What do Olivia Rodrigo, Saweetie, H.E.R., Bruno Mars, Elle King and Remy Martin have in common? Me.

During a watch party for “The O.C.” in my early 20s, a friend’s roommate leaned over conspiratorially. 

“You know she’s half Filipino,” he whispered, pointing to Summer Roberts, the pretty brunette played by actor Rachel Bilson. “Like you.”

“Huh.” I squinted my eyes and gnawed my cheek. I looked closer, analyzing the bronze of her skin, the width of her nose, the deep brown of her eyes. Could she be? Really?

When I got back to the computer desk at my apartment, I did what any other Filipino-curious person would do in 2003: I dialed into Al Gore’s internet, typed www.askjeeves.com into my Firefox browser and waited (and waited) for some kind of confirmation. 

“Is Summer Roberts Filipino?”

“O.C. actress Filipino?”

“Filipino actress The O.C. TV show?”

Jeeves had no answers. 

Filipino? We're not easily categorized

My quest for representation was a decade or so too early. The technology that would eventually connect me to Filipino Americans all over the United States was still being perfected. In my small town in Robert E. Lee County, Florida, I still felt alone. 

What I did have was a list of “Filipino Hopefuls,” a file tucked among my Word documents tallying rumored Filipino celebrities: that guy from the Black Eyed Peas; that girl from the Pussycat Dolls; Rob Schneider; Enrique Iglesias. And now Rachel Bilson. Maybe. 

The thing about being Filipino is, we’re not easily categorized. 

Filipino Americans are the third largest subset of the Asian American population, which, according to recent Census data, is now the fastest-growing ethnic group in the United States. In this vast and rapidly expanding category, Filipino Americans trail only Chinese Americans and Indian Americans, with 2.9 million of us spread far and wide across these 50 states. We’ve infiltrated Alaska, Maine and both Dakotas. 

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And yet, who are we? 

“Who are Filipinos?”

Ask Jeeves today and you get 62 million results, starting with a dating site that promises, “Sincere Man meet Women from the Phillipines (sic).”

Ew. 

A better answer would be that we’re the product of centuries of colonization. We’re a southeast Asian archipelago so fought over, so invaded, so “rescued” by our invaders – 377 years under Spanish colonization; 48 years under U.S. colonization; a brief but violent Japanese occupation from 1942-45 – that our sense of identity has become as fractured as our 7,100 islands. 

To survive our colonizers, Filipinos have been forced to adapt. Anthony Ocampo, a Filipino American writer and sociologist, has called Filipino people “racial chameleons.” We tend to conform to our surroundings. And when we’re pushed out of one surrounding, as my mother was when she left metro Manila in 1978 to provide for her parents and six younger siblings as a registered nurse in a Florida town she had never heard of, we adapt to wherever we find ourselves. 

Quickly and effectively. Possibly too quickly and effectively. 

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My mother perfected the already-solid English she had learned in her U.S.-programmed schools. She fell in love with my white father and Stevie Wonder and “Facts of Life” and meatloaf (like Spam but beefier!). She bled into her surroundings. All in the two years before my birth in 1980. 

This has long been the Filipino American way. We came to the USA as nurses, doctors, laborers. We came in quietly, happy to have opportunity, something centuries of colonization eradicated from our homeland. We tried to blend in. 

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And yet, like so many minority groups, we’ve always craved representation.

When I was younger, I’d get annoyed when some unknown, dark-haired woman would approach me in a store. I’d see them eyeing me, working their way closer until I was within earshot. 

“Pilipina ka ba?” they’d say. 

I’d nod, then answer in English because my mother saw Tagalog as useless in America. 

“Only half,” I’d tell them. 

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And the women would clap their hands or run their fingers through my dark hair or boop me on my wide flat nose like a puppy. 

“I knew it! Aye nako! I tell my husband: She is Pilipina that one! I knew it!”

I now realize, these women were www.askjeeves.com-ing me. They were so desperate for connection that they let their curiosity get the better of their manners. 

Thankfully, so much has changed. 

We need to know we're not alone

At this month's Grammys, when Olivia Rodrigo, Saweetie, H.E.R., Bruno Mars and Rob Schneider’s daughter Elle King won awards, Filipinos shouted it from the rooftops: “These are our people! Look at them shine!” 

Later that week, when University of Kansas basketball guard Remy Martin draped the Filipino flag across his shoulders while cradling the NCAA national championship trophy, we shouted again. Right after that, when Kasama in Chicago became the first Filipino restaurant in the United States to earn a coveted Michelin star, we cleared our throats, sipped some calamansi-aid and shouted some more. 

These wins have felt like a balm, a plate of cut fruit delivered from the universe following months and years of Asian hate, of our lolas and titas getting beaten, kicked and worse. These wins don't solve that. They don’t magically overhaul our mental health care system. They don’t create a broader safety net, or a more diverse and inclusive education curriculum. 

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But they matter. 

As Kevin Nadal, a Filipino American psychology professor and researcher, wrote in December in Psychology Today, representation can help reduce negative stereotypes: “The more exposure or contact that people had to groups who were different from them, the less likely they would maintain prejudice.” 

These wins should give Filipino Americans and Asian Americans hope. We need to see ourselves doing, earning, triumphing. We need to see our dreams being lived by people who share our heritage. We need to know we’re not alone. 

Rachel Bilson, as it turns out, does not share this heritage. She’s half Jewish and half Italian, per Google. And that’s OK. I needed her 20 years ago, but look at all the Filipinos I have now.

Annabelle Tometich is a food writer and restaurant critic for the Fort Myers News-Press and Naples Daily News, part of the USA TODAY Network. She spent 15 years writing reviews under the French-sounding pseudonym “Jean Le Boeuf,” before revealing herself as a half-Filipina woman in 2021. This column originally ran in the News-Press.  Follow her on Instagram (@abellewrites) and Twitter (@atometich).