Tag Archives: Immigrants

by H.P.

I’m Filipino-American, raised Catholic by immigrants, raised WITH immigrants and raised with pride.  (We also had seven dogs and never ate them.) I was raised in the Mission in San Francisco and being Asian was never a problem.  I was certainly not in the minority and neither were any of my Black, Latino, Asian or White friends in my Catholic school.  And it was because of this level playing field that we saw it as innocuous to blatantly point out each others’ race/ethnicity (both of which were words we would ignorantly interchange with nationality…but that’s a different article.)

But I knew I was in the minority, amongst my friends.  Being gay was that deep dark secret that I and all of my Catholic school buddies were taught to shun.  Abominable, I was.  I didn’t even know what that word meant!  The word only brought images of giant snowmen to mind, and I certainly wasn’t THAT.  (He was white, after all.) Continue reading →