Can You Handle It?
Photo: Lemuel Ayudtud
Wlad and I met when we were both 22. I don't remember that first meeting but my first memory of him involved no interactions. Our church set up an outside service at Clove Lakes Park. He was there for a run and one of the youths who knew him invited him to sit down. He was so odd to me, I was convinced he must have special needs. He sat erect all those hours, hands clasped on his lap, his feet planted on the ground, never shifting. I can still see him to this day. Young, thin, so disciplined sitting immobile, never cracking a smile, so serious. He reminded me of a soldier. I was a firecracker, a girl preacher, a young nurse, in college to be a high school teacher, a wanna be writer, who couldn't be still even in my sleep. When I wasn't involved in some intense debate or yelling my lungs out singing or preaching on a stage, I was busy cracking jokes and being silly and laughing that awful, head back laughter at the slightest silly things with that exaggerated HA, HA, HA! Wlad never smiled unless there was good, convincing reason to.
He was such a serious boy.
And so, I watched this skinny, odd young, black man who sat very still on a hot summer day, listening to this group of loud, boisterous, church people and I was filled with curiosity. I was in a 5 year relationship with a tall, white boy with green eyes at that point. My curiosity over Wlad was simply that. Curiosity. Also, when you're a girl from the Philippines, you don't come to this country seeking to date black boys. You don't come to date brown boys either. You don't even come to date Filipino boys.
You only date the Whites.
That's not hard to do, of course not. There's this "Asian Fetish" going around so getting a White boy takes little to no effort. I'll never forget meeting a Filipino woman in my son's school who assumed I was a biracial mix of black and white. I'm used to people assuming I'm mixed with something but black and white only, no Asian whatsoever in me? I came here as an 11-year-old, she came as a full adult, after her international relationship with her husband ended successfully in a marriage. She couldn't wrap her head around me marrying a black man. Then that famous line soon followed her shock, "But you're so pretty, why did you marry him?" She then proceeded to gush over her White husband, did I see him (yes, only for the last 2 years), and wasn't he just so handsome with his blonde hair and blue eyes? It took every ounce in me not to say, If your husband was the only man on an island, I would drown myself.
So, if you meet a Filipino woman married to a black man, trust me, they have a story to tell.
But I digress, as I always do in every blog.
It turned out that Wlad and I both went to the same community college. And it's in college that we would end up connecting. He was a young immigrant boy from Haiti so he became my French tutor. We would end up talking for hours. Wlad was not only so intelligent, he was so wise. And he had an air of self-confidence that bore no arrogance. It was deep and organic and strangely mature. He knew who he was; he was not impressed by accomplishments or status but he looked down on no one. And darn it, he was so handsome, I used to get lost in his face. We were great friends for years and unbeknownst to me, quite luckily, this guy who just could not see the appeal in this "Asian persuasion" and couldn't understand the rave with Asian girls, found himself deeply in love with me.
I remember him dropping me home one October night and probing, "You've been dating your boyfriend for years. When is the wedding?" And I chuckled, "It's a secret, but we broke up. So don't tell anyone."
A year and a half later from that night, Wlad and I would be engaged.
And it was at that time, amidst everyone's shock that I had chosen this young, college, Black man, with far more accomplished White suitors outside my door, that my Dad sat me down. My Dad's "talk" was absent of racism and bigotry, and that conversation would prove to be one of the most important, informative moments of my life.
My Dad told me that in the United States, black people lived a difficult life. This difficulty was unfair and unjust, but it is their reality. Life is harder, accomplishments are tougher to gain, but this is their reality. He explained why minorities married white--to fit, to blend, to be accepted. In the end, to escape a life of difficulty. Marrying Wlad would mean embracing that difficulty and he asked, "Can you handle it?" And before I could answer, knowing my stubborn personality, my Dad said, "Your children will face that difficulty. Can you handle it?" And in a soft voice, my Dad told me that I need to prepare myself for some of the pains that my female relatives will never endure, since they would most likely marry White. Some of the pains and worries they will never have to experience with their children. I remember pausing. I remember thinking of these children of mine in the future. And I remember, an emotion of righteous indignation come over me. But along with that emotion was this sense of resilience. I would face discrimination head on. I would raise my children to know, not think, but to know, that they are no less. It was these future children that emboldened me even more to marry Wlad. I would get to have these little black kids and I would get to tell them that not only are they equal, but because they are of their father and the children of my womb, they will most likely be above the rest.
Indeed, our experience as a family, as far as being treated differently, have often been an unexpected welcome. My children grew up used to being looked at, stared at, and studied. They're accustomed to complete strangers from almost all races stopping us in the supermarket, at the mall, in the middle of dinner at a restaurant, and asking if our children are models and subsequently saying, "You're the most beautiful family we've ever seen." It's not uncommon for us to get good tables at restaurants, for patrons in facilities to strike up conversations, and for us to be allowed to cut in line.
But that conversation with my Dad prepared me for those moments when landlords gave me apartments to rent, only to pull them out when they met Wlad. It prepared me for comments in Filipino gatherings, "If you shave Aaron's head, he would look less black." It allowed me and Wlad to chuckle whenever old Asian couples stopped in their tracks to stare at us openly, aghast, as we walked by. It prepared me for those moments arguing with my son to keep that hoodie down when you walk, Aaron, stop asking why, just keep it down, for goodness' sake! It made us reflect thoughtfully when Wlad was pulled over and repeatedly asked if the BMW he was driving belonged to him and we came to the conclusion that I cannot hand down the Mercedes to Aaron when he gets his license. Young and black and Mercedes in a society of a different narrative is asking for trouble. And we were amused when we moved in this affluent neighborhood and the Buildings Department was called for some fictitious issue in our backyard. The inspector, a White man, was filled with disgust, profusely apologizing. We all knew what the issue really was. Wlad and I waved goodbye to that inspector as he drove away and we looked around us and chuckled.
Tough luck. We're here to stay.
Most importantly, quite recently, that race conversation prepared me to remind Alanna, as she sobbed about George Floyd, that one of her black uncles is also a police officer, and daddy's most trusted friend is a white lieutenant in the NYPD so no, they aren't all "killing us." But I wept for two days because I saw Aaron under Chauvin's knee and had to tell myself that I knew this would come with choosing Wlad. And my Dad was right. It hurts much more deeply when it involves your children. And my Dad was also right as I see posts from relatives who cannot relate----they would not experience pains I would, and would have no understanding why I post that black lives matter.
It would be a couple of years into our marriage that I would know more of Wlad's family, a group of black people made up of educators, politicians, lawyers, doctors, architects and engineers. I asked why he never told me about his family, the impressive stock he comes from and he just shrugged, "My family's accomplishments shouldn't be the basis of you choosing me."
I thought about that this morning, as I prepared breakfast for Wlad, something he is in charge of everyday. But it's Father's Day, so this was my gift. :-) It's so wonderfully my husband to not list his resume, to not say, this is the legacy I come from, choose me. Because being who he was, when I met him almost 25 years ago, was all the baseline I needed to make my decision. I chose him even after that heart to heart talk with my father. And after 19 years of marriage, with everything we've experienced, including things related to race, I would choose him a thousand times over for a thousand more years of him.
