I like to think that I am a Filipino,
that I am as Good, a Filipino as anyone.
My heart thrills when I hear the National anthem being played.
And my blood rises, when, I see our flag, fluttering in the breeze.
And yet, I find myself asking:
how Filipino Am I, really?
My first name is American.
My Last Name is Chinese.
When, I am with my friends, who happen to be girls,
I talk to them in English.
If they are thirsty,
I buy them a bottle of American coke.
If they are hungry,
I treat them to an Italian pizza pie.
And when I have the money,
I give them a real Chinese lauriat.
Considering all these.
Considering my taste for many things foreign.
What right do I have to call myself a Filipino? Should I not call myself a culture orphan? The illegitimate child of many races?
Rightly or wrongly, whether we like it or not, we are the end products of our history. Fortunately or unfortunately, our history is a co-mingling of polyglot influences.
Malayan and Chinese.
Spanish and British.
American and Japanese.
I must confess,
I am an extremely confused and bewildered young man.
Wherever I am, whatever I may be doing, I am bombarded on all sides by people who want me to search for my national identity.
Tell me the language I speak should be replaced, by Filipino; they urge me to do away with things foreign to act and think, and buy Filipino.
does he become un-Filipino? We are what we are today because of our history.
In our veins, pulses blood with traces of Chinese and Spanish and American, but it does not stop being a Filipino because of these. Our culture is tinges with foreign, influences, but it has become rich.
Filipinism, after all, is in the heart.
If that heart beats faster because the Philippines is making progress; if it fills with compassion because its people are suffering, then it belongs to a true Filipino and it throbs with pride in our past; if it pulses with awareness of the present; if it beats with a faith in the future, then we could ask for nothing more all other things are unimportant.
I have, an American first name. And I have, a Chinese last name.
And I am proud, very very proud because underneath these names beats A Filipino Heart