles of Filipino diaspora.

My great-grandfather was of the manong generation, the “imported ones” who worked Hawaiian sugar plantations during the explicit colonial period of US-Philippine military occupation. My grandmother was born in Ilocos Norte, but was brought to the United States at the age of seven to learn the necessary skills of assimilation, survival, and invisibly. These she passed on to her sons so that, in the span of a single generation, the islands were erased from our stories, our names, our meals, and our minds.

For me and my siblings, the race conversation is always confusing and often painful. In every space I enter, I feel the pressure to identify the right way and find myself seeking signals of permission from those around me to claim not only my identity but my story, my heritage, and my family. Who can I be with these people and whom do I have to leave behind as distant memory? My racial identity is never uncontested, to be determined by others who decide the parameters and validity of my upbringing.

invisibility

Given the contested nature of a mixed-heritage identity, I find a certain level of comfort in spaces where my “Filipino-ness” is rendered invisible. But any comfort afforded by the calm of being unseen is purchased with self-bifurcation, comfort at the price of fragmentation.

The comfort of invisibility is often disrupted by explicit racism that, from time to time too many, has been directed toward my skin, my eyes, and my family, or burdened by jokes and tokenism among true friends. Comfort sits uneasy in the rare-charted complexities of raising two girls who inherit my stories and yet will never be considered Filipina. It is confronted by the constant and unrelenting reality of Filipino Invisibility – that in nearly every space where Asian or Asian American stories and experiences are considered, Filipinos (until very recently the second-largest Asian American subgroup in the U.S.) are forgotten, overlooked, and otherwise not invited to the table.

In these instances, I am left asking whether I am Filipino enough—whether I am enough of my father’s son—for this group of people to speak up for my invisibility and the invisibility of my family. Yet I remain confronted by the fact that I cannot build relationships on pieces of myself. As a father, I cannot raise my daughters in a way that erases my grandparents, my father, and the stories that brought us here. As a theologian, I cannot do theology honestly by hiding parts of who I am from myself, from Scripture, or from the Lord. Without honest naming of self and world, any constructive and healthy theology is impossible.

Self-Naming and Theologizing

All of theology is contextual and demands honest self-naming. No theology is constructed, communicated, or received in a vacuum. Theology that pretends objectivity and neutrality only hides itself from its own biases and presuppositions, preaching absolutes out of contingencies or whims. The world knows no shortage of damage wrought by such theologies.

Maria Root, a multi-heritage Filipina and clinical psychologist, points out that self-naming—one of the breakthroughs of racial empowerment—takes longer to reach the multi heritage community.¹ Like many mixed-heritage persons, I carry with me the sense that I am both-and-neither, inhabiting a liminality between multiple social locations. The mono-racial and monocultural logics that undergirds much of society and our social imaginations makes it difficult to identify in any way integral to our past, which is only relevant to the extent that others allow, and we look for permission to validate ourselves.

So, one of the first steps in doing theology from a mixed-heritage is naming that experience so that it can be held honestly within the biblical narrative and shed light on theological tensions. This will be the task of the next several posts in this series on doing theology as an American-Made Mestizo.

Continue to reading Part Two: Surrounded by Swords.

1. Maria P. P. Root, “Within, Between, and Beyond Race,” in Racially Mixed People in America, ed. Maria P. P. Root, 3-11 (Newbury Park: SAGE Publications, Inc., 1992), 7. ↩︎