A Letter to My White Boyfriend
You are you, and I am me. But we are not the same. Here are all the reasons why I put you on such a tall pedestal.
You are the complete opposite of me.
My boyfriend of one year is a white man. Born in Florida, he comes from a family that celebrates football Sundays and owns two-story houses. His family has money that paid off his college tuition in full cash. He is six years older than me, living with the memories of the Nintendo GameCube. He fell in love with me at a photography studio when he was the studio manager. He thought I was funny and made fun of my constant tardiness.
I am an Asian-American woman. Born in Manila, Philippines, I come from a family that celebrated the Lord’s Day on Sundays and lived in one-bedroom apartments. My family used food stamps and anticipate six-figure college debt. I am six years younger than him, living with the memories of the new Disney Channel. I hooked up with my boss at my college job at a photography studio as the front desk associate. I was entranced by his hazel eyes and light skin.
Slowly over time, our secret night sessions shed light into our true feelings. I was a hyper independent woman scared of commitment from fated past relationships. He was an optimistic romantic with one high school relationship from a decade ago. He treated me with kindness, then patience, then love. I treated him like a commodity, an inconvenience, then a burden. I expressed to him my fears and how they shaped who I have become—why I was scared of committing to a man like him. A man that was wealthy, older, and white. It was like dating a god.
When we first started dating, our lifestyles merged that bore the consequences of our different backgrounds of life. I lived in a closet-sized room in a flex wall apartment. The first time I brought him over, I was overtly embarrassed that he can hear my roommate's television or how his hands cannot stretch out completely in my tiny bedroom. When he invited me to his place, I emerged into a massive studio in a high-rise building that gets plenty of sunlight and a New York City view. He gleefully showed me his guitar collection on the walls and we blasted loud Mario Kart games on his smart TV. No matter his objections, I demanded we always stayed at his place. Why bother in my tiny flex wall bedroom when his parent-paid studio is all we both ever wanted?
My boyfriend Ubers to work and orders takeout for dinner. He sends his mother funny Instagram reels and his father calls him to ask about his day. He talks to the doormen with confidence and ease. He doesn’t bat an eye when we stroll at Central Park on a sunny day. He walks into his apartment with shoes on. He always quickly cuts off the tag of a newly bought shirt.
I wake up an hour early to take the subway to three jobs. I cook every meal with Trader Joe’s groceries and answer my dad’s calls with trepidation. I rummage for sunscreen when we eat at a table near a window. I instantly take off my shoes and put on my apartment slippers. I wait a month to cut the tag off of a new pair of jeans.
Family. Family was always a tricky subject. I did not want to talk about it. Any time my new, white boyfriend asked about my family, I was embarrassed to say “I do not have family in the states.”
“So where do they live? In the Philippines?”
“Yes. My dad moved back there for the family business.”
“That’s cool! Maybe we can go visit him someday.”
I thought he pitied me. There is no way that my new, white boyfriend wanted to go to my home country—a third-world country that called the country we actually are standing on “The Land of Milk and Honey.” I wished he forgot that I was a Filipina and recognized that I am a naturalized U.S. Citizen. That was a feat that took more labor and should be granted more notice.
I have never been more nervous in my life than the night I met his family. On the Uber ride, I kept fidgeting my hands and rubbing my temples. My boyfriend told me I had nothing to worry about. How could I explain to him the fear of meeting seven pairs of blue and hazel eyes?
They invited me to a restaurant called Per Se. I hugged his esthetician mom who complimented my dress. I shook hands with his plastic surgeon dad whose cologne smelled of roses. I was incredibly nervous that my dress would be revealed to be a $10 thrift. I did not know that the white linen was meant to be on my lap. I learned that certain forks are used for certain dishes. I became painfully aware that one can sit at a dinner table for a total of five hours, conversing about near future goals and all the ways wine can taste. When the bill came, it amounted to about a thousand dollars. Anger and embarrassment.
I picked a fight with my new, white boyfriend after this dinner.
“How can someone throw away that much money for food? Did you know that the dinner could have paid my whole month’s rent? I work three jobs and they eat dinner.”
My boyfriend met my dad on the floor of my apartment. After a flight from the Philippines, my dad walked into my apartment door with a luggage full of Filipino snacks. He quickly shook hands with my new, white boyfriend and went straight to his priority: food.
“Sit! Sit! Paul, have you heard of polvoron?”
As my dad and the boyfriend sat on my floor with an open luggage full of childhood snacks, I stood in utter confusion and panic. Each welcoming bite of my boyfriend signified a bite into my culture. One day, he was my boss who happened to be a white, handsome man. Now, he is sitting on my dirty apartment floor eating my favorite Filipino biscuit. Would he leave me because my oblivious father is eating biscuits on the floor?
“This is so good! Are there different flavors? I know it was Cai’s favorite.”
Cai. He used my family name—a name reserved only for my family. I treated that name like taboo, my biggest secret. I dreaded every moment when my brother accidentally called me Cai in front of my classmates. Cai is a nine-year-old Filipina girl who got bullied for her accent and constant hand-raising. Maria is the person he fell in love with. Maria is the person I desperately wanted him to know me as.
My boyfriend embraced my Filipino-ness with every bite into adobo and every new Tagalog phrase. However, I defensively pouted at every Michelin star restaurant and sports game his family invited me to. I made no effort to laugh at the jokes about world events I deemed too old for my age. I rolled my eyes at their Hamptons vacation and crossed my arms in their Miami Dolphins jerseys. They would drink beers and sing chants at stadiums or living room couches. I did not understand their sports culture at all. They looked crazily obsessed in my eyes to root for a team who does not personally know you. Despite the many Chanel bags and luxurious vacations, I was not their equal. I was bitter and jealous. It was like living with gods who took a poor, wounded mortal in. My boyfriend was too blind to see that a poor Filipina girl like me does not belong in his wealthy white family.
The fetishization of Asian women is a real thing. It would have been foolish of me to not consider this the moment we agreed to see each other. I stalked his Instagram on one of the first nights of our hookups. Please no Asian girl. Please no Asian girl. Instead, I found cringy pictures of a boy wearing a Santa costume. The majority of posts were of his mother and little sister. His very first post was back in 2014 with his high school girlfriend. She looked nothing like me. There were Asian girl / white boy relationships all throughout the media that always intrigued and scared me. Vanessa Hudgens and Zac Efron from High School Musical series. Fictional high school characters Belly and Conrad in the The Summer I Turned Pretty television series. Could we be a normal interracial couple like them?
Beauty. His eyes are a beautiful hazel. We would flip through the scrapbooks and he would mention how his eyes used to be blue. His brown curly hair and smooth, light skin seemed godly. I would hesitantly show my baby pictures and embarrassingly, I did not change a single bit. My eyes are still black. My hair is still thick, straight black hair and my skin is still beige.
“Look at you! You looked so cute.”
“You’re lying. You were the one with blue eyes.”
I grew up in a household where skin whitening products sat on the bathroom sinks. Half the population of the Philippines consumed skin whitening products. On almost every family party, Filipina elders would stroke my forearms and say in Tagalog “Ang puti ng balat mo.”
Your skin is so white.
My mother would scold me for staying at parks for too long, saying my skin would go dark. We seldom went to the beach. In the car, my mother would drape a towel on her arms while driving when the sun blasted through the windows. I tell this all to my boyfriend. He thinks this is outrageous. He compliments my hair and tells me my eyes are his favorites to look at. He gets upset when I stare at mirrors for too long. He says I am perfect.
Despite these numerous obstacles, my boyfriend and I share similarities that surprisingly made a difference. We both come from divorced parents. We both know how to live off of a suitcase. We both secretly use the scale in the bathroom after we eat a big meal. We both worked during high school—me for money, him for family. We both went to church on Sundays. We scream our lungs out at karaoke duetting “Bohemian Rhapsody.” We think it is life or death in a game of Monopoly. We both hate pickles and love donuts. Our saddest tears are when we hug our parents one last time at an airport.
To this day, my boyfriend would memorize a new sentence in Tagalog a week. I would learn a new football player’s name and position. He would try to pronounce every Filipino dish on the menu of Mama Fina’s. I would crack a corny Dad joke with his stepfather Charlie. He pays for all my meals and plans every single date. I shower him with kisses and talk about why we cannot have a Star Wars kitchen in our future home.
That being said, this interracial relationship still has its ups and downs. He still does not understand why I cannot introduce him to my grandparents. I still have to calm down when he surprises me with a bag I cannot afford. At our worst, I threaten to break up with him because we are so different. Feelings of anxiety and embarrassment creep into me when I become aware that he is a white man and I am a Filipina girl. He comes from money, stability, and family. I am the opposite.
To my boyfriend. You are the complete opposite of me. But, you accept me for who I am. Here are all the reasons why I put you on such a tall pedestal. Thank you for telling me that I do not need to boost my own pedestal up. Rather, thank you for showing me that we are both on the same ground.
Mahal kita.