Culture | Binitay Documentary

August 7, 2013

Landed. First stop, Jollibees!

I’ve touched down finally in Manila. It was an 1.5 hour delay. Thankfully my phone is semi globalized and I was able to reach my friend’s friends who I thank greatly to pick me up and are kindly helping Lorial and me on our trip. I ate three meals on the connecting flights and one meal to Manila. I was still starving and we stopped by Jollibees. I got to enjoy Palabok from there for the first time.

The hardest thing is getting over my “mahiyain” or shyness to speak Tagalog in front of native speakers. Although it seems easy for me to speak back in America, I get scared of my hardcore accent giving away my “balikbayan” or homecoming accent.

Another thing is learning the currency exchange and learning the value of each piso…

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 6, 2013July 6, 2013

Shared Self

[4 days left for my Kickstarter Campaign]

I was at work and was waiting on a customer a year ago. She comes in pretty often with her son and daughter. I found out later after politely asking her if they were adopted because both her and husband are white Caucasian while here children are Latino. I find out before she left that she adopted them from Guatemala.

When she told me that they were adopted I told her I was too. She then asked from where and how old I was when I was adopted and I told her that I was adopted from the Philippines at the age of three. She then told her son that I was adopted too and I thought it was cute because he asked if I was Guatemalan as well. She then told him “Not all adopted children are Guatemalan”, since his adopted sister is from Guatemala as well and I believe they are biological siblings.

This made me think of past times that I was working and she has come in, her adoptive son that is probably around six years old, would stare at me all the time. I told her how he would do that after today and also noted that he probably thought I was Guatemalan too. She smiled back and told me, “Yeah I think he looks for other people who look like him as well”.

Many flashbacks of when I was his age came into existence and when I would subconsciously look for other people who were like me or looked like me too.

Who I am is more than what reflects back at me in the mirror. I questioned that for 17 years of my life and in search for answers.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 6, 2013

Awakened.

[4 days left for my Kickstarter Campaign] My eyes were opened wide after my first FANHS Seattle conference in 2010.

FANHS Rizal Park, Photo credits to Aldrich Sabac (I believe he took this, correct me if I'm wrong) — FANHS Rizal Park, Photo credits to Aldrich Sabac (I believe he took this, correct me if I’m wrong)

This was the most time I’ve spent with any large group of Filipinos which may have reached at least one thousand or more attendees. Those grouped in this photo is not even a quarter of who came. Being only three years since I’ve kindled a relationship with my kinship and communities, FANHS has helped grow Filipino communities local and abroad, foster dialogue, and learning.

When I first started telling my story to others at this conference, I soon found out that there was a Filipina, Lorial Crowder, who was hosting a workshop. She had founded the Filipino Adoptees Network. Of course, I was hunting her down the entire conference. We met finally during her workshop panel where I had met a few other Filipino adoptees and watched a documentary film called “Left On Lockett Lane” filmed and produced by Jon Reinert. From there was another transformation and realization.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 2, 2013

Racism and Racial Microaggressions

[8 days left for my Kickstarter Campaign] Please don’t dismiss by experiences by saying “Well I think everyone deals with racism and microaggressions…blah, blah, blah…”, but please simply listen to my experience and try to understand my experience. I hope that instead of getting angry, that we think of ways to find solutions to these occurrences, because this could be your child as well facing these same struggles. I encourage creating dialogue to help find solutions. I’m not here to silence others. I’m here to voice mine. In my own poetic way, I’m not outspoken. I speak out.

I’ll list every name in the book that I know as growing up as both ‘colored’ and an adoptee:

Yellow, brown, poop and shit (because of my brown skin), beaner, wetback, chink, gook, alien, terrorist, faggot, unwanted child, your parents didn’t love you, problem child

Honestly, I did internalize a lot of these labels. I hated my own skin. I hated standing out. I did not tell anybody, especially parents and family. It was not until I learned how to communicate certain issues properly to them. When I finally had done so with my adoptive mom, my mom, it was a release in so much animosity and anger. The end result was me crying my eyes out. This was only a few months ago.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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July 1, 2013July 1, 2013

Binitay: The innate smells and sounds of nostalgia

[9 days to go for my Kickstarter Campaign] This place is most unique, eye-opening, and life changing things that had happened. If it were not for meeting Georgiana Rose Tutay, I might not have come across this place or certain events may not have followed because of it. My first few trips coming here brought back nostalgic memories of both the language of familiarity and tastes of the Philippines. I could recall the tastes and say I’ve eaten the foods before. The salty vinegar taste of chicken adobo was so foreign yet so familiar.

The voices were familiar. I could hear people speak Tagalog and could recognize it. But, when I just so happened to hear someone speak Cebuano, my island dialect, my body would freeze and it was as if the language with me all along. I knew it was something familiar but I couldn’t express it. I could make out a Cebuano dialect among a sea of Tagalog tongues as if they were calling to me. It just was that innate. I call it a “ping”, like a tuning fork when it resonates with another that is the same tune.

I felt home. Yet, I felt alien.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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