Being a Filipino Male in America

This is from Romina Saha who writes for Filipinas Magazine . . .


Being a Filipino Male in America: Who Cooks the Adobo?

Traditional gender roles no longer work in the U.S.

My wife tells my friends that I wear the pants in the family … but she dictates what color.”
Remigio Tabangin, Jr., 63, a deputy clerk in Delaware, makes light of my question: “Do you consider yourself the head of the household?” But his answer was actually revealing: gender roles in Filipino families, whether in the Philippines or in the United States, are sometimes reversible and not hard and fast.

I wanted to know if some Filipino males’ views on gender roles and their attitudes and behaviors as males changed after they migrated to the U.S. I ran an informal e-mail survey among nine men, six of whom responded back. Not a bad return rate, according to Dr. Leo Paz, professor and chair of Philippine Studies at the City College of San Francisco.

Paz himself says he had “evolved” since he arrived here 14 years ago. As he completed his master’s degree, his wife helped support him, a necessary measure. “Society here is more open and attitudes are more liberal,” Paz says. In the Philippines, the husband is still widely expected to be the breadwinner.

The running joke that the Filipino husband wears the pants in the household but the wife picks the color is a tongue-in-cheek allusion to the Filipino family structure. Gaspar Sardalla, a professor of Philippine history at City College of San Francisco and researcher of Philippine social issues, points out that Philippine society likes to perpetuate an illusion that it is patriarchal because of the “machismo” concept introduced by the Spanish. That is “fiction,” he says, and the reality is that it is matriarchal.

Sardalla’s observations are quite astute, if not borne out by statistical research: The mother holds the purse strings and allocates financial resources. Most Filipinos know more relatives on the mother’s side than on the father’s side. In case of the father’s death, the mother can maintain family solidarity more easily than if it had been the other way around. In the 1970s, when thousands of men went overseas to work in the Middle East oil fields, many women proved they could hold their families together as single parents. When the situation was reversed in the 1980s and more women went abroad to work as domestic helpers or nurses, many men were left at home feeling emasculated and unable to maintain family unity.

Sardalla’s views, of course, may be pure conjecture but are certainly food for thought. Asked how Filipino cultural dynamics play out in the American setting, Sardalla says because the social constraints are no longer present here, the wife feels freer and becomes more assertive, especially if she has found a job better than her husband’s. The husband, who saw himself as the dominant partner back home, now feels powerless and not in control, resulting in frustration or sometimes depression. This situation has sometimes resulted in male violence against the wife and children.
In the Philippines, the wife cannot berate the husband for his shortcomings because she was taught that she should not make him feel like he is less of a man, Sardalla explains. Also, the extended families – a support system not always present here – intervene during marital disputes before matters get worse, he adds.

Equal Rights

The men I surveyed seem more upbeat, all expressing a belief in equal rights between men and women, whether in career or housework. All place more responsibility on themselves as individuals rather than on cultural or social determinants.

“The responsibility of making a house a home rests not solely on the shoulders of the woman but on both partners,” says Noel G. Samonte, 47, a mortgage loan agent in Vallejo, Calif. “Not losing sight of the focus that family unity is priority makes decisions on adjustments easier. Physical presence or absence per se does not determine success or failure in homemaking.”

Tabangin believes the Filipino-American male is more focused on family. “Because of the lack of ‘yayas (nannies)’ and ‘katulongs (maids),’ the Filipino male tends to bond more with the children.” Children in the Philippines tend to grow up with the maids, he says and “dad spent more time with the ‘barkadas (male friends)’,” Tabangin adds.

Christian Manansala, 34, an educator and writer in San Francisco, says “any woman should have the right to work outside of her home if that would make her happy and complete.” In the Philippines, “men are still more powerful than women,” Manansala says. Thus, he says, “being male in the Philippines is much more of an advantage than in the United States” where more laws are in place to protect both sexes in careers and education.

Willy J. Vasquez, 42, of Carson City, Calif., agrees. “A woman should work to augment the family income and for her own self-esteem,” he says. More to the point, he says Filipino men in the Philippines are “consumed by the macho mentality.”

Sanny Leviste, 49, management consultant, of, Mountain View, Calif., hesitates to call himself the head of the household. “It is a partnership, depending on the situation,” he says. “Each one of us allows the other to take the initiative.” Leviste has an interesting proposition: “Men should stay at home more often. Call it cross posting or gender sensitivity. Whatever it is, women are as capable as men in doing work so why limit their potential?”

Philip A. Samatra, 35, an investment consultant in San Francisco and admittedly gay, says communication is vital between partners when making career decisions. Doing household work, Samatra says, is “a matter of dividing work at home. Work rotation is the key word.”
While having a querida or mistress is often tolerated among Filipino men in the Philippines, with the typical rationalization that “men don’t lose anything (walang mawawala sa lalaki)” if they have an affair, my Filipino American respondents agree that infidelity on either side is unacceptable.

Broader View

Stereotypical beliefs about gays in the Philippines – that is, that gays are flamboyant, flippant, and excel only in the fashion and beauty trades – are still prevalent. As Samonte observes, “generally, homosexuals are ridiculed in the Philippines.”

Conservatism within predominantly Catholic families make it hard for some homosexuals to be accepted even within their own families, often forcing them to isolate themselves and live among other gays. But Paz points out that particularly in California, where the gay population seems larger and more open, there is a higher likelihood of straight men coming in direct contact with gays and actually getting to know them.

“Some of the best and most talented people I’ve met here are gays,” he says, pointing out that he may not have had the same opportunity of interacting with homosexuals in the Philippines because they were in more isolated groups. With such openness, we see gays as no longer limited to just being fashion designers or beauty experts or stage performers. Homosexuals here could be openly gay in any field – except perhaps the military – academe, science and technology, finance, or even government.

Samatra, himself gay, works at a bank and considers himself of the “don’t ask, don’t tell” persuasion. He is “not necessarily hiding,” he says, “just telling the truth when confronted.”

It is normal, perhaps even to be expected, for immigrants, especially those who relocated when they were already adults, to change their attitudes and behaviors, even on matters that would seem deeply culturally ingrained. This process, according to the U.S. Surgeon General, is called “acculturation, or adoption of the worldviews and living patterns of a new culture.” The average number of years the six men in my survey have been living in America is 15 years, long enough for acculturation to occur.
All six Filipino American men in my survey express a belief in equal rights and equal opportunities for women, particularly, in employment. They also believe that no specific household chore is the exclusive domain of either the wife or the husband. (“The only limiting factors are opportunity, physical strength, and ability,” says one. “If (the husband) is good at cooking, let him make the adobo,” says another.) Assigning household chores should be based on the “level of competency,” they say. All of them say infidelity on either side is not right. All of them also expressed a greater tolerance, or at least awareness, of homosexual’s rights and roles in society.

But perhaps Samonte’s remarks reveal more than what some men are willing to admit: “The Filipino male in America is like an eagle taken out of its natural habitat” that had double standards in his favor. “The habitat he is in right now forces him to play by different rules. Many a macho ego have been crushed by failure in landing ‘decent’ jobs behind desks and in high-rise buildings and being forced into jobs that were looked down upon in the old country. Matters are made worse when wives land jobs that make real money and (these women) become stars at their workplaces.”

Romina D. Saha considers herself an unpaid full-time chauffeur, social secretary, manager, shopping specialist, Internet researcher, teacher, and chef. She moonlights as a writer.