Mel Legarda – British-Filipino writer and creator at Jones Bridge in Manila
May is National Heritage Month in the Philippines, a celebration of Philippine culture and history. And for the first time, I truly feel ready to recognize and celebrate my belonging to England and the Philippines.
At the national level, the first, at the ethnic level, the second.
A note on belonging
Every time I return to the Philippines, I am confronted with the idea of “belonging.”
Every trip I make to the homeland helps me understand the elements that make up my identity and whether I am part of it.
How I fit in.
I am drawn to where my Filipinoness begins and my Britishness ends. Especially in my field of work as a journalist, travel blogger and photographer.
I spent the younger years of my life feeling, irregularly and shamefully, composed of halves: half local, half tourist, half foreigner.
Always observing, examining communities, without ever really feeling part of them.
At sunrise in the ocean – Siargao Island, Philippines
The beauty of the diaspora
As a Filipina, a mixed Filipina and a British Filipina, it is extremely rewarding to be part of such a culturally nuanced diaspora.
During my teenage years, I was absolutely convinced that I could only belong in one place or another, obsessed with binaries.
It wasn’t until my early twenties, when I began writing about Anglo-Filipino culture and engaging with the diaspora, developing friendships in that community, that I began to recognize how many joy, beauty, cultural richness and wholeness exist in these in-betweens. spaces.
Binaries do everyone a disservice, because we are so much more than one thing or another.
Where fullness exists
I feel more whole when I lean in to embrace the hyphen, my hyphens.
I am Filipino. I’m British-Filipino. I’m British, Filipino and Spanish. I am mixed Filipino. I’m all kinds.
There is so much wholeness in collectively finding what it truly means to belong to a country you didn’t grow up in, but whose heritage fester in your blood.
This is what it means to belong to the diaspora. Having this community that understands you, that is also moving.
In a hotel in Parsons Green, London
The hyphenation and self-identification agency
As individuals, we have the opportunity to unite and identify ourselves in a way that fits our complex realities.
It’s so beautiful, and so imperative, to be able to have this level of hyper-specificity when we engage with our own identity.
After decades of trying to flatten my identity into neat boxes for the sake of external convenience, I return to the simplistic brilliance of hyphenation.
Winding road lined with coconut trees on the island of Siargao, Philippines
Reaffirm its complexity
I often find that we children of the diaspora, we children of immigrants, are so eager to make our “complicated” identities more palatable to others that we also risk diluting and neglecting to honor layers of heritage that shapes who we are.
Hyphenation combats reduction and reaffirms complexity in the simplest and most humble way.
I therefore celebrate this National Heritage Month with the newfound joy of truly knowing the place I occupy in the fabric of the Filipino diaspora.
And for all those who exist in between, who make gaps, who also contemplate cultural belonging…
I see you. 🤍
