I’ve never been quite sure, between Japanese-American and Asian-American, which label to use first. Especially as a fourth-generation Japanese-American, or “yonsei,” I’ve always felt so disconnected from my culture it felt almost disingenuous to call myself Japanese. Or what about my identity as a quarter Okinawan, which I never wrote in on the “Other” box on the census or told people in a conversation because when I mentioned I was that and Japanese, people would always shrug and say “Same thing.” Despite the fact that Okinawans and Japanese people spoke different languages, had different cultural traditions, and even had different physical traits, I began to watch as my different identities swallowed each other whole over the years. For breakfast was Okinawan, then lunch, Japanese, until Asian-American began to feel like the only appropriate phrasing to use.
So when I walked into the Pilipino Workers Center (PWC), I wasn’t sure how my identity would come into play. Yes, like them, I was Asian-American, but unlike them, I was East Asian, and I knew that aspect of my identity conferred certain privileges that were denied to Southeast Asians. I was unsure of how to advocate for this community that suffered from a distinct set of struggles without speaking over them or overstepping boundaries.
While I was nervous to begin my work with PWC, I was met with nothing but warm smiles and education about the workplace culture. My internship supervisor, Shekinah Deocares, taught me the ins and outs of of the workplace, like that in Pilipino culture, “tito” is used as an honorific for someone older than you, like an uncle, and “tita” in the same way for female-identifying individuals. In Japanese, there are plenty of honorifics used for those older than you, and I found myself appreciating the ways in which our varying language can convey similar ideas of respect.
As I work on my assignment of cross-racial and cross-ethnic coalition building through PWC’s Stop the Hate grant, I am slowly learning how to recognize our identities within our identities, but also how sometimes, it is helpful to forgo labels. When I do research on community-based organizations that have the capacity to translate for Vietnamese communities or do culturally-competent outreach to Black communities, I see the opportunity to expand services past language and cultural barriers. Despite this, there is value in serving our own specific communities. Pilipino Workers Center conducts in-language services for the immigrant and Pilipino community, and without a focus in Tagalog and Pilipino culture, their services would not reach the same depth that they have.
Questions of the pan-ethnic label of Asian-American will always exist within our community. I don’t think there will ever be a time I know without a doubt which identity I will put forward first, but I’ve been able to find value in all of them. “Asian-American” coalitions helped to pull together the political power to obtain Stop the Hate grants for communities of color through the government in the first place, while specific ethnic labels like “Pilipino” give PWC the power to serve a specific community’s needs.
Thinking on these labels made me think of something Nancy Yap, CAUSE’s Executive Director, said when we were discussing if it was productive to be “Asian-American.” She told us that “There’s not enough of us to do it on our own.” The 2020 Census recorded AAPI individuals as 7.2% of the population. The numbers say it all. Split into our own ethnic groups, there’s simply not enough of us to exact change on a national level. In a class on ethnic politics last semester, I had learned about a similar phenomenon with the Latinx population. In order to gain resources and to collect data, Latinx organizations worked with the government to create the pan-ethnic label of Latinx, or Hispanic. The power of coalition-building is not one limited to the AAPI community.
I still don’t know which label to use, but I trust that each has its own value.