“My name is Hailey Saga (they/them), and I am a second generation Filipinx living in California going to Orange County School of the Arts as a senior.
I found out about the Walang Hiya Project from the literary magazine I work for, Marías at Sampaguitas, and believed that it was a wonderful way to end the stigma of feeling ashamed of one’s culture and instead embracing it fully.
Living with a first generation mother who westernized herself by unlearning Tagalog and Cebuano, as well as disassociating herself with the Philippines in order to fit in with the unfamiliarity of America she now calls her only home, I grew up never truly knowing about my culture. It was difficult, especially when the teachers at school would ask me, “What traditions does your family do in your culture?” I told them we would do American things in our now individualized home, because that’s what Americans do, right? I would tell the others around me, even at an early age in Kindergarten, that I was “not Filipino! I’m American.” Still, I was Filipino as indicated by my birth certificate, but my mother told me otherwise - in fact, she never told me anything at all about being Filipino. At the start of my junior year in high school, I was prompted in my AP US history class as to what my family’s life was like before they immigrated to America. The only source about this livelihood was from my Lola, who was too shy and too reserved to even tell me anything. As a way of telling me to find out my own family’s history by myself, she gave me my great grandmother’s manuscripts on her book about her life as a middle to lower class woman in the Philippines, as well as her decision to immigrate to the United States shortly thereafter she found her husband involved in an affair. Albeit I learned more about my family history than that of the Filipino culture, I plan to make it my goal to eventually become proud of myself as a Filipinx instead of shying away from the topic, rejecting to even learn anything else about it. I explored that idea in this art piece I created for my AP Studio Art class, entitled, “Ingrained.” It is about how your culture makes up your entire being; despite how hard you try to hide it even though it may seem unfamiliar in who you are, it will always be a part of you, and hopefully, there will soon be pride in it once you let your guard down at the right time.”
Hailey Saga (Twitter: @honeydewbobas / Instagram: @hxilcy) Art Editor at Marías at Sampaguitas Social Media Manager for Kissing Dynamite Poetry Intern at the Law Office of N.R. Bauer LA-OC Based Filmmaker
Originally published in September 2019.