The Lunchbox Effect.

Every child in America growing up with immigrant parents know this all too well.

It’s when you open your lunchbox filled with all the food you grew up on, and then all your classmates around you turn their heads. It’s when you dig into the food carried over from your native land, and then everyone around you wonders how you could eat something so disgusting. It’s when you go home and beg your parents to never pack that food for you ever again because of how embarrassed you got when everyone saw what you were eating.

When I was younger I was always scared to find out what I had for lunch that day. It was kind of like a game of roulette, and if my mom decided to pack anything other than a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or mac and cheese, I was screwed. People would look at me because my food looked so different from theirs. They would complain about how it smelled. It made me feel isolated. I hated feeling different from everyone else; I just wanted to fit in. This was my first experience realizing that I was different because of my culture. My heritage went from something I was proud of to something I was embarrassed about.

I started to push this side of me away. I started packing my own lunches so my mom wouldn't be able to pack last night's leftovers instead. I focused on my English classes instead of reading the old Tagalog vocabulary books my parents pushed for me to study. I tried so hard to fit into a culture that I was never supposed to be a part of in the first place. The Philippines is where my family came from, and no matter how hard I tried I couldn't throw that piece of me away.

Now in college, being a Filipinx American is something I have a lot of pride for. I am part of the FASA club on campus. I actively go to different festivals and learn different traditional dances. I’ve realized that my biggest regret growing up was not taking an active role in my own heritage while I was younger. I tried so hard to be a part of a society where I was told to be myself but then was punished for being different. My assimilation would result in the assassination of my culture in a place supposedly nicknamed the "Mixing Pot" of the world. However, these days it seemed more like a butcher knife, picking and choosing which parts they wanted to cut out. However, my culture is something I do not want to be taken away from me anymore.

Food is seen as the root of many cultures. Recipes are passed down throughout generations. Families are brought together by the dinner table. So why should I be embarrassed about the food I grew up on? I decided to stop hiding this part of my life and share it with the people around me. I started to learn my mother’s recipes. I read old family cookbooks brought over from the Philippines. The kitchen turned into a place where I can travel back to where my parents grew up.

While I started finding my culture again, society found it as well. I soon saw videos of Filipinx food all over my Facebook feed. Friends started coming up to me wanting to try ube because of an article they found on Twitter. I had friends wanting me to take them to my favorite dim sum places, or bubble tea, or sushi. I started seeing more and more of not only my culture, but other ethnicities being exposed on social media. The food I tried so desperately to hide while I was younger turned into a trend all over the internet.

While I am happy all my friends want to experience other cultures, and this sudden popularity has lead to more and more of different ethnicities opening up new restaurants, it upset me that this was only because society deemed these cultures as a new “trend.” Something I grew up on is now the next new “fad” as if it was a cute T-shirt at the mall, and with trends, they always fade onto the next one. A culture should not be seen as something that can be popular one moment, and then thrown away the next. There’s a difference between the appreciation of something and the popularity of something. People only found interest in my culture’s food because they saw a cool video on Facebook, not because they were truly interested in my heritage.

Imagine this: growing up being scared of your culture, to find it is a trendy new thing everyone wants to try. Society shouldn’t have forced me to assimilate, and then all of a sudden celebrate the one thing I was forced to throw away. So while I’m happy my culture has become involved with current society, most people will never forget that this is also the same society that has taken away many cultures because they were deemed too “different” for the white man.