Vibrant Rhythm (2023)
Truth be told, I’ve been possessed by a ghost ever since I was born, passed down by my parents through a generational curse. The spirit, invisible to others, revels in my torment. Try as I might, this phantom of mine refuses to pass into the afterlife.
BY JACOB ROBLES
IMAGE BY CHESLEY DAVIS
Truth be told, I’ve been possessed by a ghost ever since I was born, passed down by my parents through a generational curse. The spirit—invisible to others—revels in my torment. Try as I might, this phantom of mine refuses to pass into the afterlife. No amount of exorcism, holy water, or spiritual purgation has had any effect. As most ghosts are, this ghost is unfortunately bound by its connections to the living world, tethered by the threads of its past. As it continuously wavers between life and death, the ghost, still shackled and chained, occasionally creeps into my life from the depths of my soul to haunt me in the most vexatious ways. The dreadful apparition behind my everlasting torment? The ghost of my cultural identity.
I’m Filipino—or so I’d like to think. Both my parents are Filipino, I have a Filipino last name, and an iconically large extended family. However, throughout my life, I’ve always had trouble calling myself Filipino. Despite all my Filipino attributes, I’ve found myself terrorized by the spectre of that which I lack: my cultural identity. Growing up here in Canada, I’ve always felt a sort of disconnect from my ethnic group. Unlike others, I didn’t grow up in the sweltering year-round heat of the Philippines, enduring the crowdedness of a jeepney or roaming the chaotic local markets for my groceries. Instead, I grew up freezing my butt off in the Canadian snow, travelling from place to place on the bus, and scouring the nearby Metro for food. As a result, I’ve always felt a little out of place in my ethnic group, sort of like a paper-mâché flower in a botanical garden. I claim that I’m Filipino, but am I more than just pretentious?
Going through life clutching my paper-mâché ethnic background has led me into a purgatory of sorts, with the soul of my cultural identity wavering between life and death. When asked about my ethnic background, a flash of uncertainty always appears in my mind. The words always find their way out of my mouth, but the answer feels hollow at times. There lies no strength behind my response. No passion, nor any pride. My answers slink their way out of my mouth in a way that I worry about choking on the words, yet the answer never changes. “I’m Filipino” is always what I’ll say, but uncertainty is what I’ll feel.
With my cultural resolve being nothing more than wishy-washy, my life is filled with cultural nuisances. One part that I find particularly annoying is the language. Language and culture are supposed to be intertwined. They build each other up and evolve together. Language undeniably connects a person to a culture in a way incomparable to anything else. The same is true for me.Tagalog was a key element of my childhood, an important part of how I was raised. Ironically, despite how prevalent it was in my childhood, I only know it receptively; I can understand it, but I can’t speak a lick of it. I’ve been left with half the language, but you can’t unlock a gate with half a key, which is why I'm still stuck behind a proverbial fence in conversations. Since I can’t communicate in Tagalog, people tend to speak to me in English anyway. In the end, I get treated like a foreigner. People even try to have secret conversations in front of me as if I can’t understand them. It may not be intentional, but sometimes it makes me feel like an outcast. Sort of like how it would feel for a friend to bring you to their large family gathering and suddenly walk off; a little uncomfortable, awkward, and out of place. You start to feel a little lost as you shuffle around the strangers you barely know and search for the one tie you have to this place. As time passes, your friend is still nowhere to be found. Finally, you stop to wonder, “What exactly am I doing here?”
And here I am, wandering the massive family gathering of culture, looking for my friend, Ethnic Background. And as I keep wandering, I slowly begin to realize that maybe that friend never really invited me to that gathering. And maybe, just maybe, they never really existed at all outside the halls of my imagination. And without that friend, I was simply a stranger inside somebody else’s family gathering, an unwelcome individual with no place. Without that friend, that connection, I’d never feel at home attending that gathering. And in the same way, I’ll always feel strange calling myself Filipino without that ethnic background.
It’s gotten to the point that others have started pointing it out, too. I have a Filipino friend who still, to this day, doesn’t believe I’m Filipino. I’m constantly interrogated by her whenever the topic comes up. I’ll be quizzed on a whole array of subjects—the language, the culture, even the damn food in my fridge. It’s like Jeopardy, except hosted by a pesky adolescent Filipino girl. At times, I even struggle with the easier $200 questions considering my cultural knowledge is as expansive as a size 8 shoe. My blunders are always followed by heckling from the female Alex Trebek as my credibility dollars disappear from the total on my podium. It makes me sigh since I know I’ll be making my return on the next episode, whether I like it or not.
On the topic of irritating Filipino behaviour that I don’t like, something happens every December. Right around Christmas, one of my most hated, aggravating instances of Filipino behaviour awakens from its year-long hibernation. Religion plays a major part in Filipino culture, so Christmas is usually something to look forward to. The good ol’ Christmas never fails to bring out the brightest lights, tastiest food, thoughtful gifts, and… the chocolate scammers! My least favourite part. Every December, they wake up from hibernation to scour for prey to bait into buying their overpriced chocolate. Their usual hunting grounds usually consist of malls and shopping centres. Once suitable prey is sighted, the wild chocolate scammer will use a variety of tactics: guilt-tripping, camouflaging themselves as a charity, and pulling on the heartstrings. The chocolate scammer rarely allows prey to escape, even going as far as to stalk their prey to the nearest ATM. The savagery of a wild chocolate scammer knows no bounds, often targeting the elderly, young, and foolishly naive.
With that in mind, if you’re reading this chocolate scammers, I want my money back! I’ve had two unfortunate encounters with wild Filipino chocolate scammers so far and have been suckered out of a total of $20. I was first targeted when I was around 15 years old. A seemingly friendly Filipino man approached me at Square One, asked me how old I was and started a conversation. He gave off a “cool uncle” type of impression. I naively bought into it and was eventually asked to donate. I refused since I had a total of $20 that my mom gave me to buy lunch. Hearing that, a switch flicked in his head, changing his tone from cool uncle to divorced alcoholic uncle. He immediately upped the pressure, started guilt-tripping me, and followed me when I tried to leave. The socially awkward 15-year-old me gave in and handed him $10, to which he replied, “That’s all?” I replied by flashing a scowl that could rival Oscar the Grouch and walked away.
I felt betrayed. How could a Filipino do this to a fellow Filipino? How could he do this to anyone in general? It embarrassed me to be the same ethnicity as a scammer who wasn’t above taking advantage of children. I wanted nothing to do with the example he was setting for Filipinos, which made me even more uncertain about my cultural identity. It would be fine if that man were a special one-in-a-million case, just a single prickly needle in an otherwise fluffy haystack, but unfortunately, the opposite rings true. Once December hits, you’d be lucky to find a piece of hay in the needlestack. They’re everywhere, ruining the reputations of the rest of us who don’t aggressively solicit funds from bypassers. Having to deal with all this really pushes me to put my Schrödinger’s ethnic identity to rest. It gets irritating at times having to deal with all of this for a culture I feel barely connected to. There was a time I felt like it’d just be easier to change cultures completely. And so I did. For a few days anyway.
According to others, I have a completely racially indistinguishable Asian face. People mistake me for other cultures all the time. I’ve been labelled every existing Asian ethnicity under the sun—Chinese, Korean, Japanese, Vietnamese, Indonesian. The list goes on and on. I even get mistaken for being part Caucasian due to the mispronunciation of my last name (It’s pronounced rob-les, not ro-bulls). Funnily enough, the only ethnicity I barely get recognized as is Filipino. I’m a bonafide Jiang-of-all-trades, master of none. Previously, I used to have a little fun with my racially indistinguishable face. I’d purposely tell people that I’m *Insert Asian Ethnicity here* and see if they’d go along with it. I refer to it as my “Asian Masquerade.” Despite how far-fetched my claims would be, they’d never be surprised. Everyone would believe what I said, with the exception of one ethnicity: Filipino. Ironically, the only time people would be surprised was when I wasn’t lying.
At this point, some people are probably reading with furrowed eyebrows, wondering why I’d do such a thing. Was it for fun? To get back at people for stereotyping me based on my appearance? Honestly, back then, I didn’t know. However, I feel like I’ve gotten closer to the answer now that I’m older. In retrospect, there were two sides to my “Asian Masquerade.” The first being that I was trying to run away from a culture that I didn’t feel accepted in. When I donned the mask of another Asian ethnicity, I tended to be more accepted culturally than when I tried to embrace my own culture. It was a pleasant feeling I wasn’t familiar with, so I kept putting on these masks. I guess it was refreshing to finally not be hounded on my identity for once. The second was that I hoped for someone to call me out and prove me wrong. I wanted someone to break the idea that I was this one-face-fits-all-looking Asian guy. In the end, I found neither of the things that I was looking for, but something else entirely.
At the end of the road, these negative experiences have helped me find myself in the most contradictory way possible. I’ve been pushed, pulled, and stretched thin by the duality of my cultural identity, like a toxic couple that always ends up back together again somehow. When I try to chase it, it pushes me away, yet when I try to walk out, it chases me down instead. Simply put, I’m trying to say that this madness in my life has taught me one thing. As confusing as it is, my cultural identity is a part of me that I can’t leave behind, no matter how hard I try. It’s undeniable proof that some connection exists within me, even if I don’t see it yet. I’ve definitely felt it.
I have a friend who used to attribute a whole array of negative occurrences to the Philippines. Natural disaster? Isn’t that the Philippines? Terrorist attack? Bro, I swear that’s the Philippines. Riot in the streets? ISTG, that’s the Filipino flag. Spoiler alert, it wasn’t. I thought it was common courtesy not to talk shit about a country in front of a person of said nationality, but that’s a rant for another time (seriously though, why is this so common?). Half the events he’d show me were in other countries, and he’d needlessly attach the Philippines to them.
Listening to my friend ignorantly mouth off about the Philippines sparked something within me: annoyance. I felt annoyed. It bothered and pestered me. And while it didn’t exactly keep me up at night, it made me want to correct him. I even felt personally attacked at some point. My annoyance may not come as big news to some, but this spark proved something to me: a cultural connection may exist deep down inside me after all. For me, feeling personally attacked would require some personal connection. Meaning that despite all the negative experiences I’ve had, my cultural escape attempts, and the uncertainty I’ve faced, I’ve bolstered some sort of connection to my heritage. A minute connection, but a valuable one nevertheless.
It’ll definitely take time to figure out, but it’s something to keep working towards. Seeds don’t grow in a day, and neither will my identity. Can I say for certain that I’ll enjoy the process of figuring things out? Definitely not. However, I believe I’ll come to a conclusion about my cultural identity one day. A step is a step no matter how big or small. And with enough steps, maybe I’ll see myself as more than just a paper-mâché flower in this beautiful botanical garden of culture.
Jacob Robles is a fledgling writer based in Mississauga taking his first steps towards developing his literary skills. He is in the second semester of Humber's Workplace Health and Wellness program and is excited to see where the journey takes him.
Image: Vibrant Rhythm (Chesley Davis, 2023)
Edited for publication by Shahnoor Shahid as part of the Creative Book Publishing program.
HLR Spotlight is a collaboration between the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts and the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Sciences and Innovative Learning at Humber College in Toronto, Ontario. This project is funded by Humber’s Office of Research & Innovation and the Faculty of Media & Creative Arts.