MY SEAT AT A TABLE PART 3

Some years after that dinner, my friend and her family traveled to the
Philippines to visit her maternal family. Not too long after her return to
the United States, she and I met for dinner at a Manhattan restaurant. I
sat across the table from her and listened, enthralled as she recounted her
trip in vivid detail. Near the end of her monologue she mentioned that
when she ventured out without her Filipino mother or another Filipino
family member for a walk or an excursion to one of the many
marketplaces — she was baffled about why strangers addressed her in
Tagalog, which is perhaps the most widely spoken language in the
Philippines.

I frowned, asking, “Why was that so confusing?”

“Well,” she said, “because I don’t think I look Filipino.”

“What do you think you look like?”

“American.”

I am keenly aware that people who look like me — people born Black,
without “the complexion for the protection” as comedian Paul Mooney
described it — understand that when people say American, that means
white. Those of us born in America who are not white are hyphenated to
stress that we are not real Americans, but hybrids — like broccoflowers
and limequats.

My BFF is tall, beige-complexioned with almond-shaped eyes, and long

straight black hair. To me she looks Asian, but I admit, she could also
pass for Native American. The one thing she cannot pass for is white,
which is how she saw herself.