Nah, I'm filipino.

Or I should say I'm a filipinA.

I am.  But I'm not.  Several REAL filipinos have told me so. 

"What island are you from?"

"Uh, Kauai." I say.

"Hmmpf, where's that?"

"In Hawaii."

"Oh, I meant Philippine Islands.  You not true filipino then"

Apparently not.  Despite being three quarters filipino, I am not.  More so, I can't speak Tagalog. I thought I knew some filipino words.  But none of my friends ever knew the words I knew. 

I am a quarter Japanese. I don't speak Japanese either.

So when people used to ask me, "What are you (your nationality/ethnic background)?" I used to answer, "I'm from Hawaii."

"Oh, so you 're Hawaiian?"

"Um, no, I'm not"

Because I'm not.  Not a single drop of Hawaiian in my blood.

LOL Neither can I speak Hawaiian.

Sometimes people get frustrated when I don't have a straight answer.  You'd be frustrated to if you had to answer those questions all your life and not really *have* an answer. 

One would say I'm "local."  Ha.  But I don't even live in Hawaii anymore.  If it were a legitimate answer, I would say, I was pidgin.  Yeah, like the language.  Like creole.  But then again, people don't even consider pidgin a real language.  But like pidgin, I am made up of a mixture of cultures and beliefs.  I could identify with almost all.  Yet, I couldn't claim to belong to any.

Until... the internet and it's accessibilty and information.  As more and more people are on it, the more it is filled with information.  I like it.  In the beginning, I took it for granted.  I chatted, blogged, emailed and played games on the internet but now, holy cow, I am discovering... THE WORLD.  Hah.  You laugh, but seriously, I did not know the true power of the Information highway.  And now I know who I am.  Well sort of.  I found the filipino words I knew.  They were not Tagalog.  They were not Ilocano.  They were Visayan. 

I knew there were different regions and dialects in the Philippines but I only could rely on what was told to me. My family often relayed information that they heard or grew up understanding but they weren't entirely sure. Take "buyag" for instance.  No one in the family really knew exactly what it means but they had a general idea.  Many of them were encouraged not to speak filipino and many customs were just done and not really explained.  My mom told me something about being Visayan, but then she said Grampa was Ilocano, Then she said something about Pangansinan. Who knows!!  All I know now is that the words I grew up hearing are definitely Visayan. Thanks to the internet.  I would have never found that out if it weren't for all this information that is available to us.  You think I would have figured it out in the library pouring over encyclopedias?  Or, I would have had to find every single different filipino dictionary there is and painstakingly go through them looking for those few and familiar words! And that's even if I was spelling them correctly.

How has the internet, specifically, the information you can get through the internet, helped you?  Google and Wikipedia are my new favorite go-to sites.

Now that I have a place to start, I can.  I'll always be "pidgin" but now I am closer to finding my true heritage and embrace it.   It'll be hard, since my mom is no longer here to really guide me but, maybe by the next time someone asks me what I am, I'll have more to say than just, "I'm a walrus.*"

*Reference- The Breakfast Club