“I’m not Mexican, dammit!” – The Wilson Family crest
My family has done just about everything it can to confuse the general public about our ethnicity. Hoodwinking census takers and airport security alike, we get a certain sick pleasure out of making you squirm whenever someone mentions anything racial around us. Your first assumption would probably be, “Hmm…dark hair, olive skin, thick around the middle…she must be Latino. “Ola! Comma esta? Gordita burrito flauta!” But, if you should ever find yourself at my family’s house in Ohio, you’ll probably notice the giant geisha fan on the wall of our living room and the plethora of various Asian art adorning every crevasse of my childhood home, making our house look like the lower back of a drunken college coed. If that hasn’t confused you enough, then maybe you could join me some holiday when I visit my Italian relatives. Watch in bemusement as I gesticulatewildly and spew Italian epitaphs like “fangool!”, “putana!” and “canolli!” But before you “Birthers” out there call on Lou Dobbs to push me out to sea on the makeshift raft I came in on, I’ll put the mystery to rest.
SPOILER ALERT: Kristina = (2) parts Irish + (1) part Filipino
Now I know what you’re thinking, “How could this have happened? Who got bananas in the soda bread?” My dad was a Filipino-Irish drummer from Kansas City, Kansas, who fell in love with the very Irish daughter of a very Irish NYPD officer from Queens, NY. Their unlikely romance was the stuff of a Journey song, but it really comes as no surprise that my father ended up with a pale woman given his upbringing. After his biological father’s departure back to the Philippines, my dad was left as the only shred of pigment in the sea of white that is the great state of Kansas. In fact, his family portrait looks like it should be titled “The White Irish Catholic Family….and Their Garden Boy.” This has been the source of a great identity struggle for my dad, being that he was raised with a white sense of entitlement but with a Green card-Carrier appearance (feel free to watch Steve Martin in The Jerk for visual reference). This is exacerbated by the fact that my dad knows less about the Philippines then probably anyone I’ve ever met (… except maybe me). The one shred of his ancestry he harbors is a song he was taught as child which basically consists of smiling and repeating the lyrics “Planting rice is very nice!” over and over again. This rich knowledge of his culture has never comes in as handy as he hopes when Homeland Security agents are checking him for improvised explosives.
As a child, I resembled my father the most. I was very dark and exotic looking, resembling those children with flies on their noses in the old Sally Struthers commercials. My pale Irish mother looked like Angelina Jolie pushing me around in a stroller. Unlike my father, however, I lightened up over the years, eventually coming to resemble someone who might possibly speak English. This has not stopped people from confusing me with just about every race imaginable. I’ve lost track of how many times I’ve been asked if I speak Spanish, or how many times I’ve been accused of lying when I say I don’t. I’ve been asked where in India I was born, what Native American tribe I belong to, if I like fish, if igloos are real and where I go to temple. I was always the go-to person at my predominantly white high school when they needed to cast “someone of color” in one of their shows. I have starred in everything from The Wiz to Miss Saigon to mixed, confused and slightly offended reviews. My origin is such a topic of discussion that my friends in college even felt compelled to throw me a themed birthday party entitled “Come Dressed as What Ethnicity You Think Kristina Is.” I had friends arrive in everything from Kabuki makeup to head wraps and hoop-earrings to one friend who came adorned in war paint, feathers and a homemade shirt that read: “Give Kristina her land back…..so she can build a casino.” It was quite possibly the most deliciously offensive party I’ve ever been too, and my greatest birthday to date.
So if you should see me walking down the street, please don’t assume I can do your taxes, do your nails, cook you a burrito or even point out the Philippines on a map… I probably can’t. But what I can do is sing for you a song in the rich tradition of my ancestors:
”Planting rice is very nice….”
-Kristina
