Lounging in bed and scrolling through social media, a photo pops up on my feed of another family gathering - another cousin outing - that I wasn’t invited to. 

Now, you might expect me to describe a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach or a flash of heat over my face, but in this moment, I am neither mad nor jealous. I am not petty or upset. Instead, I feel happy. I smile slightly at the photo, tap “like” on the post, and wonder about how they’re doing these days. 

I miss them.

Mixing that nostalgia with the full swing of the holiday season, thoughts of family begin to flood my mind. Some of my favorite memories growing up revolved around the holidays and family gatherings that went along with them. These spaces — filled with the aroma of savory, home-cooked Filipino dishes and the echoes of drunk titos attempting to sing Aerosmith on the videoke machine — were some of the only opportunities I got to spend time around other Filipinos, especially those my age. My cousins were some of my best friends. Family is a core value of our culture, after all.

At the same time, it’s important to name that these gatherings weren’t always positive or safe spaces. These spaces, we must acknowledge, can also be filled with judgement, drama, and toxic social behaviors like child bragging and comparing, body-shaming, gossip and even subtle public ridicule. Looking back now, as much as I enjoyed attending those family gatherings, I attribute much of the internalized trauma I have developed today to the experiences I’d had at these events as a kid. 

A NOT-SO-SUBTLE FILIPINO TRAIT?

Dive into the social media pool of the Filipino community, and you’ll find ongoing jokes and frequently shared memes that revolve around the stereotypical tita and their love of chismis and luxury handbags. 

“Hoy, tumaba ka na (you’ve gotten fatter)!”

“Cover up your legs. Walang hiya (have you no shame)?”

“Fine arts? Why don’t you become a pharmacist like your kuya?”

These sound bites are easily identifiable by Filipinos no matter where they are in the world. In a way, these sayings have become cultural markers, resonating strongly with many community members. However, what may seem like a humorous jab on the surface can also be seen as a coping mechanism for Filipinos caught in the cycle of hurtful and toxic comparison culture that our elders often put us through. In reality, these memes, though satirical, reflect the degrading culture of the Filipino family unit at the expense of the youth’s mental wellbeing, personal growth and development. What makes it hurt the most is knowing that such painful words come from those that we may be the closest to.

An observer of this trend may ask why self-advocacy by our youth is absent from this equation. The unfortunate truth is that children and young people are looked down upon and considered inferior to elders in Filipino society, which permeates through the diaspora. It is considered rebellious to speak up for yourself and voice an opinion towards an elder. Even if someone were to point out an issue, elders are quick to excuse their actions as just “part of the culture,” or accuse the younger generation of harboring needless sensitivities. Submission to the Filipino family hierarchy is an ingrained expectation.

So, where do these demeaning remarks and behaviors come from and how have they become so ingrained into the culture? We may not know for certain where the roots of toxic Filipino culture originate or when they became such a normalized practice, but the hierarchical structures of our families may be one place to look for an explanation. 

Beyond that, these accessible spaces provide a way for our community members, old and young, to resist these practices and instigate change.

IMPACTS BEYOND MENTAL HEALTH

A 2015 review on depression among Asian American adults found that Filipino Americans have some of the highest rates of depression among Asian Americans, yet Filipino Americans also seek mental health treatment at some of the lowest rates. Young people can only handle so much negative pressure before they begin to develop an inferiority complex, but mental health is not the only aspect of life that is affected by these toxic social practices. Making their way from internalized wounds to projected behaviors, these practices can lead to the severing of familial bonds, going so far as to turn loved ones against one another. 

In youth development, feeling supported and having a community to belong to become highly valued aspects of the growth process. Throughout this developmental period where young people form great desires for love, attention, and spaces of belonging, the family unit plays a critical role in cultivating such an environment. In contrast to this, when youth find themselves at the center of family conflicts or held to unrealistic standards of success, those highly valued aspects of healthy youth development are impacted.

Speaking from my own experience, my cousins and I found ourselves dragged into an environment created by family conflicts which did not concern us as children. For us, family gatherings were a time for catching up, watching movies, sneaking around to see what the “big kids” were up to, and stuffing ourselves with lumpia and leche flan before eventually passing out under a fort of blankets. We were creating that space of belonging for ourselves — that feeling of kapwa, togethernesss — which we craved as ten and twelve year olds. Meanwhile, our elders could not see how their conflicts, personal interests and disdain for one another became a hindrance to the relationship building between us. 

Soon after this period of my life, I would see less and less of my relatives at family functions, and the familial tensions only became clearer as I got older. 

As my cousins and I entered high school, picked up part-time jobs, or began dating, the more frequently we found our respective elders comparing us to one another. Some of us even became guilty of contributing to chismis culture and the “you vs. them” mentality, as a means of coping with our own internalized insecurities and feelings of hate. Slowly but surely, the pedestal where I held this beloved image of family and togetherness in my mind began to collapse. These spaces that meant the world to me as a kid now felt polluted. Eventually, I stopped attending family gatherings altogether, and many years would pass before my cousins and I would begin to see one another again. 

Looking back now on all those years of separation, I realize that I not only lost a familial connection but a cultural one as well. For someone who was raised in an area where the presence of other Filipinos was practically non-existent, those family gatherings were, admittedly, some of the only places I could surround myself with my people and feel connected to my cultural identity. When I stopped attending those gatherings, although for the sake of my own mental health, I stopped experiencing that cultural identity in the process. 

AN INTER-GENERATIONAL CONVERSATION

When venting about my experience with toxic family behaviors to my peers or in online mental health forums, it is easy to label the elders as the villains of this story. Taking a moment to challenge that and to look at the larger picture of toxic Filipino culture, there’s really an intergenerational conversation that needs to take place. This is a conversation that takes a great amount of bravery to start, but is necessary to acknowledge the depth of these behaviors and attitudes beyond what exists on the surface. Just as the adults in our lives must come to terms with the impacts of their negative remarks and behavior, members of the younger generations must also engage in perspective-sharing and seeing things from our older family members’ points of view. 

Understandably, engaging in mutual perspective-sharing around the issue of mental health isn’t always easy to do. Circling back to the hierarchical Filipino family structure, when our elders feel their position of authority is threatened or when they encounter issues that are unfamiliar to them, they are likely to respond with defense or deflection— and mental health is definitely one of those issues. As for young people who have experienced hurt, we can often find ourselves putting our pain first before understanding the scope of an entire situation. The persistence of these knee-jerk responses only maintains the intergenerational gap yet can be overcome by both sides acknowledging their hesitations about engaging in trading points of view.

While not an excuse for problematic behaviors and painful words, meeting our family members with the understanding that what they say comes from a place of love (albeit misguided) or that their behavior is meant to protect us allows us to see the situation from a perspective that centers on our humanity. 

When looking at the process of cognitive development, people tend to mimic their environment as a means of growth and survival. In this case, the environment that surrounded our elders treated toxicity as a normal part of Filipino culture. This prolonged exposure explains why these habits are deeply embedded into cultural social practices and family structures, and cannot be expected to change overnight. It’s a non-linear process that will take time and continued resistance against dominant Filipino social standards.

In addition to continual, critical conversation between generations, accountability also becomes a key player in the shift away from problematic Filipino behavior. It will take titos and titas, mothers and fathers, committing to challenging and uplifting each other to be better role models for their children — “challenging” their children in a way that fosters growth, and not through one-sided chismis or vague, passive aggressive Facebook statuses. At the same time, it also takes the younger generation of cousins, siblings and peers rising up for one another when witnessing demeaning behaviors at play, communicating the problems that they witness, embracing vulnerability, and checking in on each other from time to time. We must stop upholding hurtful, toxic Filipino practices as simply “part of the culture” and begin actively resisting them in order to break the cycle.

CLOSING THE GAP

I take another look at the picture of my cousins at their holiday dinner. I decide to leave a comment: “I miss y’all! Happy holidays!” Later that night they would reply, “We miss you too! Let’s all get together again soon.”

Throughout our youth, neither my cousins nor I opened up about the weight on our shoulders that came from our families. Whether it was the constant comparisons made between us by our parents, how the family drama made us feel, or the pressure and insecurities we felt after being body-shamed by our relatives in front of our peers, no one talked about their feelings. We were taught to maintain respectable images of ourselves, and that being “emotional” was synonymous with being “weak.” It would take many years and all that time spent apart before my cousins and I would finally reconnect and have a real check-in with one another. 

By the time we had this conversation it was clear that the build-up of constant pressure and criticism had cemented itself deeply in our minds, and we were only then starting to chip away at it. Even so, at least we were beginning to heal.

Looking ahead, I think of my nine year old sister, and I hope that she never has to experience what I have. I hope she never has to experience a tita grabbing at her arm, laughing, and pointing out her stretch marks. I hope she is never made to feel worthless because her life’s ambitions are different from someone else’s. I hope she never has to walk into a room and feel unwanted by those around her. I hope she never loses touch with the people she is closest to. 

But above all, I hope she is able to find the courage to advocate for herself when she needs it, call out problematic behavior when she sees it, and call in those around her to reflect — because we can all do better in order to put an end to this harmful cycle. To the next generation, we owe them that much.

Change follows action; join the conversation! Use #YourMindOurMovement to share your story. 

Abby Pasion is a Filipina American storyteller and community organizer based out of Portland, Oregon. Abby completed her B.A. degree at Oregon State University in 2019, studying Education and Ethnic Studies. She currently works for the Portland Public Schools District while also serving as Advisory Board Chair for the Northwest Filipino American Student Alliance. Follow her writing and creative adventures on Instagram!"

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