AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A 2ND GENERATION FILIPINO AMERICAN by Michael Espe

Looking back at my life, so many influences and events have shaped the way I am,
now being a 2nd generation Filipino-American UCLA student. From the time I was born
on April 29, 1985 until I entered my second year of college at UCLA, I grew up being
oblivious as to how and why I was the way I was, with my personality, my dealings
with other people, and more approach towards education. It wasn’t until halfway
through my college career that I began to realize the impact that history had on my
life. Coming from a low-class family background, born and raised up mostly in Los
Angeles and for a few years in a city in the Philippines called Baguio, my decisions in
life and consequently my experiences leading up to the present times have been
linked to history. Specifically, the history of my own parents and the history of the
Philippines are ultimately related to how my life experiences in the past 21 years have
come about.
Beginning with the history of my parents, it all traces back to our homeland, the
Philippines. Both of my parents grew up in small rural farming towns, miles away from
the main city center of Manila. Growing up in small towns, the only exposure they had
to American life were their relatives who lived in Manila during the 1970s. From these
urban dwelling relatives, they had notions about the U.S. from television and
newspapers. My father was first exposed to the idea of joining the U.S. Navy from one
of those relatives. With the allure of gaining economic success, modern conveniences,
and eventually a life of prosperity, my father made the critical decision to move to the
United States by joining the Navy. From this decision, my father was able to come to
America and settle in Los Angeles after his term was over. As for my mother, she was
never really exposed to American life as well, except from her own uncle who was
living in Los Angeles for about 20 years after migrating from Hawaii where he worked
at the Dole Pineapple Plantation during the 1930s. She was also told about the riches
and more prosperous life one can have while living in the United States compared to
the life they already had in rural Philippines. From this experience, my mother made
the crucial decision to immigrate to the United States in hoping to experience a new
and better life. Clearly, both of my parents were highly influenced by other Filipinos’
perspectives about American lifestyles.
Coming to America, they began to absorb and understand the American culture and
with it, its cultural beliefs and practices. This exposure to such American ideologies
greatly influenced the decisions I made growing up, especially when it came to
education and the lifestyle I led. As a child born and raised in the urban areas of Los
Angeles, I grew up mostly around Latinos since there weren’t many Filipinos in my
neighborhood. From this lack of cultural connection to most of my friends, I never
really understood my own identity as a Filipino American. Even from my own parents,
they never really pushed for me to learn Tagalog or about the history of the
Philippines. I did not know back then, but the main reason why my parents never
really promoted my brother and me to understand our Filipino heritage was the fact
that they themselves had an “American” mentality. This mentality included the
American cultural beliefs which they were exposed to and taught when they first came
to the United States. These American beliefs incorporated the idea that the only way
to be successful in America is to assimilate into the American way of living, one in
which going through the American educational system, with its lack of cultural/ethnic
studies, will help in that success. Any other form of education, such as learning about
one’s own culture and history, was not seen as important. From this mentality that my
parents had, all they ever wanted me to do was to be very successful with my
academics for me to go to a top-notch university and gain a degree that can get me a
well-paying career. As I was growing up, the family pressure to succeed well in
academics for my parents dream to be realized was always present in my mind and
encouraged me to do successful which ultimately did occur. It was not until my
experiences in college and specifically, my involvement in a Filipino organization that
my whole life turned into something new and more challenging.
I came into UCLA as a naïve first year in the fall of 2003. During my first year, my only
focus was to become a pharmacist while being a chemistry major. However, my
decision to choose chemistry as a major and pharmacy as a career was highly
influenced by my parents, not my own. This decision became the worst decision of my
life. I was nearly dismissed from the university and for the first time in my life, I felt
like I was a failure to myself and more importantly, to my parents. Additionally, I
became anti-social, and I did not join any organizations, especially Samahang Pilipino,
because of my lack of connection and exposure to people of my own culture. From
that down point of my life, I made an important decision during my second year that
helped me develop into the person I am today. During that year, I decided to change
my life around to make it completely different from my first year. I began attending
Samahang Pilipino meetings and decided to become a cast member and performer of
Samahang Pilipino’s cultural night and I switched my major from chemistry to history
and then double majoring in Asian American Studies. From these decisions, I became
exposed to all the things I never knew about myself, my parents, and of being a
Filipino living in America. Being a progressive advocacy group, Samahang Pilipino was
able to introduce to me the historical reasons as to why my parents had the
“American” mentality. By going to Samahang events, I learned that due to the
American occupation of the Philippines during the early half of the 20th century,
Filipinos were placed in an Americanized educational system, which promoted
American beliefs about education and careers. Both of my parents had relatives who
had general exposure to such American beliefs, including education. My parents took
those concepts into their minds, and it ultimately transpired onto me and my brother.
From this historical fact of the American colonization of the Filipino mind in the
Philippines, it became clear to me during my second year at UCLA that all the
influences that my parents had on me in my decision to come to UCLA and originally
pursue a career in medicine was ultimately linked to the history of the Philippines. My
own discovery of the intersection of my life and Philippine history became the turning
point in the way I began to view the world, my Filipino culture, my family, and of
myself. Ever since that turning point in my life and my mentality, I have grown to
recognize that Philippine history and consequently my parent’s history undeniably
account for why my own personal history has been shaped the way it has.
Now, being a 2nd generation Filipino American fourth year UCLA student and an active
member of Samahang Pilipino, my life experiences and all the knowledge I have been
exposed to in the past three years have contributed to my desire to continually
challenge myself in understanding the world and while being a Samahang peer
counselor, to help in developing the mentality of Filipinos/Filipino Americans at UCLA
into a less “colonized and Americanized” mind. The various aspects of my college
career, from being a history and Asian American Studies double major to my
involvement in Samahang Pilipino, have all influenced my own awareness of myself,
something that I hope to develop with other Filipinos/Filipino Americans for the future.
After learning from my own life history, I have come to understand that for one to
begin to recognize the forces that influences one’s life, one must look back to the
history of one’s parents and more significantly, the history of one’s culture.