Who are you? This is one of the shortest questions you would be asked in your lifetime. You will be asked whenever you meet someone new, applying for a job, or writing your college essays. It only consists of three words wrapped up in a simple sentence structure. Yet, it is the same simplicity that makes it one of the most complex questions we could ever ask ourselves.
“Who are we?” It must be easy to answer this question for nobody would know you as much as you do. And yet, the more we continue to look at ourselves, the more confused we are about what makes us, well us?
It also amazes me how a simple question can ask one of the mysteries of life. Where does our identity come from? Before asking about identity, let us know what it is not. Some will describe themselves as talkative while others will say they are shy. If you would analyze their answers, it does not talk about their identity, they are describing their personality.
Having a personality is a matter of destiny and not a choice. Some cannot stop their excitement when meeting someone new, while others are critical when meeting others. Personality is nothing more than an instinct that dictates how we would think, act, and create our version of reality in the world that we live in.
If personality does not encapsulate our identity, then what will?
As humans, we interact in the world beyond our instincts. We are gifted with free will and intellect to make out the best of what we have. We use our gift of free will to interact with people who share personal beliefs as we do. And that is what we call culture. We look and associate ourselves with people who share the same culture as we do. Culture not strictly in a geographical sense, but it is an emotional bond that we choose to form with others because of our same passions in life.
If culture is a reflection of our identity, how do we find ourselves if our culture was taken away from us in the first place? Let us take my home country the Philippines as an example. It had been under Spanish rule for three hundred and thirty-three years. Then Spain sold us to the United States. And years after, the United States lost us to Japan. Looking back at my history, traces of our original culture is almost whipped out. It is only the high mountains that protected some of our ancestors to be influenced and forced to change their beliefs.
At first glance, it seems as if the Philippines is doomed to have an identity crisis. But all is not lost. What makes a culture alive is the language. As long as the people speak their language, they would always be reminded of who they are and where they came from. Having been under Spaniard rule for more than three centuries, it is no wonder that ninety percent of our language is directly influenced by the Spanish language. I used to ask my Filipino teacher that if our language is almost identical to Spanish, why to bother with the trouble of creating our language and not just embrace the Spanish language as our own.
The words that came out of her mouth will soon be entrenched in my memory and heart for as long as I live. She asked me to explain what the word “Malasakit” means. If you would look at a Filipino to English dictionary, the word translates into compassion. And I was surprised to learn from her that “Malasakit” means more than having compassion. “Malasakit” has the word “Sakit” in it, which means pain.
She told me that for others, they are only compassionate if they have the luxury of money and time. But for a Filipino, compassion requires us the pain of sacrifice to give others our time and money even at our expense. After that, she keeps giving me examples of Filipino words that have no direct English translation. Such as the word “Kilig” which describes a feeling of excitement and nervousness as if seeing your crush by simply watching a romance movie. Or the word “Bayanihan” which describes the spiritual bond with strangers to help each other while fighting for the common good.
My teacher taught me that while it is true that it may be easier and more practical to embrace the Spanish language, Spanish and no other languages can describe the heart and mind of a Filipino. It is no wonder that no matter how many countries that a Filipino has lived in or for how long they left the country, they always find a way to come back and speak our mother tongue.
For no matter how long they since last spoken Filipino, their heart and soul will always find a way to connect them back to our roots. It is the language that reminds and shapes our culture, and it is our culture that binds our society to share a common identity. Making us Filipinos resilient, persistent, and optimistic in the face of calamities and misfortunes.
The only way for us to know our identity is by experiencing life with others. And language is the only tool that we have to create an emotional, spiritual, and logical bond with the rest of society. To answer the question “Who are you?”, we must review our history, and celebrate the culture and the language that our ancestors have passed down to us.
So, who am I? I am Jeslyn Jerota, and I am proud to be Filipino.