Kristina

age: 24
racial identities: Filipino and Swiss

Tell me a little bit about growing up.

I was born and raised in Northeast Los Angeles. My dad is from Switzerland; He's first generation and he came here when he was 28. My mom came here when she was 24, from the Philippines, and they met at work. My dad didn't really speak English when he came here. My mom knew English pretty well, because in the Philippines, they teach English when you're in kindergarten. So growing up I was more exposed to Filipino culture. When I was little, my parents worked a lot so my mom hired a nanny that only speaks in Tagalog. That’s actually how I learned Tagalog, from her. And growing up my mom's family lived a street down, walking distance, so I picked up Tagalog pretty fast.

With my dad's family, I would visit them in Switzerland, but just never really felt that connected to them. I feel like Filipinos are really warm and have the collectivist culture and are very expressive, and then going to Switzerland… it was just a little different. They're a lot more reserved and touching isn't a huge thing. They talk really quiet, my Filipino family talks really loud. Also, when I first went to Switzerland, I was three and I don't remember this but my cousins (who look very white – blond hair blue eyes), when I first met them, they would just touch my skin. I think I was the first dark person they'd ever seen. And my mom said I was just going crazy, throwing a tantrum, because I was so angry that they were doing that. I've never passed as a white girl. It's hard for me to really identify with that white culture. Another funny thing about it is that both of my parents are just so foreign. My mom has an accent, my dad has an accent. They both didn't grow up here. I noticed I would say specific words weird because my parents both have such strong accents that I thought that that was the right way to say it. I'm thinking of tartar sauce. I would say tar-tar sauce! Little things like that.

My mom has a degree in chemistry, from the Philippines, and although she had a chemical engineering degree, when she first started working here, they paid her much as the janitor. And my dad has less education than her but he got paid way more. She knew it was wrong, but she just did it, which is so sad. She said, “I knew they took advantage of me because they knew I needed a job and I was okay with it because I just needed to make money.”

I feel like a lot of Asians have a colonial mindset, they choose the side of the oppressor. It's almost subconscious, I see it in my mom as well, but I just don't think that's excusable, because at the end of the day, I think brown people are just all the same to white supremacy. It’s just sad to see Asians sort of think that they're better than other minorities. At the end of the day, I don't know why we're all scrambling to be in the white man's favor.

In sorority culture [in college], they would basically go for the token ethnic girls. So it's those girls that were tan and look different…I hate this word, but I'm going to use it for their terms, they go for girls that look exotic. They look ethnic but not too ethnic because they still want their sorority composite pictures to have mainly Eurocentric features. They can't handle someone that is too dark. When they say that they are diverse, you fit in for their diversity quota. But that's it, they still need you to look predominantly white or racially ambiguous, tan but not too tan, right? Hair sort of wavy but not too wavy.

What advice would you give a young mixed race kid?

Don’t let people tell you who you are. Kids are sort of mean, so a lot of little kids just say stuff to you about what you are and what you're like and what your race is. Don’t let people tell you who you are. Don't let people’s opinions make you second guess yourself.