Sharing Your Blessings
Learning about the heritage of giving an ocean away
Written by Mathew Willoughby
It was not until I found myself on a tropical island with mosquito bites covering my body, surrounded by distant family members, that I began to recognize my brown skin color.
Growing up in a white, suburban neighborhood in eastern Washington never made me question my biracial background as a Filipino American. In West Richland, Washington, steam from the Hanford Nuclear Site towered over cookie-cutter neighborhoods sprawled throughout the shrub-steppe landscape. My hometown was a barrier to exploring my identity. I saw myself as another white American, surrounded by my white neighbors.
Across the U.S., there are over 4.2 million Filipino Americans, making them the third-largest Asian origin group in the country. Of those 4.2 million Filipino Americans, I am a part of the over 1.2 million who are second-generation.
My mom immigrated from the Philippines to eastern Washington in 1999 when she married my dad. Ever since moving, she made an effort to expose me to Filipino culture and her home on the island of Negros, near Dumaguete City.
Along with cooking traditional American food at Thanksgiving like turkey, she provided a taste of the Philippines through dishes such as adobo, lumpia and pancit. Growing up, I did not understand why our dinner table during the holiday season did not match the ones I saw on television. Stacks of lumpia wrappers, cooked ground pork and vegetables often covered the kitchen counter as she prepared for family gatherings. Whether it be a birthday party or a holiday, she always brought a taste of the Philippines along with her. She was my bridge to Filipino heritage, whether through flights to the Philippines or cooking traditional Filipino food in our American kitchen.
Annual visits to my mom’s home in the Philippines allowed me to immerse myself in a culture so distant from my daily life in the U.S.. I was five years old when I first visited the Philippines, and it was a complete culture shock. In my village, everyone greeted each other when passing by on the gravel street as motorbikes sped past, leaving behind dust and the smell of gasoline. Villagers welcomed visitors and neighbors into their living rooms and backyards to laugh and share stories.
I was shocked by the intense heat and humidity of the equator as sweat dripped down me the moment I stepped foot outside of the airport. Despite the extreme heat, the joy of being in a completely new place, surrounded by palm trees and rice paddies and eating sugar cane straight from the ground, made the 17-hour flight worth it.
These visits helped me explore the other half of my identity in ways I could not while living in eastern Washington. Flights from Seattle to Manila became a common occurrence at Christmastime and were a chance to escape the U.S.. Leaving behind the mundane desert and shrubs of eastern Washington for the tropical beaches of the Philippines excited me. Learning about an unfamiliar culture and listening to a foreign language were parts of the trip I yearned for while at home. I always looked forward to traveling to my mom’s home in hopes of learning more about myself.
From Manila, we would fly to the island of Negros on a small plane and land near the city of Dumaguete. Once we arrived, we were welcomed by the humidity and hot air, letting us know we were back in the Philippines.
The Philippines
Lush, green rice paddies and dense, tropical forests surrounded our house in the barangay of Sandulot, near the municipality of Siaton. Relatives and neighbors worked the rice paddy fields with water buffalo, and mango trees grew in the backyard of every house.
A convenience store across the street kept people from taking the nearly four-mile walk to the Siaton Public Market for food. It also gave visitors the luxury of using a western-style toilet, a rarity compared to the shed with a hole in the ground behind our house.
Our house was made out of concrete, a step above the neighboring shacks and wooden houses. Concrete renovations prevented storms from damaging the home and were only made possible by the money my mom made in the U.S..
Every night was a celebration with neighbors and family. Cigarette smoke filled the air as relatives and neighbors shared stories while sitting on white plastic chairs. Everyone shared their home, family, culture and food during these visits. I would listen to hour-long conversations in my neighbors’ living room and eat fresh-picked mangoes from their backyard. My mom would translate their Tagalog to English and teach me the games the neighbors’ kids would play. Today, she continues to participate in this culture of sharing during her typical life at home.
Sharing Blessings
In Washington, my mom offered a door back into what I experienced while visiting the Philippines. Her daily habits involved constant hour-long, long-distance phone calls with relatives and stocking groceries and old clothes to send abroad.
Her giving personality is something that reminded me of my time in the Philippines. Working a job with enough money to pay the bills and a little leftover meant that she spent a good portion of it providing for her family overseas. Before moving to the U.S., she funded private school tuition for three of my uncles and college tuition for another. Despite facing adversity, my mom has always supported our family in one way or another.
“I love sharing my blessings,” she said. “Share your blessings, it doesn’t cost that much.”
Bulk food from Costco, old Legos from my childhood and clothes that no longer fit were all stuffed into large cardboard boxes to be sent to our family overseas. Money saved up was spent on renovations for the house, medical bills of relatives and repairing damage from constant storms. Seeing my old clothes worn and toys played with by family members, both on our visits and in photos, gave me a sense of joy.
“The old things, the old stuff here, it’s really new to them, so it’s very useful instead of throwing it away in the garbage,” she said. “Instead of throwing it away, why not send it to them so that people will be happy?”
Today, I embrace my brown skin color and recognize the importance of sharing blessings. Carrying on my mom’s tradition of sharing my blessings in different ways, such as sending my old laptop to my cousin to help her get through college or providing kids with my old toys to play in the rice paddy fields, has grounded me in a meaningful part of Filipino culture.
I hope to carry this tradition from the tropical, mosquito-filled islands of the Philippines to my friends and family for generations.
