I am a Filipino born Canadian who moved here (in Canada) around my teen years. I have memories of the ‘motherland’, but I feel I could very well be one of those generation 1.5 Canadian Immigrants – well assimilated and owing nothing to the ‘motherland’.
However, I do love the Philippines, my Filipino heritage, and of course, I still have childhood friends and family over there. …so I am always at odds with the dysfunctions of Philippine society vs. my desire to see it improve and rise above such dysfunctions.
That said, this reply of yours is a very neat way of summarizing what I was trying to get at in two posts about my travel memoirs in the Philippines. I guess I should practice brevity more! (then again, mine is a travel memoir… so length is never an issue, while detail and specific experiences are always the target)
In this post I had a run in with a lady who scoffed at a common courtesy often practiced here in Canada/North America.
I then wondered:
“They’re westernized enough to speak English, consume ‘western’ products and entertainment, but not westernized enough to emulate the best of the Developed World’s values?”
In another post, I had another run-in with a Filipina matriarch who annoyed me with an assumption about our (or my) character; as though she imagined me as just an English-speaking, Canada residing version of her kids – without regard for how I may be differ from them philosophically.
This again, made me wonder:
“…instead of asking me what makes living in Canada so great, instead of probing what values have I learned during my transition to being a Canadian, and what style of ‘pamamalakad’ I feel could be applied to the Philippines, there is a kind of Filipino who would rather ask me how much money I make, what car I drive, how many white chicks I’ve had sex with, all while marvelling at my accent that is ‘oh so, distinctly Fil Am!’ (Canadian.. American.. all the same to them)
More than anything, the material advantages and the superficial glitz and glamour of living here in ‘The West’ seem to interest them a great deal more than the values, social justice, and social mores that I personally feel are what make living here so great.
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