My Italian Heritage

My father forgot to mention it to me when he was alive, that he had European ancestry as well. No wonder in his old age his complexion became much fairer. He did not go outdoors anymore because he could not barely walk.

When my sister went to Europe she said that she would pass by a Men's Clothing Line with the brand Ermenegildo Zegna. My name is a Spanish version which is Hermenegildo. H is silent in Spanish i.e. not pronounced.

When another sister went to Italy she said that the Italians look like my brother Roberto and I. In Rome, when he was alive he went into class and the professor asked him if he understood English. He chuckled because he was mistaken as an Italian by a fellow Filipino.

Just recently, a well-traveled husband of a family friend of my sister-in-law told me at the airport that he perceived me to be Italian. And when other nationalities would see me could not get it correctly, he insisted that I should have told them that I am Italian.

Yes, I may look Southern European but I see myself as Filipino, a Kabayan. 

A young lass in the touristic place told me she is Half-Malaysian and Half-Filipina. And she told me she had studied in the Philippines and she had only read about our kind in history books.

And yet we are the visible minority, in Philippine Cinema and Television it is overly saturated by people like us. I remember my foreigner friend who is white and she was disappointed to know that the majority of people outside of the reel world are not the same. She was looking for the kind that she saw on TV.

Filipinos have a penchant for European looking actors and actresses, of course the models too can be full white.

Virtually if you would watch a series in the Philippines you would think it is a telenovela from Latin America.

I remember the lady in a hotel in Massachusetts. who told me that Philippine ladies are so beautiful as she avidly watches the beauty pageants on TV.

Personally, I would agree The Filipinos are a beautiful people. The admixture of the different races that intermarried throughout history made the modern Filipinos into a superior evolution of a genetic powerhouse.

One might be surprised that in Hollywood there are quite a number of celebrities of Filipino descent. They have blended so well with the rest of the professionals in that artistic field.

Statistically, the Filipinos are the third in ranking within the International Diaspora then with India being second and then China being first. And, Filipinos are one of the peoples who commit into interracial marriages the most.

Maybe, in the not so distant future the next generations would say, "I got a little bit of Filipino in me".