Who Am I?

Who am I? What is my nationality? What country did I originally came from? Am I a Filipino, American, or have I subconsciously adapted the English culture?

I asked myself these questions after my recent trip to the Philippines. I felt estranged as soon as we landed in Palawan to meet my uncle. I did not know how to act. I did not know which part of me I was going to present; was it the Effe or Ping who had left more than 10 years ago, or the one who has been Americanized, or the one who now lives in England?

I am a Filipino American immigrant, and have lived on three different continents, in three different cultures. I have been away from my country of birth more than a decade and this latest trip was the longest that I was not able to visit my family. When I was in the States I would visit almost every year but when I moved here to England, four months later the pandemic happened so it was not possible to go home until the country had reopened.

Having been away from the country for so long I am no longer accustomed to its ways so, in the end I was conscious of what I say or do. Though I still keep the good values that I have learned growing up, I do identify more as an American and although I have been here in England for nearly four years now I cannot define myself as English. I cannot even manage to converse easily with a British accent. I feel weird bending those words and talk like I am singing. I guess I can manage for a while but not for a long chat.

So the way I talk, yes lets talk about that because people tend to have a love affair with this English accent. I speak both Tagalog and Bisaya (my regional language) to my three year old daughter. When I became a mother I vowed to make sure my child would speak my language, of course with the help of youtube. It has been very challenging because many of the songs in youtube are in Tagalog which is not really my mother tongue but I converse with her in Bisaya. She now speaks both but she still does not know the difference, nor understand that she knows two Filipino languages.

Meanwhile, I do have an American, or should I say Californian, twang. However, I noticed some people here do not understand me when I speak that way. I am often asked to repeat myself so overtime I studied how to do the English accent and the easiest way I found is not only profoundly pronounce the letter “T” but also to not pronounce the letter “R”. I find Brits are not a fan of that letter, LOL. Here are few example comparisons between the American and British pronunciations:

Leder vs letah (letter)

beder vs betah (better)

wader vs wootah )water)

For a while I refused to adapt the English accent because I do not want to sound so pretentious but then overtime I unknowingly adapted not only the accent but its ways (well, for the lack of option really I had to).

So, having said that, how do I really talk now? How is my English diction, my pronunciation and enunciation? As we say in my hometown, ‘Karambula na!’ or ‘collision’ is the closest translation barok as in carabao English. (video attached here, so enjoy the ride friends).

Anyhow, I asked myself, ‘Am I trapped in a world of in between? Who am I really?’ I still say I am more like an American but then again I am not there, I do not live there anymore, and for some reason I cannot be like an American here in England just because… so, maybe I am an in between? Or maybe hybrid of the two?