What’s in a Name? Growing Up Filipina and Jewish

Growing up the daughter of a Polish-Jewish father and a Filipina mother, my identity has always stemmed from liminal spaces. That is, I have always sort of thought of myself as having no specific identity because I found myself caught between two very different worlds. Neither of which fully accepted me. 

When I was four years old, my dad moved our small family into my grandfather’s house in the Chicago suburbs. His wife had recently passed away, so we became his support system. My grandpa was there for my birth, and he served as my babysitter when my parents went to work before we moved into his house. Living with my grandpa was one of the greatest things my parents have done for me. I have two older half-sisters, but by the time I was six, they were both much older than I, and they lived in different states. So, my grandpa became my best friend around the house. Even at 70, walking with leg braces, he played games with me, collected coins with me, and helped me study for elementary school spelling tests. He loved me, and I loved him. Immensely. 

One of the substantial things that arose from my relationship with my grandpa was my relationship with Judaism. My dad was raised religiously, but he strayed away from Judaism until I was about eight years old. My grandpa, on the other hand, had always been a firm believer in the Jewish tradition, culture, and religion. And upon living with him, he began to take me to my cousins’ house for weekly Shabbat dinners. Once my dad resituated himself in the Jewish tradition, he began to take me to Saturday services. Growing up, I felt a close relationship with Judaism as I was able to tie my family and its roots to this tradition. I felt like I belonged. 

My mother, however, did not get to feel this way. Sadly, my dad was incredibly emotionally and physically abusive, which already alienated her from living a free and comfortable life. She had few connections in the U.S. and none near Chicago. As a Filipina immigrant, she was not familiar with Judaism and had been raised a Christian. Still, she participated in Jewish traditions, holidays, and some services in order to learn more and grow closer to her new family. But, in the midst of my eager participation in my heritage, my mom faced incredible scrutiny from my Jewish family. As Ashkenazi Jews from Poland, their skin was fair. My cousins’ family also had much accumulated wealth that my dark-skinned mom could not relate with, coming from a poor province of the Philippine Islands. Upon marrying my father, she was met with cold stares from my white family, exclusion from family events, and huge amounts of racism. 

Unfortunately, as a small child, I was not able to pick out microaggressions and signs of discomfort from my mom easily. But, I have memories of interactions with my family that have caused a lot of inner turmoil and internalized anti-blackness in both my mother and myself. 

I write this today, July 2nd, 2020, exactly ten years after the death of my beloved grandfather. He was the bridge between my two identities as a Jewish and Filipina child, and once he died, my connection to the religion almost ceased to exist. I do not write this in order to call out the pain my family has caused my mother and me. I write this to connect the pain my mother and I have endured as a call to self-empowerment. I am no longer the clueless child I was. And now I have something to say about how I was treated as a kid and how that played into how I see myself now. 

During my junior year of high school, about seven years after my grandfather’s death, I met up with both of my sisters. It was a lovely reunion, as complicated family history with our dad took away a lot of happy reunions we could have had in the past. Anyway, our reunion was filled with talking about our past, and since I was very young when our entire family would still get together, my sisters took the time to fill me in on the realities of those events.

When I was a baby, my oldest sister got married to her first husband. Before the wedding, my aunt was in charge of invitations for a bridal party for the Chicago family. My mom and dad were married at the time, and my mom was as much a member of the family as my aunt. Yet, my aunt purposely left my mom out of the invite list after my sister told her to invite “all the women in the family.” My aunt told my grandpa’s wife that because my sister hadn’t specifically mentioned my mother’s name, she wouldn’t invite her to the party. My grandpa’s wife, who hated my aunt but loved my mom, told my father about the issue. My dad blew up in anger at my sister until she explained the truth of the situation to him.

Then my aunt sent an incredibly nasty letter vilifying her, saying she was a liar, and condemning my sister for getting married in a church (even though she was raised during the time when my dad had converted from Judaism). It was absolutely not her fault, as “all the women in the family” most definitely included my mother. This sort of thing happened a few years later, when everyone in my household was invited to a Pesach party except for my mom and me. Luckily, though, my mom had met a very nice Jewish family while shopping, and they invited us to their own Pesach party. So, while my father and grandfather enjoyed time with family during this Jewish holiday, my mom and I celebrated with complete strangers who welcomed us into their home. 

My mom told me today, in tears, that my aunt and her mother would constantly make comments to my dad about how he “could’ve married someone better.” When my aunt’s mother met my mom, she told her, “Oh, I know lots of Filipinos who work at my healthcare place.” These blatant microaggressions targeted at my mom and her perceived “otherness” fueled intense discomfort and led to my mom’s avoidance of any family functions that involved my cousins. So, that led to just me and my grandfather’s attendance at family dinners and parties.  

All of these snide comments and exclusionary acts internalized the fact that my brownness made me different from the rest of my family. Yet even my mom’s Filipino family and friends couldn’t truly see me as a member of the Filipino community because of my whiteness. So, I began to subconsciously identify with being nothing. I wasn’t a real Jew because I was also Filipino, and I wasn’t a real Filipino because I was also white. Looking back on it now, I felt like a visitor among my own family, white or brown, whenever I saw any of them. I was so clearly out of place no matter who I was with.

Consequently, I clung to my Jewish identity and revelled in my relationship with my grandfather and my cousins as a child. I identified as Jewish, and I took pride in my name, Mikaela Alexander (Aleksandrowicz, before my great-grandparents, immigrated to the U.S.), a Hebrew and Ashkenazi name. My mom’s immigration led to an inability to center my identity around being Filipina because her family members were overseas. So, only being in the presence of my dad’s side, I wanted so badly to be seen as a rightful member of my own family. But my aunt never allowed for that to happen. 

Besides my aunt and her mother’s acts of blatant racism and exclusion toward my mother and Ime, and many more of which I’m sure to have yet to be discussed, one final interaction between her and me catalyzed a permanent schism between my dad’s family and me.

I was about seven years old. I was playing with my cousins after a nice Shabbat dinner. I accidentally broke an LED light that I thought was a plastic pipe, as it was lying amongst all of their toys. When my aunt came downstairs to confront me, she yelled something that I will never forget: “If I was your mother, I’d hit you so hard you wouldn’t be able to sit for weeks.”

She looked at me straight in the eyes as she screamed that, steaming with anger. As I already regularly dealt with threats and actions like that from my own father, I was terrified. It was then that I realized she didn’t see me as a member of her family. She saw me as a reckless household guest that she was forced to tolerate. She said those hurtful words as if she thought my mother was raising me wrong. And I believed her. My existence was an inconvenience. 

After that night, I refused to attend another Shabbat dinner. My immediate family grew worried as they wondered why I had so suddenly decided to stop seeing my cousins. They knew I loved my cousins and that I loved my aunt and uncle. But once I realized that I never fully belonged, my discomfort outweighed my desire to be loved and respected as a legitimate member of the Alexander family. I never told anyone about what my aunt said to me and how that made me feel. 

While I still tried to participate spiritually in the Saturday services and other gatherings my dad would take me to, once my grandpa died in 2010, and my dad lost faith, I turned my back on Judaism. His funeral was one of the last times I saw my cousins and their family in person. With the absence of my grandpa, who usually mediated our household debacles, no one was there to protect my mom and me. My dad grew increasingly irritable and abusive, leading to my mom, and I constantly searching for ways to get out of the house. 

So, I began coming with my mom to local church services at a predominantly Filipino church. Up until I was eight, my mom, dad, and I tried regularly attending a predominantly white, affluent megachurch, but the corruption prevalent throughout that system ruined all of our opportunities to invest in a productive Christian faith. So, reasonably, my mother decided to reach out to our local Filipino community for spiritual and civic support. 

Slowly, my mom acquired more friends, and we became regular members between two local Filipino churches. She had found her faith again, and she found her place in this immigrant community. I, however, faced incredible scrutiny because of my heritage. Everyone knew I was half white and half Jewish. They all saw me as an outsider. And it didn’t help that I had behavioral problems due to the abuse I lived with from my father. I was completely misunderstood and alienated from feeling like a deserving member of the church and follower of Christianity. Even one of the pastors couldn’t see me as a legitimate community member. One afternoon after services, I was walking with my Filipino friends. Our pastor saw us and jokingly pointed to me and said, “Everyone here is Filipino except you!”

Soon I stopped going to all types of religious services altogether. 

A few weeks after my eighth-grade graduation in 2015, my dad said that he was leaving. He was going to work somewhere in Asia on a “humanitarian project.” He promised he would visit every two weeks. Deep down, however, I knew that couldn’t possibly be true because we had been impoverished and living off of food stamps and free school lunches until my mom got a job the year before. In fact, my dad sold his car and stole money from my college savings to buy a plane ticket. So, as expected, my dad never actually came back. Instead, as my sister found through her social media sleuthing, he started a new family with another Filipina woman. 

Although my father’s departure was a huge relief for my mom and me, I had lost my final tangible connection to the culture and traditions I grew up with. My aunt, uncle, and cousins never reached out to my mom and me to offer help, condolences, etc. They never asked to come to my middle school or high school graduations. They never congratulated me on my academic accomplishments or the fact that I was a finalist and received an internationally prestigious, nearly-full-ride scholarship to attend one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Yet, my (white) sisters would receive the occasional FaceBook comment or call from them, congratulating them on their families, accomplishments, etc. It has been incredibly painful to see. Yet, it does reaffirm the fact that they never did truly see my mom and me as family. 

As I reflect, ten years from my grandpa’s passing, I realize that the only thing that made me “family” to them was my Jewishness. Despite my not being fully Polish or Jewish or white-passing, my Jewishness and relationship with my grandpa forced them to welcome me into their home, even though my aunt made it clear that it was all an act. The fact that I shared a last name, a heritage, and family members with my aunt and her family, was never enough for them. 

Because of the rift between my family and my cousins, I spent the past ten years unsure of where exactly in Chicagoland my grandpa was buried. Since I was nine years old and distraught throughout the whole funeral, my spatial awareness couldn’t retain our whereabouts at the time. But a few months ago, I was able to find the address at which my grandpa rests through Ancestry.com, just in time for the tenth anniversary of his death. 

While traveling to the cemetery, my mom gently reminded me that there was a chance we would see my uncle. I immediately froze up and became irritated. The thought of having to face the immense discomfort of seeing that family for the first time since my grandpa’s death terrified me. I mean, as I said before, they made it perfectly clear that my mom and I were not family as they consistently ignored each of my milestones. What’s worse, my aunt and her family showed little regard for my grandpa’s well-being and his beloved family (i.e., my mom and me) once I began distancing myself from them. After my grandpa died, my great aunt died soon after, and my mom and I were the only family members to attend her funeral. Her family was always kind and welcoming to my cousins and us, and my grandpa would have wanted us all there to commemorate her life. So, seeing as my mom and I were two of my grandpa’s closest and most loyal companions with whom he shared a home, it would have been incredibly insulting to have to share a space in memorial of my grandfather with my aunt, uncle, or cousins. 

But, when we arrived at his tombstone, it seemed untouched and unvisited. I was filled with intense sadness as I realized that I was unable to visit him for ten years as a result of being cut off from my paternal family. My aunt took away my ability to connect with my heritage, identity, and family. She took it without regret, without consideration, and without love for us in her heart. Because of that familial disconnect she facilitated, I was never able to regularly visit my grandpa and receive closure as an adult, until today. 

I have tried, in the past, to reckon with myself that “family” just isn’t my “thing.” I’ve reckoned that I have been undeserving of having a healthy family because of how my dad treated us, abandoned us, and the way my aunt and cousins threw us away as soon as the obligation to call us family ended with my grandpa’s death. Even my aunt’s nasty words directed at me for a mistake I made as a small child have stuck with me to this day and have torn down my self-confidence. 

Racism and anti-Blackness are real and rampant within European Jewish communities, especially in America. Writing this in a time where tensions are high regarding Jewish identity, I have worked to understand this conflict in terms of my own personal connection to the Jewish faith, and amidst the tenth anniversary of my grandfather’s death, I have been forced to understand the greater implications of identifying with a heritage and having a sense of belonging. 

Identity is incredibly complicated, and as the world globalizes, more communities mix and mingle, and “hybridized” identities are becoming ever so prevalent because of it. Navigating through our nuanced histories is a huge task, and success can only occur with serious self-reflection and a humbled worldview. 

Writing this has been very cathartic. As I recognize my privilege as an educated, intelligent, and diverse young adult, I realize that the way my family treats me or the way that other people see me has no impact on the true nature of my identity. I am who I am. I am not who they think I am. 

My name is Mikaela Alexander, and I am a Filipina-Polish-American. I take pride in my attachment to my Jewish heritage and my Filipino culture. 

I resent the fact that my mom has sacrificed her comfort in order to give me a home-- a place in the Alexander family. But as I have learned, my place in the Alexander family comes with racial turmoil, family struggle, and a lot of overcoming seemingly insurmountable challenges. 

Driving home from the cemetery today, my mom cried to me about the injustices she faced at the hands of my aunt and how my uncle never did anything to stop this outwardly racist and antagonizing behavior. It makes me wonder what on earth is family? I was related to my cousins’ family by blood, yet I was never seen as a blood relative. 

My mom and my aunt are both as much a part of the Alexander family as each other, seeing that they both married into it. Yet my aunt made it a point to exclude my mom and sometimes me for the purpose of what? Keeping the family line pure? 

Over the course of my childhood, my mom and I have felt pain of all sorts. We have been left on our own by the people we clung to as family. We supported them. We loved them. And as I said, they didn’t even ask to come to my high school graduation. Even my own father left before he could see me accomplish these things. However, these challenges my mom and I have faced have made us stronger. We never needed my aunt’s love or my uncle’s support. We never needed my dad to stop abusing us. We needed to have self-confidence and faith in ourselves. But unfortunately, so much of self-empowered autonomy comes from identifying with a family and heritage-- a support system. Autonomy comes from having an identity. My aunt took that away from both my mom and me, and we are still working to heal ourselves. 

But seeing my grandpa’s grave did serve a great purpose today. I was able to reconnect with my grandpa, and I was able to reconnect with myself. Seeing his name written in Hebrew characters besides the Star of David reminded me that his story is my story too. And my story is my mom’s story. And my mom’s story is my story. No one can take that away from us. Not even my own relatives.

Because I know who I am.