There’s a topic on the PINOYexpats forum about Racial discrimination and I was reading the comment Bethski wrote regarding my little run-in with discrimination in France (now that I think of it, I think my encounter was more of rudeness rather than discrimination).
Anyway, a snippet of what she wrote : “From my experience, ignorance of other culture, other people can be the root cause of discrimination. Sometimes what people know about certaqin group of people are just the general stereotypes that they hear around. Mostly, I ignore any racial inuendos I encounter because I know they don’t know what they are talking about.”
So let me share with you something I encountered during the trip to the Philippines I waited two years for : when Julien and I were in Vigan, a group of men hanging around the square quipped, loudly enough for me to hear: “Ayan na yung Amerikano at yung prosti niya.”
(Translation : “There goes the American and his whore.”)
So yes, shouldn’t take it to heart : these are just “stereotypes”.
But these general stereotypes, however, make us rot from the inside. They blur our perspective, reality gets skewed. A Filipina walking with her Western husband is a whore. A Filipina with her Western husband is a whore who needs money.
If I were five feet nine inches tall, if I had white skin, if I had expensive clothes on, if I had cup D boobs, if I were stepping out of a limousine with my Westerner husband, if I were even a talentless movie star, would those people have called me a prostitute?
Because I am five feet tall, a morena with extreme sunburn, I wear glasses, and if I recall, I was wearing normal shorts, a shirt that has seen better days, and a pair of mojos, and I had just stepped off a non-airconditioned bus which sped 190 all the way from Ilocos Norte (so my hair wasn’t perfect either). I suppose this doesn’t exempt me from the stereotype, eh?
So yes, of course: to our fellow countrymen, I’m a whore. Because that’s the stereotype. It’s not their fault: they just don’t know any better.
In the past, I’ve had arguments with the people who’ve uttered off-colour comments about Julien and I. And the worst thing is that the people who make the quickest judgments are my fellow countrymen. Having been through the defensive stage, the ‘ignore them!’ stage, the disgusted stage, I realise that… I’m pretty tired of this, people. It gets old, but it never really goes away, does it? I suppose I’ve gotten used to the fact that being a mixed couple in France is nothing controversial: if anything, it makes you different in a good way. But in my own country, you’re just a money-grubbing bitch.
How many times have I forced myself not to prejudge people? It was a lesson instilled in me by my parents early in life. It’s hard, and I don’t mean to be preachy, and I’m no angel, but it’s true, I try. When Julien and I got together, I tried even harder to keep an open mind. I naively thought that I was detached from this stereotype because… well, because I know myself.
And I’ve tried not to be affected every time this happens, but it happens all the time.
So yes, I can ignore racial innuendos, but it hurts and it saddens, because I understand what they’re saying. But until when am I supposed to ignore them?
PS. Also, Julien wants to stress that he is French and not American.
