The Filipino culture is a strong one, propelled by pride and fueled by the shame of failure. I distinctly remember my mother tossing report cards at me in disgust as a child, the "A- = F" mentality. An A minus was unacceptable academically and simply "not good enough." As I grew up and went to college, entered the professional world, dated men, my parents would instill in me The Ulti-MATE-um: either become a lawyer or a doctor ... or marry one.
I am a first-generation American, the first of my family to be born in the United States. That they emigrated from their homeland of the Philippines and left all their friends and family to come to a country they had never visited is no small feat of selflessness. It is not lost on me that I am the very product of parents in pursuit of the American Dream. They left their siblings, their parents, their social support systems, their local language, customs, traditions. It is something I would never even consider, leaving my family for a foreign land, such sacrifice for the future of a family I was yet to have?
To my parents, the American Dream included sending their kids to the best schools, providing them opportunities to pursue their professions of choice but what to think when we grew old enough to select our own life partners and start our own families?
My brother married a Queens-raised Puerto Rican girl, who was more Long Island than the tropical island of PR. My sister married a Cuban-American guy, full of all the bravado and machismo he could muster. So when I married a tall, goofy white guy who hailed from New Jersey but looked more corn-fed Midwesterner or granola-fed California hippie, it must have given them all pause.
I married a white man, "the Great White Hope." The cliche Asian-girl/white-guy coupling, common in social circles and yet rare in my family in which all the in-laws were also minorities. "Two browns don't make a white" I would joke to my siblings, when it became apparent that my white husband was the favorite spouse-in-law. My husband would endure my father's musings about sports and politics, when he rarely spoke of either. He would patiently teach my Dad about things like WiFi, IPads, 3G vs. 4G, Skype, DVR vs. TiVo, DSL, email and the like -- bridging the generational and technological gaps with such ease that my nearly 70 year old patriarch of our family no longer feared the worst: that the world was moving on too fast and too forward, and beyond his reach. Most of all, my husband would become my Mom's new Rock. Her miniature stature would literally lean up against his ribcage and be comforted as she gossiped with him, learned recipes from him in the kitchen, held his hand as she crossed the street, and vented to him with fabulous flair and fury about me and my siblings.
I didn't marry a doctor or a lawyer. I married a lighting designer/director of photography in the entertainment industry. I met him at work, on-set, on-location, we were both freelance, both living check-to-check. But I think my parents gained peace and acceptance in realizing a part of their American Dream had come true. I married a man who would take care of me and support me and love me unconditionally -- -- just as they do. "Haolepino" - half him, half me but 100 percent of the life my parents had dreamed for me.
