Exploring the nuances of mother-daughter relationships in Filipino families
Inspired by emerging Asian-American media like "Minor Feelings" and "Turning Red", I talk about the complexities of the mother and daughter dynamic.
Mother’s Day is coming up. What better way to celebrate it with an essay exploring the intricacies of the mother-daughter relationship through the eyes of a Filipina? It’s honestly been difficult thinking about Mother’s Day and how I should celebrate it whilst I’m in New York City and my mother is in Florida after hearing about the leaked opinion by the Supreme Court justices this week. That will be saved for another conversation though.
Anyways, seeing as it’s also Asian and Pacific-Islander-American Heritage Month (APAHM) I’ve recently been consuming stories that center around Asian-American narratives. Amongst these stories, they explore briefly the mother-daughter dynamic to which I’ve begun to reflect on as we’re approaching Mother’s Day.
I’ve always seen myself becoming a mother one day. Having been raised with all sisters, I’ve always imagined myself having daughters of my own and raising them to be strong independent women the same way my parents raised me and my sisters. But I realized how difficult being a mother is when I first met my niece.
I travelled back to Florida to my parent’s home for Christmas and New Years to see my newly born niece, Caspin, for the first time. My brother-in-law was still working in Hawaii so my sister was taking care of their daughter herself - with the help of my sister, parents, and now myself for a brief two weeks. When she cried and needed changing or needed feeding, they had already established a system: sister 1 lays out the changing area/warms the formula; sister 2 gets ready the new clothes/grabs the bib for burping; and the parent calms the baby/gives her the pacifier. My sister works full-time from home on top of being a full-time mother, so everyday she’s exhausted. This brief insight to motherhood provided an amassed respect to mothers all over - especially single mothers because how do they do it?!
One of the things that I find so exciting about being a mother is watching your children grow. Seeing how they turn out, what kind of personality, interests, and goals they develop, and seeing which one of their parents they look like the most. Watching my niece grow made me think about this: I wonder what she will grow up to be? I tell my sister this all the time, but she tells me she’s going to be a professional tennis player and go to Ivy League schools and she’s going to know three languages (an exaggeration, but the gist is there).
I’ve noticed this similar pattern amongst the mothers and daughters in the books and films that I’ve been reading and watching lately. “Turning Red” (perhaps my new favorite film) explores a 13-year-old girl’s journey in discovering who she is as she goes through puberty (turning into a red panda represents “womanhood” from my interpretations). It depicts the nature of Meilin Lee and her mother, Ming’s, relationship, which is a complicated and messy roller-coaster ride as it’s filled with butting heads, yelling and crying, and smiles and joy as Meilin “Mei-Mei”’s character development progresses over time. She works hard to become the best daughter that her mother expects her to be. Towards the end of the film, as Mei-Mei and her mother face each other panda-to-panda, I felt a pang in my stomach when she screamed “I will never be good enough for you!”, as well as sobbed ugly fountains when Meilin’s mother cried a similar statement - alluding to her relationship with her own mother.
An interesting quote I found from Cathy Park Hong’s Minor Feelings: An Asian-American Reckoning was “If the indebted Asian immigrant thinks they owe their life to America, the child thinks they owe their livelihood to their parents for their suffering.” I felt the same pang I had felt from “Turning Red” and it made evaluate my experiences as a child of immigrant parents. Meilin said, after she stared down at her reflection and slapped herself, “You are [your mother’s] pride and joy — so act like it!”; when her friends told her she should keep the red panda, she exclaimed she can’t because “all her hopes and dreams are pinned on me.” The Pixar film is based in Canada, but it still hints to the idea of indebtedness to immigrant parents pursuing a better life. Meilin feels indebted to her parents, particularly her mother with whom she’s constantly seeking her approval.
I watched this touching film about a Filipina musician, Rose Garcia (played by Eva Noblezada, Hadestown) processing the deportation of her mother, Priscilla (Princess Punzalan, Mula sa Puso), and how that’s one of the catalyst in her development as country singer in Texas. The film, titled “Yellow Rose”, is an uncommon narrative that intersects Filipino identity and (what I think is a very American thing) country music and it also explores the complexities of the mother-daughter dynamic when it’s intervened with immigration policies. There was that pang I felt when her mother was getting taken away by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) when Rose came home after sneaking out with a boy that her mother forbade. It made me reflect on my own relationship with my mother, how much she cares for us, and how much of that we take for granted.
My relationship with my own mother isn’t as dramatic as Meilin and Ming’s where I have the ability to turn into a red panda. She isn’t the watchful hawk, hiding behind a tree and watching through the classroom windows the same way Ming did. She is, however, just as conservative as Priscilla! Growing up, I still felt that notion of indebtedness - to fulfill the dreams of my parents and become successful. I asked my mother if you didn’t have children, what would you have done? And she said I would’ve become a flight attendant, that’s what I wanted to be growing up. When I visited the Philippines ten years ago, after the two weeks we were there, we boarded the plane back to London and my mother started crying and squeezed my hand. I looked at her and saw she was trying really hard to not cry. I realized in those moments the sacrifices she and my father made to give us the life and opportunities we received. They gave up their career goals. They left their family and their home, for us.
From past interviews and conversations I’ve had with my Filipina friends, they’ve all had similar experiences. I interviewed a fellow New School student last year, Victoria, for a story on intergenerational trauma in Filipino families and she said “I learned everything on my own, things are really hard for them and they work really hard to get here. I didn’t want to unload my struggles as well because it felt like a burden.”
Do you have experiences like these with your mother, growing up as a Filipino-American? What kind of ways did your interchanging identities affect your relationship with your mother?
My mother is quiet and soft-spoken. She gets intimidated when she speaks to English-speaking people because she’s concerned she’ll be looked down upon for her broken English. She has short, thinning hair - a trait I picked up - that she dyed brownish-red without bleaching, so there’s a red undertone in the deep black strands. She had golden brown skin that she whitened with whitening cream over the years - a result of colonialist beauty standards. She works as a caregiver for crinkly old white men and I remember, when I lived with my parents before moving to New York City, she would come home from work too drained to do the dishes and would fall asleep. My mother is very experimental with her cooking, which is a hit or miss and I told her one time to not put salmon with pasta. She used to pay for my piano lessons, musical theatre classes, gymnastics and ballet training, and other active pursuits I embarked on. This past Christmas, she gifted me with a lunch bag, a wallet, and a pair of gold-plated hoop earrings.
To this day, I still feel that I will never be good enough for my mother - she has given me so much that has accumulated to a debt that I can never repay.