Engaging whiteness within mixedness: multiracial Filipina/o American scholars’ journeys towards belonging

ABSTRACT

This collaborative autoethnography shares the stories of two multiracial Filipina/o American scholars at various points in their academic careers as they engage in a purposeful journey towards unlearning the whiteness of their upbringing and larger society. The enduring legacy of American colonisation of the Philippines grounds the analysis with thematic findings outlining the saliency of (a) reflecting on whiteness, (b) distancing from whiteness, (c) seeking ethnic belonging, (d) claiming (multi)racialised space, and (e) remembering to resist. Taken together, the narratives and findings outline a potential journey towards engaging whiteness within mixedness while demonstrating how even the best intended educational theorising can fall victim to unrecognising the systemic nature of whiteness. Whiteness tends to be invisible in multiracial scholarship; thus our paper urges educators to critically engage whiteness as a construct in relation to multiraciality in order to disrupt white supremacy.

KEYWORDS:

• Multiracial
• Filipino American
• unlearning
• autoethnography

‘To me, whiteness is about the unmarked identities, practices, and behaviours that are commonplace within U.S. society, but not necessarily acknowledged as the norm. And with this normative power, whiteness influences and marks those people, practices, and behaviours that are not white. And this distinctiveness then associates power and privilege with whiteness (and most white people and their practices) and not People of Colour. And this false dichotomy between whiteness and non-whiteness is what has influenced my mixed identity the most. How can I be both white (or more accurately – how can I be contributing to and participating in whiteness) and Filipinx?’ – Marc

‘Whiteness is a social construct that is deemed as normal and is seen as powerful. There are some days when I wonder whether or not all forms of oppression stem from whiteness. This idea is still messy, but in my head I often create webs where other oppressions are often linked back to whiteness. When I think about how it has manifested in my life as a multiracial person, I think of guilt and I think of shame. I spent a majority of my life claiming whiteness, and being taught that I should erase the Filipina part of my identity and absorb the white part of my identity to create a wholeness that would never really exist, but my family could pretend like it would. And for a while, we all believed it.’ – Lisa

This project started with a shared identity that became mentorship and then collaboration. When Lisa was a first year master’s student, she read a chapter that Marc wrote titled, Embracing the Messiness: Critical and Diverse Perspectives on Racial and Ethnic Identity Development (Johnston-Guerrero 2016), which discussed the author’s identity as a multiracial Filipino-and-white scholar. It was one of the first times that Lisa felt seen in the higher education literature. Her master’s advisor encouraged her to reach out to Marc about the chapter. This email turned into many correspondence and eventual co-mentorship as we began to have conversations about what it meant for us to be mixed Filipina/o (and white) people in higher education. Embarking on a larger collaborative autoethnographic project (Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013) towards better understanding our identities and relationships to Filipinx¹ communities in and outside of higher education, we submitted a conference presentation proposal to the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS; http://fanhs-national.org) conference about what it means to be Filipina/o and white. We both individually noted not seeing ourselves represented in the Filipinx American and higher education literatures, and the dialogue at the FANHS conference revealed the importance of interrogating whiteness in order to create more expansive capacity for sense of belonging in Filipinx communities and higher education.

Moreover, since our collaboration began around a shared sense of visibility after reading Marc’s (Johnston-Guerrero 2016) chapter, we felt it necessary to revisit and critique that chapter’s model outlining an intersectional approach to racial and ethnic identity in higher education, described in the framework below. Despite the potential benefits of using this model, and Lisa’s experience of finally feeling seen in the literature when reading about the model, the absence of whiteness being explicitly named in the model became apparent to us as we worked towards engaging and unlearning whiteness through this autoethnographic study. Our individualised narratives convey a larger story about what it means to claim a Filipinx identity for mixed white-and-Filipinx Americans, since we may be seen as embodying contact between the coloniser and the colonised (Root 1997). Our collaborative autoethnography (Chang, Ngunjiri, and Hernandez 2016) contributes important insights on belonging within Filipinx communities and higher education in relation to whiteness.

Background and literature review

It is important to contextualise our narratives within a larger historical legacy of colonialism within the Philippines, particularly as it relates to whiteness. We also highlight literature related to multiracial Filipinx Americans in and out of education.

Whiteness and the American Colonisation of the Philippines

Hara and Celero (2020) explain how the inherent diversity of Filipinos we see today was the result of centuries of colonialism, extensive migration, and intermarriage, grounded in a racial hierarchy imposed by the Spanish and solidified by the relationship between the U.S. and the Philippines. The Spanish created a system of classification that was based on birthplace, ethnicity, physical appearance, and socioeconomic status, with full-blooded Spaniards (read as white) at the top of the hierarchy. Mestizos were in the middle of the hierarchy and were identified by being from mixed marriages between Spanish and ‘Indios’ or the Indigenous peoples of what is now known as the Philippines. According to Hara and Celero (2020), ‘mixedness was key to upholding one’s social status’ (695).

During the U.S. occupation of the Philippines after the Philippine Revolution, reverence for ‘America’ was instilled into the compulsory education system and government (Francia 2014) in line with ambitions of U.S. empire (Maramba, Curammeng, and Hernandez 2022; Coloma 2013). This began what Delmendo (2004, 1) described as the ‘vexed and contradictory’ meaning of the U.S. to the Philippines, including ‘variously military oppressor and liberator, political model and antithesis, economic savior and enslaver; moreover, often it has been all these things simultaneously.’ Yet, through the relationship, white Americans, in essence, replaced the Spanish at the top of the racial hierarchy, enshrining Americanness as whiteness. Indeed, Espiritu (2003) documented how the racial formation of Filipinos as a minoritized group reflected the Philippines being a former U.S. colony. There is a lasting influence of this colonisation: Espiritu’s Filipino American immigrant respondents ‘seldom identify themselves as American … they equate American with white and often use these two terms interchangeably’ (p. 159, emphasis in original). Although the boundaries of legal whiteness and the formation of Filipino America has a much longer and contested history (Baldoz 2011), whiteness continues to structure American society and education (Leonardo 2009).

Whiteness is defined as an ideology and a cultural system that is strongly influenced by white supremacy and the fact that white people in the U.S. control power and resources (Matias 2022; Matias and Rucker 2018; Leonardo 2009). Matias and Rucker (2018) describe whiteness as a ‘continual investment’ (188) and a structure that is embedded in the U.S. similar to the Philippines’ continual investment in American culture. Moreover, Cabrera (2020) describes the invisibility of whiteness when he asserts ‘the challenge, however, is that whiteness serves as a form of social amnesia, trying to convince the masses that history never happened’ (38). This invisibility mirrors the reverence for the U.S. instilled in the Philippines educational systems as if colonisation by a U.S. empire had never happened (Maramba, Curammeng, and Hernandez 2022; Coloma 2013). Moreover, Harris (2019) called for more intentional critique on the invisibility of whiteness in relation to multiraciality and this paper seeks to answer that call.

Multiracial Filipino Americans

Past decades have observed a changing demographic profile of mixed-heritage Filipinx Americans, including offspring of mostly Filipino men and white American women prior to World War II (due to exclusionary immigration laws), followed by a reversal of Filipina war brides to American men who had exemptions from immigration quotas (Root 1997). Root (1997) argued that post-1965 immigration resulted in a more even potential of having either a Filipino mother or father. According to 2010 U.S. Census data, there were over 3.4 million Filipinx Americans, 25 percent of whom also identified with one or more other Asian ethnic groups and/or other races (Hoeffel et al. 2012). This means that approximately one out of every four Filipinx Americans could identify or be identified as mixed or mestizo, one of the highest proportions for Asian groups in the U.S. Other research also centres the importance of understanding non-white mixed unions for Filipino American (Gambol 2016), though our focus is on individuals who are the offspring of such unions.

Multiracial Filipinx Americans, like all multiracial people, likely encounter multiracial microaggressions including questioning of identity. Multiracial microaggressions are the subtle, covert, and everyday types of racial encounters that demean or invalidate multiracial persons’ identities or lived realities (Harris 2017). One of the most common multiracial microaggressions is the ‘what are you?’ question that seeks to place multiracial and others who do not fit normative standards of monoracial/monoethnic groups into boxes on behalf of the questioner (Johnston and Nadal 2010). Root (1997) theorised that ‘Multiheritage Filipinos’ (90) may react in three different ways to the ‘what are you?’ types of questions and inquisitions. First, those who are more secure or confident in their identity may dismiss the questions and refuse to prove their Filipino-ness. Second, some may try to fully immerse themselves and absorb all aspects of being Filipino to establish their identity and belonging through cultural expertise. Third, others may internalise the questioning as a form of rejection and in turn, reject their attempt to seek belonging in the Filipino community as a defence mechanism. All three forms of reactions outlined by Root (1997) have been experienced by the authors of this study, and our project helps to better understand the dynamics related to these various reactions and how they change over time or prompt additional learning and community building, particularly in relation to our educational journeys as scholars.

Multiracial and Filipinx scholarship in education

While there is a growing body of multiracial (e.g. Harris 2019, 2016; Hamako 2014; Renn 2004) and Filipinx American (e.g. Maramba, Curammeng, and Hernandez 2022; Curammeng 2020; Maramba and Bonus 2012; Buenavista 2010; Nadal et al. 2010; Halagao 2010) scholarship in education, more attention is needed to examine the multiracial Filipinx American experience. Both Harris (2016) and Renn (2004) developed pivotal models and theories related to multiraciality that are pertinent within education including MultiCrit and multiracial identity development models, respectively. Moreover, Maramba and Bonus (2012) highlighted diverse narratives of Filipino Americans in education in order to spotlight voices of a population that is often seen as ‘other’ in the educational context. As previously mentioned, Root (1997) explored the multiracial Filipinx experience. However, our study intends to build upon this scholarship in order to centre multiracial Filipinx narratives with a direct connection to unlearning whiteness. Through our narratives, we wonder if our social location and proximity to whiteness is generative, offering intentional opportunities to interrogate white supremacy and urge others to do the same when reflecting upon their privileges associated with whiteness. This project is in line with recent work in Filipinx American studies (Bonus and Tiongson 2022, 10) pushing for ‘reorientation and recalibration’ of an analysis ‘strongly based on narratives of immigration, settlement, and assimilation to another that connects Filipinx presence in the US and beyond with the larger histories and current manifestations of imperialism, colonization, global capitalism, racialization, and gendered/sexualized labor.’

Our framework: revisiting the model that connected us

The model outlined in Johnston-Guerrero’s (2016) Embracing the Messiness chapter adapted aspects of intersectionality theory to create dynamic approaches to contemplating when and how racial and ethnic identities (and the systems of oppression they are attached to) interact. The visual used the analogy of a ‘zipper’ allowing room and rationale for potentially focusing on one or the other (e.g., race or ethnicity) side of the zipper if the particular questions or issues lend themselves to such a focused analysis. A unique aspect of the model and larger chapter was an understanding of the messiness of race/racial identity and ethnicity/ethnic identity, especially when considering how different populations are constructed to understand themselves racially and/or ethnically in various ways. Incorporating previous scholars’ distinctions (e.g. Moya and Markus 2010) centring a negative/positive dichotomy for focusing on race/ethnicity, the model suggested, ‘a racial analysis might focus more on racism and its negative impact, whereas an ethnic analysis might focus more on belonging and pride’ (Johnston-Guerrero 2016, 48). Central to a focus on ethnic identity was a positive sense of belonging to an ethnic group. For the purposes of this paper, for us, our ethnic identity is connected to whether or not we feel belonging to the Filipinx American community both within and outside of higher education.

Despite the potential benefits of using this model, and Lisa’s experience of finally feeling seen in the literature when reading about the model, it has many shortcomings. In particular, the model does not engage whiteness. In a class when Marc was discussing the model, a student commented that whiteness could be the background of the model, or the cloth pieces that were attached to each sides of the ‘zipper’ in the model. Reflecting on the absence of whiteness and the student’s brilliant addition, we reflected on whiteness in our own identities and perspectives towards higher education. We used this project to work towards explicitly engaging the whiteness that was so normalised in our upbringing that it was often invisible and unnamed. Harris (2019) explored this very phenomenon when she asserts that whiteness is a construct that creates racist environments for multiracial women on college campuses.

Root (1997) names a dynamic where Filipinx Americans may further reject those who are mixed with white because of a desire for self-protection, which ‘results in rejecting all that is perceived as part of the colonizer; mixed-heritage Filipinos are the physical embodiment of the Filipino’s contact with the coloniser’ (82). These dynamics place mixed-heritage Filipinos in a position of liminality between being Filipino and American, despite both cultures being ‘in tacit agreement that American is better than Filipino and which continue to define “American” as white.’ (Root 1997, 83). As individuals do the work of unlearning whiteness by explicitly engaging it, communities must better understand how to reject whiteness without rejecting people who are mixed with white.

Methodology and methods

The methodology and methods we employ in this paper are rooted in autoethnography. Autoethnography ‘combines cultural analysis and interpretation with narrative details’ (Chang 2008, 48). Both authors describe their narratives through a cultural lens to convey the multiracial Filipinx experience within the context of whiteness. Ellis and Bochner (2000) define autoethnography as ‘an autobiographical genre of writing and research that displays multiple levels of consciousness, connecting the personal to the cultural” (739). Autoethnography has been used for previous studies focused on multiracial (e.g. Gatson 2003) and Filipina (e.g. Trinidad 2014) identities, and our focus is on the nexus of these two. This autoethnography is a collaborative form of storytelling and a vehicle to share perspectives across two different yet similar narratives (Chang, Ngunjiri, and Hernandez 2016). While our paper focuses on the experience of being Filipinx and white, our narratives also diverge because of different life experiences. Similar to Ashlee and Quaye’s (2020) duoethnography about being racially enough, it is these differences that have led to dialogues across our stories that transform the personal to the cultural.

Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis (2013) describe four characteristics of autoethnographic research and we illustrate how our research integrates these four components. First, autoethnographies connect to a cultural phenomenon. Our study’s goal is to share individualised stories in order to illuminate expansive narratives that focus on race, multiraciality, and Filipinx American experiences. Specifically, we connect our narratives to a larger phenomenon of what it means to be multiracial Filipinx in the context of whiteness and Filipinx spaces. Sharing this experience helps to convey themes connected to family, education, community, and occurrences related to race more broadly. Second, ‘autoethnographies make contributions to existing research’ (Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013, 23). Autoethnographies should build upon the existing research in order to enrich the scholarship. As described in our literature review, the work in this paper expands upon both multiracial research and scholarship focused on monoracial Filipinx experiences. Yet, more attention is needed to better understand the dynamics of whiteness for mixed heritage Filipinx Americans.

Third, autoethnographers employ vulnerability throughout their work (Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013). We share intimate pieces of their childhood, experiences that focus on social identities, and also developed trust with each other in order to unearth meaningful and intentional findings about multiracial Filipinx experiences. The last characteristic that Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis (2013) explain is that autoethnographies urge reciprocity towards eliciting a response from the audience. As told in the introduction, this study started as a presentation at FANHS, which helped develop relationships by sharing our stories of belonging and lack of belonging with the Filipinx community. The audience response urged us to continue this work towards sharing more widely.

Data collection and analysis

Though there may not be a formulaic system for autoethnographies, they generally require systematic data collection, intentional analysis, and a desire to connect individual stories to a global context (Chang 2008). Both authors engaged in intentional writing with guided questions that informed their narratives and commented to respond to each other’s stories. The questions that guided the narratives were: (a) When did you first come to realise (active awareness) that you were Filipinx? When did you know you were mixed? How did you become aware of these identities? (b) Describe a time when you were fully comfortable claiming your Filipinx identity? A time where you didn’t feel comfortable claiming your Filipinx-ness? Reflecting back on your life now, which occurs most often? Why do you think that was the case? (c) Describe a time where you felt like you belonged or didn’t belong to a Filipinx community? And (d) What does whiteness mean to you? How has whiteness influenced your sense of mixed-ness and Filipino-ness?

Both authors responded to these questions in order to develop their individual narratives. They then commented on each other’s written work resulting in over 18 single-spaced pages of reflections and comments. Through the process we engaged in multiple phone/video conversations (three approximately one hour calls) to dialogue around the connections across the narratives. The oral nature of our ongoing conversations connects to Strobel’s (2016) extensive work on decolonisation journeys amongst Filipinx Americans, including the recognition of orality within Indigenous communities in the Philippines. Data analysis happened through an open coding process to find broad themes across the stories and confirmed through our dialogues, which continued (after the initial three formal coding calls) through the writing of this article. We present standalone portions of our narratives below that best capture our experiences in relation to this paper’s topic. Then we highlight the themes we found and put them in conversation with the larger literature in the discussion and implications section that follows.

Our narratives

Marc’s narrative

I realised I was ‘different’ at a pretty young age; but understanding that difference was due to being Filipino didn’t dawn on me until it was pointed out by neighbourhood kids making fun of my older brother and sister because we called our parents Nanay and Tatay. Those Tagalog² terms didn’t last long though as I can’t actually remember ever calling my mom and dad that growing up (but was told by my brother and sister that they/we did at some point). I do always remember calling my grandparents Lolo and Lola, and they came to stay with us in Michigan for a few months when I was in kindergarten. I remember being very protective over my Lola, who would walk me to school some mornings but I was always worried about her. She would call me ‘matigas ang ulo mo’ (hard-headed) when I would wait outside of school to make sure she was walking back okay. I know now that I feared for her safety, that she might be harassed or made fun by white people in my neighbourhood.

I was born and raised in a Midwestern college town with a fairly diverse population. My mom was the first of her family to come to the US, recruited as a nurse to work in Michigan in 1971 from Manila (but born in Bolinao, Pangasinan province). My dad was born in Milwaukee, Wisconsin to mostly German-heritage parents and grew up in a small white town right outside of my hometown. My parents met when my dad was in the hospital and she was a nurse in his unit. I recall him joking about not remembering hitting on my mom because of the painkillers he was on. But nevertheless, they dated and got married, then had two children (my sister and brother) before having me. We lived in the same three-bedroom ranch my entire life before I left to college (and my dad still lives in that house). Growing up we spent holidays and special occasions with my dad’s (white/German) side of the family. I was very close to my paternal grandparents, who I saw very regularly as they helped raise me. That side of the family was small – my siblings and I were their only grandchildren and I was socialised into white (and some German American) normative culture mostly growing up given this proximity to my dad’s side of the family.

I think I first started actively identifying as Filipino after I had a formative experience when I was 11 years old – I had the opportunity to visit the Philippines for a month with my mom. Travelling to my mother’s homeland and meeting my extended family for the first time was one of the most influential experiences of me claiming my Filipino-ness. Mostly because it set me apart from my older brother and sister, who never (still to this day) visited the Philippines. I was also there alone with my cousins who lived in the Philippines, so I was forced to bond with them – and we did – despite some language barriers on my part (English was compulsory in their schools) and cultural differences. I remember distinct smells, brown outs, playing cards, long drives to the province, and Filipino food that tasted different from the Americanised versions my mom made for us. Upon my return, I had learned some Tagalog language but not much. I eventually lost it all because we didn’t have any Filipino family in Michigan and my mom became increasingly antisocial and isolated herself as I grew older, meaning we didn’t have much of a Filipino community surrounding us either.

This experience visiting the Philippines was not only formative for my claiming of Filipino-ness, but also my understanding of mixedness – clearly now I can see how mestizos are treated/praised/valued in the Philippines. But back then, I didn’t understand it. Constantly I was told how I could become an actor or model – but why would an 11-year-old want that life? How would anyone even know if I was a good actor or what I would look like when I became an adult? The only thing that made me different from my cousins was that I had a white American father. This made my mixed identity clearly distinct from others who were ‘full’ Filipino, particularly in the Philippines.

As I continued with my public schooling, I could see my shifting identity and claims within various contexts and relationships. During high school, I ‘tried on’ different identities – for instance going to my school’s Raza club. I chose to go to college in Florida because I wanted to be around more Latinx people – because I felt affinity towards them. I was seeking belonging to any group and perhaps didn’t think I was ‘Filipino enough’ to seek belonging to a Filipino community (like how I did not apply to any colleges out West with large Filipinx populations). So I think this was influenced also by society’s view of me as ambiguously brown – and in Michigan this usually meant Mexican American (given the ethnic enclave of Southwest Detroit as well as sizeable populations of migrant workers). This affinity was lasting. Even after I established belonging in the Filipino American student group in college, I ended up pledging a Latino-based fraternity. The shared colonial histories between Filipinos and Latinos was evident as there were several Filipino brothers who had pledged before me. This shifting identity translated into me seemingly going back and forth between a Filipino and ‘some sort of Latino’ identity. However, my last name of JOHNSTON marked me as white, not Filipino (nor Latino).

How can I be both white and Filipinx? The answer lies in being mixed, but I also have to do more work on trying to recognise that my mixedness is still surrounded by whiteness since I have access to whiteness given my white father, family, upbringing, and physical appearance. And to what extent is the colonial mentality within Filipinx communities influential for me feeling like I can claim being Filipino – that I see myself reflected in the white-washed media of the Philippines? I am increasingly seeing my identity connected to whiteness in order to try to infiltrate white people’s spaces to hopefully disrupt the status quo and help them to recognise the ways whiteness is working within our society.

Reflecting back now I can see I was (and still am) constantly seeking belonging while not feeling ‘enough’ to be accepted. I think most of my feelings of not belonging have developed from my own self-doubts and feeling of inadequacy. Perhaps it is always a two-way street: that I am picking up on subtle cues (perhaps even microaggressions) that make me realise I don’t ‘really’ belong, but I do think much of it stems from how I make sense of my contributions to and fit within Filipinx communities.

Lisa’s narrative

I first came to realise that I was Filipina when I started elementary school. My active awareness developed from my peers and educators, rather than from an internalised realisation of my own identity. I have two vivid memories of my peers contributing to realising that I was Filipina. Both of these experiences are associated with feeling othered. I was talking with a teacher during recess and she asked me ‘What are you?’. This was the first, but definitely not the last time I would be asked this. A feeling of confusion rushed my mind as I started to calculate how to answer this question. Even as a first grader, I did not understand her intention so I asked her what she meant by this. She then went on to explain that she was inquiring about my heritage. That was the first time I stood tall then said the words out loud, ‘I am Filipino.’ The sounds of empowerment still echo in my mind. I had spent a lot of my childhood learning about my Filipinx culture. I watched The Filipino Channel, ate Filipino food, and even visited the Philippines. I remember the smell of my Lola’s hug and the mixture of sweet and savoury flavours that remind me of home. However, it was in that moment that I had an active awareness of that identity, and that was because someone in society was looking for a label to understand me. I often describe this pressure to fit in to rigid categories as existing in a rice cooker. Later in grade school, my mom and grandma drove me and two friends to the store. They spoke Tagalog. I remember being bullied because my friends were not able to understand. It was that moment of pain that led to an active awareness, and then years of distancing myself from an important part of my identity, my mother. I am still filled with immense sadness when I reflect upon these lost years.

My journey to understanding that I was mixed was a lot more complicated. From a young age, I knew that my family did not fit the dominant narrative of what a family looked like. Half of my family is white and half of them are Filipinx. At a young age this felt like a normalised compartmentalisation. It never felt like I was both of those things, or that I was mixed. It often felt that in one context I was one thing, and in another I was something else. This fragmented existence did not serve me well. I remember hearing a peer who identifies as multiracial tell me that he first realised he was multiracial at an open house at school. He realised that his family did not look like the other families. Even this was compartmentalised for me. My families were never in the same place at once, moving through a siloed abyss. My parents never attended open houses, parent teacher conferences, or school events together. I lived in two different worlds, and I believed that was normal. It wasn’t until my journey to college, that I began to realise that I was mixed. It was feeling like I had to choose that led to an active awareness of my multiracial identity. This happened when filling out forms for standardised tests and college applications. This happened when I was deciding which student organisations to join. This happened when I had to choose between a white caucus and a Students of Colour caucus. Each time I was faced with a decision, my heart would drop and my breath would quicken. It was in these moments that I realised the messiness of my racial and ethnic identities (as mentioned in the model). My complex identity is beautiful, but when I was younger I did not have the developmental capacity to understand these complexities. For questions on tests, there was only one answer. I did not believe I could be an and so I stayed an or. Later in life, I began to reclaim my mixed identity and hold a genuine pride for who I am.

I have spent most of my time feeling like I did not belong to a Filipinx community. I remember asking my Lola or grandma if she thought that I looked like I was Filipina. She said no, and I can remember the way her smile curved as she answered that question. It’s as if she were happy that I did not look this way. My mom and grandma socialised me to distance myself from my Filipinx culture. It was as if this was an act of liberation for them. Marc and I have discussed this, but our families would often talk about going back to the Philippines to be an actress/actor or to audition for a singing show. They still do this now. I was a symbol of beauty and I often felt exoticized. Another memory that I have is going to a Filipinx bakery in Chicago. I tried to connect with the person working in the bakery and she told me that I did not look like I belonged to the community. These were simple words, but they created an intense pain within me. I would never belong to a community I yearned for because of my proximity to whiteness. I even began to internalise this socialisation that came from both of my parents. My dad would not let my mom teach me Tagalog. His subtle racism manifested in so many ways growing up. It seemed as though he controlled the messages I would receive from my family, and I began to believe that I would never be Filipina enough. This distancing that I actively participated in led to an erasure of part of my identity that I have spent the past few years trying to unlearn and rebuild. It also led to a strained relationship with my mom who I love very much.

I spent a majority of my life claiming whiteness, and being taught that I should erase the Filipina part of my identity and absorb the white part of my identity to create a wholeness that would never really exist, but my family could pretend like it would. And for a while, we all believed it. But, then a new day would begin. Another person would look at me with a puzzled look on their face wondering what category they could fit me in to in their mind. I have felt shame about spending so many years claiming my white identity. I feel an extreme sense of regret about the relationship with my mom and the loss of my culture that I so desperately looked for in each space I entered. I know I have felt oppression as a multiracial person, but it did not feel like I had the right to make that statement because I am half white. I still have the privileges that are associated with whiteness. But people still made me feel I did not belong in white spaces or Filipinx ones. It felt like an endless loop with no end in sight and there was not a glimpse of belonging. I began to realise that it was time to disrupt the systems of oppression. How could I do this if I was white? My last name was COMBS. No one would believe that I was a Person of Colour. I spent my whole life distancing myself from my Filipina identity and now I was spending time distancing myself from whiteness to prove that I was ‘woke’ enough to fight the systems and work as a higher education educator. Enough became enough and I felt like I could stop distancing myself from either identity and just be me.

Thematic findings

Through our narratives, we identified several important themes that we share and expand upon to highlight important findings for this collaborative autoethnography. Thematic findings outline processes of unlearning, including: a) reflecting on whiteness, (b) distancing ourselves from whiteness, (c) seeking ethnic belonging, (d) claiming (multi)racialised space, and (e) remembering to resist.

Reflecting on whiteness in upbringing and education

Through our narratives and ongoing discussions, we realise the importance of intentionally and purposefully reflecting on whiteness in our upbringing and educational journeys. By asking questions such as, ‘How can I be both white and Filipinx?’ (Marc) or ‘my partner is white, so does that mean I have chosen whiteness?’ (Lisa) we are furthering the depth of our reflections and being critical about our past behaviours, including our proximity to whiteness especially in relation to our Filipinx identity claims. Without this intentional reflection, we would continue to not see/identify the structuring role of whiteness and white supremacy in our lives and educational journeys (Harris 2019). Connecting back to Johnston-Guerrero’s (2016) chapter/model that started our shared (un)learning journey, we might continue to idealise identity claims without noticing whiteness in the background holding aspects of our racial and ethnic identities together. Additionally, by critically engaging whiteness, we can better reflect on the simultaneity of being ‘both/and’ when considering the various meanings of the U.S. to the Philippines (e.g. oppressor and liberator [Delmendo 2004]).

Distancing ourselves from whiteness

Our narratives and discussions also allowed us to better understand dynamics related to our proximity to whiteness. Having access to extended white family more readily than extended Filipinx family (often due to proximity) meant the majority of our upbringing was entrenched in whiteness, even when we resisted or questioned to what extent we were or could identify as white. This was likely compounded by living in Midwestern locales that even if were somewhat diverse, meant a predominance of whiteness in the environment. This sense of regional racial formation aligns with Cheng’s (2013) work on the importance of geography and racialisation. Perhaps because of the messages from our family members growing up, or living or going to school in predominantly white suburban contexts, we were immersed in whiteness, despite at times being made to feel different/other. We both identified the ‘what are you?’ types of microaggressive questions (Johnston and Nadal 2010) that assured no matter how much we thought we might blend into our white surroundings we would never be fully white. Moreover, these types of questions reinforced that we were living in a white supremacist racial hierarchy where everyone fits neatly into their specific categories. As educational spaces allowed for different opportunities to learn about both multiracial and Filipinx identity and communities, we likely distanced ourselves from the whiteness of our upbringing. We saw ourselves as multiracial People of Colour who were clearly not white. And in that distancing from whiteness, we missed opportunities to interrogate how we were also being complicit in maintaining white supremacy by focusing on our marginalised (multi)racial and Filipina/o ethnic identities.

Seeking ethnic belonging

When we did get socialised by Filipinx family and community members, we consistently received messages that we were different or did not look Filipina/o. Yes, this experience could be seen as a privileged positioning of becoming a potential ‘actor’ or star in the Philippines, but to us it signalled that we were not and could not be the same as our ‘full Filipino’ cousins in the Philippines. We received messages that whiteness and Americanness were superior (Matias and Rucker 2018). Those messages are a constant struggle to identify and work towards unlearning the normative white values of our upbringing.

Another thread relates to the dynamic ways we identified and the strength or confidence in those identifications over time. Lisa had a conviction undergirding her Filipina identity at a young age, though faced constant questioning by others about her choices. Marc tried on a ‘some sort of Latino’ identity because he did not feel confident in claiming a Filipino identity. Various experiences identified in our narratives highlight the roles of external others – including both white and Filipinx family, friends, and acquaintances – who add to the questioning of our identities. The commonplace experiences of multiracial microaggressions, like the types of ‘what are you?’ questions that aim to police identities and borders of communities, had lasting influence on the ways we thought about ourselves and also how we consistently need to question and explicitly engage the whiteness of our upbringings. This mixedness of both our ancestry and our socialisation adds to the constant push-and-pull tensions, or ‘endless loop’ as Lisa put it, we feel. As we seek belonging in Filipinx community in and outside of higher education (Hernandez 2016), we still are made to feel othered or not enough (both by Filipinx community members and also white people who police levels of authenticity around identity claims).

Claiming (multi)racialised space

Our claims to mixedness secured a sense of racial identity that allowed for us to build community and spaces affirming of multiracial identities (Malaney and Danowski 2015). These spaces also provided an outlet to process the ways we did not feel belonging to Filipinx ethnic communities. Identifying and building community around multiraciality has given us the language and space to continue exploring our identities: To build common connections around not fitting in – to families, communities, or even our given names. However, multiracial spaces and communities are not the complete answer to questions of belonging because they generally lack specification. As we have identified in our narratives, the goal of education around racial and ethnic identities (Johnston-Guerrero 2016) is to both be welcomed into Filipinx communities and to have multiracial communities understand the uniqueness and specificity behind mixed Filipinx American identities. Moreover, not all multiracial people are mixed with white and further space must be created to decentre whiteness within mixedness (Rondilla, Guevarra, and Spickard 2017)

Remembering to resist

Through our reflections, we are engaging in an intentional way of ‘remembering to resist’ (alexander 2021). We need to resist both the tendency to forget our white upbringing and the overlooking of our own complicity in white supremacy. These important forms of resistance are often overshadowed by our focus on our racial and ethnic identity claims and community building. This remembering might be similar to the ‘reorientation and recalibration’ claimed by Bonus and Tiongson (2022) to move Filipinx American studies towards more critical analytics. So we must continue to actively remember in order to resist the compulsion of whiteness along our educational and professional journeys.

At the core of our narratives are the memories that have stayed with us. We were able to identify formative experiences that had a lasting impact on who we are and how we identify. Whether they were a trip to the Philippines or an everyday interaction with a parent or even a stranger, formative experiences are memories that we continue to uncover and seek better understanding for why and how they affected us in the ways they do. Connected to these specific experiences, we also highlight the formative nature of more regular occurrences and interactions, particularly with family members while growing up. What does it mean for our parents to not teach us Tagalog? We can blame our white fathers for their subtle racism, but we must also understand how our Filipina mothers were also dealing with legacies of colonisation and empire. Marc’s mom isolated herself from the small yet mighty Filipinx community in Michigan. Lisa’s mom pushed her away from Filipinx culture as she got older. These aspects of remembering help us to resist the whiteness of our upbringing while not placing blame on ourselves or others.

The journey of engaging whiteness within mixedness

Seeing the findings together allowed us to see the themes connecting in a way that might best be represented through a visual model of a journey towards engaging whiteness within mixedness for white/Filipinx Americans (see Figure 1). The intentional reflecting on whiteness started the journey to expose the interrelatedness of our identity claims and proximity to whiteness. At times, it was our seeking out of Filipinx ethnic community and belonging that allowed us to further distance ourselves from whiteness. And other times, our lack of ethnic belonging pushed us to further claim and promote multiracial identities and spaces, which also contributed to missed opportunities to intentionally identify and disrupt whiteness. These interrelated processes have allowed us the ability to use our remembering of whiteness to actively resist white supremacy and further learn about the colonial and imperial legacies of the U.S. in the Philippines.

Figure 1. A visual model of the journey towards unlearning whiteness for multiracial Filipinx-and-white Americans.

In order to illustrate this model of unlearning whiteness, we present a vignette. Imagine a Filpinx-and-white multiracial educator. They reflect on the whiteness and Filipinx culture that was embedded in their upbringing and education. This existence makes sense, given that it’s all the person has ever known. When they go to college they get involved with campus activism and join a Filipinx student organisation in order to find ethnic belonging. Through interactions with their Filipinx peers, they learn that they are different from monoracial members of the organisation because of their multiracial identity. The purpose of the student organisation is to disrupt white supremacy; therefore they begin to feel shame around their white heritage and distance themselves from whiteness and claim a stronger multiracial identity and multi(racialised) spaces in search of a sense of belonging. They feel further pressure to distance themselves from whiteness in order to engage racial justice work on campus. However, their peers of colour then became upset that they were not acknowledging their proximity to whiteness, thus creating an endless loop. This process then leads to this multiracial educator intentionally examining and reflecting upon whiteness; remembering to resist whiteness is an intentional action that seeks to disrupt the invisibility of whiteness towards actively disrupting white supremacy.

Discussion and implications

In this section, we make connections between our findings back to the literature, theory, and guiding methodology. As outlined above, we want to ensure we addressed the four characteristics of autoethnographic research as outlined by Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis (2013). This study connected to the cultural phenomenon of multiracial Filipinx American identity and experiences, particularly in relation to the unlearning of whiteness and decolonisation journeys (Strobel 2016). The narratives highlight the potential for mixed Filipinx-and-white individuals to begin their decolonisation journeys by first naming our experiences and identifying the role of whiteness in our colonial upbringings. The visual model of engaging and unlearning whiteness identifies multiple points of entry for anyone to enter and move forward on their journeys given the cyclical nature of the process.

This autoethnographic study contributes to existing research (Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013) particularly since it adds to the expanding body of multiracial (e.g. Harris 2019, 2016; Hamako 2014; Renn 2004) and Filipinx American (e.g. Maramba, Curammeng, and Hernandez 2022; Curammeng 2020; Maramba and Bonus 2012; Buenavista 2010; Nadal et al. 2010; Halagao 2010) scholarship in education. Despite the legacy of Maria Root’s work on multiraciality, one of her only pieces we found that centres multiracial Filipinx identity and experiences was a book chapter from 1997. Since then, the expanding literature on multiraciality has needed more attention to the specific experiences of mixed Filipinx Americans due to the legacies of American colonialism and empire in the Philippines (Maramba, Curammeng, and Hernandez 2022; Immerwahr 2019; Strobel 2016; Francia 2014; Hsu, Maramba, and Bonus 2013). Similarly, the growing body of knowledge on Filipinx Americans has very limited examples of mixedness as the focus (e.g. Desai 2017; Guevarra 2012; Nayani 2010; Root 1997), which are outside the field of education. Therefore, this study’s highlighting of the themes of reflecting on whiteness in upbringing and educating, distancing from whiteness, seeking ethnic belonging, claiming multiracialized spaces, and remembering to resist, all add to the literature.

This autoethnography employed vulnerability (Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013) in how we shared intimate pieces of their childhood and even current experiences of questioning legitimacy around naming and belonging. After developing trust and rapport amongst ourselves, we exposed our vulnerability to readers by adding transparency to our thoughts through the written narratives. Relaying marginalising experiences displays a level of vulnerability, but what is more intense is sharing our inner thoughts and reflections about how we do not always know whether we can or should identify in the ways we do. This consistent questioning around ‘are we enough’ connects to similar experiences of racial enoughness shared by Ashlee and Quaye (2020), neither of whom are multiracial or Filipinx, outlining connections around the tensions of not fitting prototypical experiences for any community. Therefore, we encourage scholars to explore how our findings might relate or connect to other communities’ experiences engaging whiteness.

Our autoethnographic study highlights the call for reciprocal ways of engaging in future research as well as welcoming further relationship and community building with readers (Holman Jones, Stacy, and Ellis 2013). Though we shared our stories at a FANHS conference, we recognise it was a limited audience. Our study seeks to expand readership to invite others into community, whether or not they identify as multiracial and/or Filipinx American. We believe in the power of narratives towards unlearning whiteness and sparking decolonisation journeys (Strobel 2016). Yet, we also understand this is just the start of our journey; we will continue to find ways to connect our narratives further to analytic critiques of empire, global capitalism, settler colonialism, racialisation, and other intersectional power dynamics like gendered/sexual labour (Bonus and Tiongson 2022).

In terms of implications, our study reminds educators of the power behind being explicit in naming and claiming identities. Root (1997) described the accounting of oneself ‘in fractions – one half Filipino, one half something else’ as ‘an act of colonizing identity’ (p. 89). We urge others to question this type of fractional naming practice in educational spaces, while recognising it might be an important first step for multiracial Filipinx Americans to more fully embrace a Filipinx identity. Our study also highlights the need to further highlight the role of other social identities developing alongside mixedness within the context of whiteness. This is demonstrated through our model of unlearning whiteness and as a result we recommend educators to better understand how to reject whiteness without rejecting people who are mixed with white. Explicitly, we recommend educators to utilise this model with students mixed with whiteness to reflect upon their identity. We also recommend that educators consider anti-essentialized notions of Filipinx and mixed students when developing higher education policies and creating communities. Additionally, this model could be utilised as a tool that encourages multiracial people mixed with whiteness to intentionally reflect upon whiteness while simultaneously resisting white supremacy. Our study validates that these can both be true.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. Though much debate surrounds this term in relation to naming (see for instance Barrett, Hanna, and Palomar 2021), we use Filipinx to refer to broad diasporic communities of/from the Philippines who include queer, trans, and non-binary people, while reserving Filipino or Filipina to refer to individual identities or how previous literature used the terms. Also related to identity labels, we use mixed (race), multiracial, and multiethnic interchangeably, though we know others may use these terms distinctively (see Johnston-Guerrero 2016).

2. Though there are hundreds of languages spoken in the Philippines, our families speak Tagalog (particularly in the U.S.), which we mention here and we encourage readers to further engage how language illustrates complexities of racialisation, colonialism, and immigration (e.g. San Juan 2005). Additionally, we italicise the English translation and not Tagalog words in an attempt to decentre the normative English writing styles that perpetuate foreignness of other languages (e.g., Balcarcel 2018).