My mom has always talked about her side of the family being Spanish. Filipino culture always makes way for those with Spanish blood to be superior. I internalized that as a child. I took all the "wow you look like you're mixed," "no you can't just be Filipino"" or "wow is your dad white" as a compliment [though this one did make me uncomfortable]" not fully realizing it put down who my father is and his side being related to the Igorots. I used to boast all the time about how Philippines has a lot of Spanish culture, and failed to see the greatness and the sadness that was shunned from the island natives and southeast Asian culture and the richness of all the cultures that came by boat prior to the colonizers.
Then, as I got older I decided to read about my history. I found out that the Spanish were terrible to us. We were made slaves, and our land was used for profit, and our valuables and culture stripped from us as we were painted evil, uneducated and barbaric for 300+ years. Then the same process was done by the USA for 50 years and arguably still today. The Philippines is left trying to reverse the corruption of government and church and fighting the ever growing poverty from all the land that was destroyed and opportunities stolen by Spain and the USA.
Though I have Spanish in me, I do not have Spanish guilt from what the Spanish did. I don't have that white guilt that makes me feel attacked or sad. I feel like fighting back and reversing the mindset. I fee like helping out when I can for myself, my people, and other people who are affected by the same or similar. Fuck those Spanish ancestors. I don't take pride in them. All the greatness was a lie it was terrorism and racism. Once you accept that you can get past the "guilt."
That is the mindset I hope White-Americans have in terms of helping create equality and questioning the infrastructure and history of America and even Europe. Accept the darkness of slavery, imperialism and colonization and let it feed you with the fire to help others and make way for change.
