BagongPinay - PinayNgayon - We Will Never Forget, by Olivia Rebanal

One of the Happiest Days of My Life
by Olivia M. Rebanal

I woke up on September 22nd, 2000, with a feeling of anticipation, fear, and nervousness. I was due in three days, but I had a feeling that our little bundle of joy would pop out sooner.

For months beforehand, my husband and I were toying with ideas for a name. In my family, the daughter (me) was named using the first letter of my mother’s name, Ofelia. So, I was named Olivia. My brothers, Jose III and Jonathan, were named using similar convention, starting with the first letter of our father’s name, Jose. And, in very Filipino fashion, “Jose the Third” became Jojo, and Jonathan became fondly known and Jonjon.

In my husband’s family, I guess his father Raphy won the naming game. David was born Raphy David, and his three siblings were born as Randolph, Rachel, and Raeann.

So, in following with tradition, we prepared our names. If it was a boy, he would be Raphy Joseph. The name would serve three purposes in one fell swoop – using the first letter of R. David’s first name, “R”; honoring his paternal grandfather (David’s father), Raphy; and honoring his maternal grandfather (my father), Jose Jr.

Alas, the following day, out came our little angel – a girl. She was named Ophelia. Again, we served three purposes in one fell swoop – using the first letter “O” from my name; honoring David’s mother, Ofelia; and honoring my mother, Ofelia.

How star-crossed is that? My husband’s mother name is my mother’s name. And, our mothers’ names became the origin of our daughter’s name.

I often wonder if Philly (as we so affectionately call our daughter) will retain any Filipino traditions or customs other than the etiology of her name. When I was younger, I didn’t think of my family’s traditions as being “Filipino.” Our huge family gatherings, our intricate web extended family relations, the hard-working ethic, the heavy valuation of pre-professional studies, and the food, food, food! – Would she experience these things as I had? What does the term “Filipino American” mean to me, having been born and raised in the States and having had parents whom were born and raised in the Philippines? The issues surrounding this question are issues with which I, along with other Filipino and Filipino American youths, struggled in college. We had forums, workshops, dialogues, roundtables, panels, and other events that were designed to help us dissect, scrutinize, explore, deconstruct, and reconstruct our ethnic identities. “Identity politics,” we called it.

There was an ensuing question that we never really covered in all those discussions in college – how would our children identify with their ethnic heritage? How is my growing-up experience going to be different from my daughter’s, whose parents are born and raised in the States? How will her notion of “Filipino American” be different from mine and my husband’s? Will Philly even identify as being Filipino?