Dark skinned Filipina is not less than or equal to Light skinned Filipina

My embarrassing moment may not seem as funny or as retrospectively embarrassing as Bev's 2nd grade presentation or Gracie's hot VP encounter. It may seem a little racist, at least in my mind I thought it was. And it may seem like a damper to the mood set by my two bebot sisters. So to lighten the mood and stick with our youtube comedian jokes about Filipinos, I too will post something to make you laugh before you delve into my embarrassing and racist moment.

So Rex mentions at the beginning that if you're a dark skinned Filipino, you're going to have a hard life. Funny thing is... my mom had that same mentality. Amusing coming from a middle-aged woman whose village was right next to the ocean and who used to be browner than the coconuts that fell from the trees in her front yard.

When I was growing up, my mom would warn me to be careful of getting too dark. "You don't want to get so black that I can't see you outside at night." Or, "You're as black as dirt, which means you hang outside too much!"

Most children didn't care. Most of my non-Filipino friends were amazed at how I could brown so easily and not get sunburned. I just wanted to play outside and roll around in the dirt like any normal American kid.

One day my parents took me to a birthday party for a girl named Australia who was in middle school and was as pale as Sharon Cuneta, the hotest young starlette of the Philippines of the time (yes, I'm that old!). Of course, Australia's friends were also pale, and just disgusted by dark skinned Filipinos.

I remember that moment when I walked in, a shy 9-year-old, looking for a friendly kid to ask me to play. I walked up to a group of kids and smiled shyly only to hear one boy sneer at me.

"You look like a Cambodian!" he exclaimed. "You're so dark! Are you a FOB?"

This was 1) an insult to me, and 2) the first time I heard about the term F.O.B. (fresh of the boat). I started crying and ran to my mom, subsequently prompting us to leave the party early.

At the time I was so embarrassed. How dare that boy, who didn't even know me, call me Cambodian?! How dare he say I was fresh off the boat?! Do I look Cambodian? Just because I was brown doesn't mean I was beneath him. I complained to all of my Filipino friends asking for reassurance. I didn't REALLY look Cambodian did I? Granted I didn't have the flatnose that is associated with Filipinos, but I thought I looked like my cousins and other relatives back in the P.I. Didn't I?

Later in life it dawned on me that what I was thinking as a kid was a bit racist. What that boy said was racist as well. But it made me realize that a hierarchy mentality of migrants had formed. The Filipino wave of immigration began much earlier than the more recent wave of Cambodian migrants; which meant that Filipinos had time to have children, establish themselves in the communities they resided in, and contribute to the upbringing and Americanization of future generations of Fil-Ams. In our efforts to become more American, we too became more disdainful of color. Dark brown skin became affiliated with hard labor and poverty, whereas light skin became equated with success. As Rex mentions in his skit, who wants to marry a dark skinned girl?

Nowadays, I'm more embarrassed that I was ashamed to be called Cambodian and that I didn't say anything back to that boy. Funny thing is, my sisters always compare how dark they've gotten after a summer playing outdoor sports. They even have a competition with my mom (MY MOM) on who is the darkest. My mom doesn't mind that her skin has gotten dark from hours of watching my baby sis play softball, and she also doesn't mind that I married someone who is just as dark as I am.

We are currently working on our tans and constantly being mistaken for Hawaiians, Southern Chinese, Indonesians, and of course, Cambodians. But none of us really mind at all.

Oh, and I have plenty of Cambodian friends with whom I discuss this topic often and we compare racist perceptions of each other's cultures.