"Learning to love yourself is the greatest love of all."
Filipinos tend to have inferiority complexes: I'm too dark, I can't do this, I'm not good enough, I don't have any talent, I'm not good-looking... But some Filipinos look at what they have and see being Filipino—and all that goes with being one—as a gift.In "Why Filipinos Are Special," Ed Lapiz asks, "what makes the Filipino special?" Lapiz summarizes by saying that Filipinos are "brown, spiritual, timeless, spaceless, linguists, groupists, weavers, adventurers." He looks on the brighter side but acknowledges that it is still up to us to embrace who we are: "but first, we should know and like ourselves."
AsianSmiles reacts to what Lapiz wrote by telling her own stories about her life in a multicultural setting (see "Brownies" and "Huggies"). And then there's Rustedscissors, a Filipina living in New York.
In the three-part "Being Pinay," Rustedscissors starts by enumerating the ways in which Filipinas are different and how it can be a liability (Part I). She then goes on to comment on "Yan ang Pinay" and how there are so many other problems that need to be addressed (Part II). Finally, she acknowledges how her views have changed (Part III):
Once I longed to belong, to be like any other girl, to have blue or green eyes and blonde hair... Now I glory in the fact that I have shape when others do not, that my hair shines like molasses in the sunshine, that my skin retains a tan all year ’round.That's what some call being comfortable in your own skin. I call it a gift.
Categories: The Philippines, Filipina
