For this blog entry to make sense, you’ll need to know what I look like. Here’s a photo of me, taken by improv genius Fuzzy Gerdes last Friday:
For the past couple of months, I have been approached by at least a dozen times, asking something along the lines of “We were trying to guess your background. Are you Hawaiian?”
For some reason, unless they find out my Spanish-sounding name — Jose Martin deVilla — nobody guesses that I’m Filipino. The guys at Asian Farm, the grocery store around the corner from my place, think I’m Japanese and still say domo arigato whenever I shop there. The guy at the corner store thinks I’m Korean. Kudos to the cosmopolitan guesser on College Street who thought I was from Peru (remember, they have a sizeable Japanese population there — their president until 2001 was one Alberto Fujimori, and they pronounced his name Spanish-style: foo-hee-mo-ri).
But most people guess I’m Hawaiian. My aunt says I look Hawaiian, especially because of my collection of loud Hawaiian shirts. I think it’s my lei’d back attitude (har, har).
One guy added to his comment: “It’s your voice. It’s very smooth; like Don Ho.” His buddy follwed up with “And you speak such good English too!”
Me so happy you rikey my speechie velly much, honourable round-eye.
Have I ever faked being Hawaiian? Only for a moment, and only once, two Saturdays ago at my friend Derek’s stag party. We were dancing at the Velvet Underground when a cute brunette slid beside me and put her arm around me.
“Are you Hawaiian?” she asked into my ear, doing that cute girl thing were they press their nose into your cheek.
“Alooooo-ha!” I replied.
Awww, c’mon, you’d have done that too.
Recommended Listening
Cowboy Jack Clement singing My Little Grass Shack (Quicktime video). I should really learn this on accordion.
12 replies on “I’m not Hawaiian, but I could play one on TV”
In a second.
Course, there’s pretty much no chance of my white body being mistaken for being from Hawaii, and I don’t see cute girls sliding up to pasty white fellows and saying “Are you Norweigian” (I’m not, just a geek)… but if they did, hell ya!
very cute picture! va va voom!
lex
And I hope you reply: “That’s ‘Mr. Roboto’ to _you_.
As a side note “domo …” is a Japanese transliteration from Portugese.
And I hope you reply: “That’s ‘Mr. Roboto’ to _you_.
As a side note “domo …” is a Japanese transliteration from Portugese.
If I didn’t know you were born (and for few years raised) in the Phillipines I would say the same thing. As a an aside I also LOL’ed at your “lei’d back attitude” quip. Dude have I told you lately how much you rock? 🙂
Oh and also I get told I look Italian a lot (mostly cos of my copious amounts of body hair) and also Greek (WTF?). Funny thing is I’m half Danish and half English-Welsh-Canadian.
I was invited to a wedding two weeks ago with a Hawaiian theme to the reception. To my shame, I had not a single shirt fitting the bill.
I’d have guessed Filipino, or at least part Filipino. Of course, I lived in Hawaii, which has a pretty big Filipino population, so maybe that’s why. (It’s also probably why people think you look Hawaiian – they go to Hawaii, see all the Filipinos, and assume they’re Hawaiian.)
Oooh so your full name is Jose Martin! It’s such a “pogi” sounding name. Oooh.
Carla
I get that a lot, too! “Are you Hawaiian? Are you Hispanic? Are you Native American?” Nobody can ever guess Filipino, or in my case, one-half. It doesn’t bother me in most cases, but there -was- this one time where a drunken man in a wheelchair approached me in the store I was working at (Michael’s Arts and Crafts, custom framing department,) clutching a piece of religious poetry written entirely in Spanish. “Are you Mexican?”
“No sir, I’m not. I’m half-Filipino.”
“I know you’re Hispanic. C’mon. Read this! What does it say?”
“I don’t know, sir, I don’t speak much Spanish; only what little bit of it is found in my mother’s language.”
“You -gotta- be Mexican. Read this! C’mon!”
Exasperated, I read the words aloud, not understanding more than three or four words in the text, pronouncing it all as best as I could. The man’s face brightened. “See!” he exclaimed. “I -knew- you were Hispanic!”
[…] I do occasionally wear a Tommy Bahama shirt when it climbs past 30 degrees (that’s 86 for my American friends), but I have a genetic right: I’m from a tropical country and I can pass for Hawaiian. […]
I don’t get many guesses that I’m Filipino either.