Since the latest episode of “Ted Lasso” I’ve been thinking about embarrassment. It brought to mind an early memory of being embarrassed, tied to my identity as a Filipino American.
It was at a school potluck at my elementary school in Northern California. I was one of the few Asians in the school, and the only Filipino.
I didn’t know what to bring to a potluck since I had never been to one. So I asked my mom to make my favorite dish, chicken adobo, the national dish of the Philippines. She made a pan-ful of delicious, garlicky, vinegar-y chicken drumsticks, put them in a Tupperware and sent me off.
Upon arrival I saw a long table filled with macaroni salad, lasagna, chocolate chip cookies, chips, fried chicken, you get the picture… At the end, I added mom’s chicken adobo.
I watched as folks piled their plates with lasagna, fried chicken, cookies… and went right past the chicken adobo. I saw a lady tentatively push around the drumsticks, but decided not to take one. It sat there for a couple of hours — sad and brown and alone.
Finally it was time to go home. I felt so embarrassed… embarrassed to be a person with a long, unpronounceable name, from a country no one had heard of, and who ate weird food. But I didn’t want to embarrass my mom, so I scarfed as many of those drumsticks as I could. (Honestly not a chore. They were delicious.)
If I could speak to kid Riki, I would tell him that he’s from an awesome country with a rich culture and incredible cuisine. And that those white people didn’t know what they were missing when they passed over mom’s chicken adobo for KFC.
This hit so close to home—so many of us have that exact lunchbox or potluck memory growing up. Your mom’s adobo sounds incredible, and they truly missed out on the best dish on that table!