At the age of 12 I stayed home for almost the entirety of two months; just to make sure that I wouldn’t tan. I would scrub my skin hard with expensive soaps and scrubs that contained lemon to ensure it would make my skin whiter. I was made fun of for the colour of my skin at an Elementary school where the entirety of the student body was white, except for a few of us. I was not comfortable with the fact that one half of the blood pumping through my body came from the Philippines and one quarter of the blood flowing through my veins came from Canada (not the western world ‘Canadians’ - but Ojibwe, a First Nations tribe in North America). It just didn’t sit right with me. Instead, I fell in love with what was my white side. I told everyone and anyone that I was infact French. I denied being Aboriginal for a long period of time in my life, and was embarrassed and ashamed of my father for being an Asian man. I wanted everyone to think that I was white. In the last few years of my life, I’ve been practicing self-love and accepting myself for everything that I am. I can now say, with no remorse, that I love every single part of my ethnicity and all of my cultures. Do not be afraid of where you came from, and do not be afraid of who you are. Why would you want to change yourself and deny yourself so many opportunities for the comfort of white people?
You’re going to get bullied for the food you eat. People are going to make fun of the way you dress and the words that your dad speaks when he is picking you up from school; even when they don’t understand it. You will notice the people who make fun of the food you eat are the same people who love and appropriate the parts of your culture that are convenient and trendy for them. Remind them that they can’t pick and choose what they like from an entire culture that is not new to you, do not let them make fun of the language that rolls and falls off your tongue. Do not let them make fun of the food you eat and then watch them eat it themselves. One day you will learn how to be comfortable with the food you eat, the clothes you wear, the traditions you have and the colour of your skin. Stop trying to change yourself for the convenience of other people. Do not be afraid to bathe in what is your culture and do not change where you came from for the comfort of others.
