My Friend Esteban

I cannot believe someone, I have been befriended and going out together before in the Philippines, told me he only likes being American, He even change his name to Steve which everyone called him Esteban. This means he sees me as the stereotypical foreigner brown monkey in America. I did not take that very well at all. I look at him differently for that comment and even decided not take him to my company of friends anymore and declined all his party invitation. There is nothing wrong with him if he want to look like American, talk like American and act like American, but I’m definitely not like him and I don’t see any compatibility with someone who wants to forget his real identity.

Not only him, there are quite a number of our countrymen who seem to be intent on forgetting not only their land of birth but also their nation’s heritage. I know this for a fact because my wife was at the receiving end of a diatribe from an acerbic “ex-Filipino.” They won’t talk to her unless they are address with their Naturalized American names and in English. We saddened by the fact that there are people who have chosen to forget their origins. Upon arriving in America, been to Disneyland, Universal Studio and Magic Mountain, they were traumatized by too much Ferris Wheel rides and they begin to erase from their minds their Filipino heritage. They work hard to imitate the accent of the people living in America; they love hamberjir instead of hamburger,what the hell,what the fuck become the sound coming out from their mouth,hey man,hey dude, they become good story teller about how rich they are,they dance hip-hop and rapped, they have their noses reconstructed by a plastic surgeon just to remove what is more often known a “Tatak Pilipino” and do other stuff that would make them look more and more white- american dude and dye their hair blonde. Basically, they begin to systematically change their outward appearance,sparkling jewelries,driving fancy cars and flashing wallets full with all kinds of credit cards thinking that their Filipino identity will vanish along with it. But what they do not realize is that no matter how hard they change their appearance, it stays—and will stay—with them until the day they die. They thought their high command slang accent English is the passport to enter heaven, they forgot, St. Peter is multi-lingual.

In the Philippines where we come from defines who we are especially in the barrio and what we will become. Our present selves are the results of all that we have been through. We are products of our heritage, the hardships, the trials, and all that we have grown accustomed to. If we are strong now, it is because the storms of life that buffeted us have made us sturdier to withstand anything that may come our way. If we are weak, it may be because we have chosen not to fight life’s vicissitudes or to learn the lessons that life has been teaching us.

And we are the people that what we are now because we have been raised in a culture that is full of incredible contradictions. We are God-fearing but we tolerate corruption because it has already become an accepted part of the bureaucracy. We are a kind people but have grown apathetic to the plight of poor kids living in the streets. We profess to be poor but we have unashamedly wasted—and continue to waste—our natural resources which take a long time for Mother Earth to replenish. But despite these contradictions, it is a fact that we Filipinos are among the nicest, most polite and most caring people minus the “Yabang”

We Filipinos are different people because we got too much interaction with anyone in the outside of our country, even in the moon everyone has a lunar properties, just buy the title at Recto.We can fix everything and we can sell anything. We are the most productive spices in the world, most fertile in human production. In fact Philippines has produced more than 80 millions cowards and One Devil.