“Salamat sa liwanag mo / Muling magkakakulay ang pasko” is the chorus of “Bro, Ikaw ang Star ng Pasko,” one of the most sensational Filipino Christmas songs that has transcended generations. The lyrics of the song emit joy and happiness that filled every corner of my household.
As my mom, dad, titas (aunts,) titos (uncles) and cousins merrily swayed to the catchy jingle, my eyes were fixated on the bright TV screen. I watched as the most popular Filipino celebrities graced the screen, bringing love and hope into the comfort of our homes.
A little jolt of excitement rushed through me when I could pinpoint a familiar face: Sarah Geronimo, Kim Chiu, and Coco Martin, I thought to myself.
With each name I rattled off, I felt like I was becoming more in tune with my Filipino heritage, which was something I always wrestled with as an Asian girl who grew up in a predominantly white neighbourhood.
Piolo Pascual and Erik Santos…
While watching the clips transition from one singer to the next, a thought suddenly dawned on me. I hesitantly paused this imaginary game of “guess the celebrity” to focus on the new notion that came forth.
A thought lingers in the depths of my mind. I steadily lift my hand higher so that it meets my eyes. And through the periphery of my tiny fingers, the thought crystallizes: I look nothing like them.
The people I saw on the TV had skin far more fair than mine.
My eyes rapidly flitted up and down between the fair-skinned women on the TV and back to my tanner complexion.
Why doesn’t my skin look like theirs? Is being darker okay? Am I doing something wrong?
In a room full of other people with the same tan skin tone, I still felt singled out. In search of Filipinas who mirrored my tanner skin, I began to question the validity of my ethnic makeup.
Does having tanner skin make me less Filipino?
Without a second thought, I turned towards my mom.
“Why are they so light?” I asked her (not so articulate).
“In the Philippines, they are just like that. They like their skin to be light. That’s just the way it goes,” she said.
That’s just the way it goes. That’s just the way it goes. That’s just the way it goes.
Those words echoed through the chambers of my mind in an attempt to answer my curiosity, but nothing came about. No answer to the curiosity that pierced my mind. No reason as to why white skin has become so normalized within Filipino culture.
Nothing.
And being so young, I just accepted that fact and moved on, awaiting new challenges that would diffuse this very one.
But every so often, the thought would arise again, claiming it’s five minutes of stardom in a show titled “Puzzling Questions of My Life.” Whenever the “Am I Really Filipino?” segment played, it became more apparent that I hadn’t moved on from that one particular episode. The one where a little eight-year-old me sat in front of the TV watching the “Star ng Pasko” music video.
After replaying the question over and over in my mind, it became abundantly clear that acceptance was no longer a fulfilling solution. The need to let go of these insecurities fueled a drive in me to answer these unanswered questions, which led me into the realm of colourism in the Philippines.
Colourism is defined as “Prejudice or discrimination, especially within a racial or ethnic group favouring people with lighter skin over those with darker skin,” according to Merriam-Webster.
Through further research on the topic, I came across Bianca Punzalan’s TED Talk, “Colourism in the Philippines,” where Punzalan — an undergraduate research assistant at UC Berkeley — shares her experience with colourism as a Filipina and its deep colonial roots.
“The sad truth of it all is that in the Philippines, having dark skin equates to being dirty, ugly and poor,” Punzalan said.
There it was. Punzalan had laid the answer right before me.
I realized that with the spotlight shining bright on their every move, many Filipino celebrities also play the culprits of this notion. I was disappointed when I encountered a commercial that featured Anne Curtis applying a skin-whitening papaya soap while singing about achieving fair skin.
Influential forms of media like this continue to perpetuate Western ideologies into Filipino culture.
Every day, people are left spending their time and money down long-winding aisles of the supermarket’s cosmetics section, to hunt down skin-whitening lotions, creams, and serums that could emulate the fair skin of those they most admire. These are actions embedded deep into the history of skin-whitening products, which is a colonial history that remains rooted in modern society.
It all goes back to 1565 when the Filipino government was under Spanish rule. In the Justice For Human Rights Journal, writer Jen Laforteza said, “During the Spanish colonial period, a racial hierarchy was presented to Filipino society, which placed white Spaniards at the top, and native Austronesian Filipinos and Indigenous Filipinos below them.”
During this era, the only Filipinos who had power were those who assimilated into Western culture. To do well in life, you had to resemble those who ruled over you.
White superiority also carried on throughout the Philippines’ American (1898-1946) and Japanese (1942-1945) colonial period until 1946, when the Philippines finally gained its independence.
Despite this newfound autonomy for the Philippines, the country is still not free from the colonial roots that are woven throughout its history, shaping the beauty standards seen in the media.
I ask myself, “Where do we go from here?” and am left stumped.
If it’s so deeply rooted in beauty, how do we make it stop? How do we rewire current beauty standards to make them all-inclusive?
A linear path to “solve colourism” ceases to exist. It’s a notion that has bled through history and continues to shape future generations of Pinoys. The phenomenon of skin-whitening products is so deeply rooted in consumerism.
However, there are still things that we can control — halting comments about someone’s complexion or continuing to educate ourselves and others about the relationship between colourism and colonialism.
Writing about the harmful images that colourism prints on my self-esteem and identity is a way that I harness my own power. And through the hours spent writing in my journal and looking at my tanned self in the mirror, I can confidently say that in a world teeming with reminders of what I’m not, nothing can take away from the fact that I am Filipino.