Why does this keep happening? First Mom… then her. Two Filipino women, the two who were supposed to have my back, and both chose white men over me. Over us. Over everything we were.
I still remember the day Mom brought him home. That tall, pale American with his fake smile and his loud voice. She looked at him like he was salvation. Like Dad—my real dad, the one who worked himself to death in the rice fields and the factories back home—never existed. Suddenly our little apartment smelled like his cologne instead of adobo and rice. And me? I was in the way. Too brown. Too quiet. Too much of a reminder of the life she wanted to escape.
He made sure I knew it. The slurs started small, then got sharper. “Faggot.” “Little bakla.” He’d laugh like it was a joke while Mom stayed silent in the kitchen. And that barong… my barong. The one Lolo gave me before we left the Philippines. Pure white, embroidered with the patterns of our ancestors. He called it “peasant shit” and burned it in the backyard grill while I watched from the window. The smoke smelled like my childhood dying. Mom said nothing. She chose him. She always chose him.
Years later I thought I’d broken the cycle. My girlfriend—beautiful, smart, from the same province as my family. She understood the weight we carry. The colonial hangover. The way the world still looks at us like we’re maids and delivery boys. We talked about it for hours. Then one day she left. For him. Some white guy from her office. “He’s different,” she said. “He makes me feel… safe.” Safe. From what? From me? From our own skin?
The pattern hits like a slap. Filipino women choosing the colonizer’s sons. Again and again. Mom did it. She did it. How many more will trade their history for blue eyes and a passport? How many more will let their sons watch their culture burn?
No more.
That’s why I stay focused. Laser-focused. This pain isn’t just personal—it’s political. It’s imperialism in the flesh. White supremacy didn’t end with empires on maps; it lives in bedrooms and family photos. It whispers that our men aren’t enough, that our traditions are backward, that whiteness is the upgrade. My stepdad wasn’t just an asshole—he was the boot on our necks wearing a friendly face. The system that taught my mother to hate her own reflection.
Every book I read on anti-imperialism, every protest, every late night organizing… it’s reclamation. It’s me refusing to be the broken son, the abandoned boyfriend, the cultural casualty. I’ll tear down the lies they built this world on. I’ll expose how the same forces that colonized the Philippines still colonize our hearts and our beds today. My dignity isn’t gone—it’s forged in this fire. The rage has purpose now.
But they will not take the revolution I’m becoming.
They took my family. They took my girl. They tried to take my identity. Enough is enough.
Not one more inch.
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