Pinoy Ako, Pinoy!

I am a Filipino, well, at least my parents were. My parents were Filipinos. But I was not born in the Philippines. I look like a Filipino - with a Malay looking face, because both my parents were from the Philippines. I have an Ilongga mother and a Tausug father.

Both were born in the Philippines and emigrated to the United States in the late '70s. They worked there as usual Pinoys do: My mother was a nurse, and my father worked as an engineer. They met, fell in love and married and had five kids. They named the single boy, Vincent Jaiveer Basilio Regidor. Yes. That's my name. However, I want people to call me Jai or Jaiveer.

I grew up in the State of New York until I entered in 2003 and graduated in 2007 from the Lemoyne College, in Syracuse. I took up marketing because I thought my good looks will bring me somewhere.

College was not something I'd like to remember too much. Although it was generally an enjoyable experience, I have to struggle with my inner emotions regularly about my perceptions on discrimination to less fair skinned guy. Although many of my school-mates think I am 'hot,' the girls don't want to be seen dating an Asian-Malay-looking guy who speaks with an American-English slang and accent. And they think I was a Republican, born from conservative parents and hold dear many cultural beliefs that tend to align themselves with Conservativism (Filipinos are generally conservative, especially the religious ones).

The reason I said I am good-looking or handsome is because a lot of my friends think I am, that was when I was just a teen and when I was in college, with few friends usually of color (mostly of Asian descent-Indians, Middle-easterners, Malays, Far-East Asians and the like), I expressed by inner feelings through weightlifting (a.k.a. gym-buffs).

I developed good physique and stature, which gave me a lot of confidence later. This is also the time that I started to believe I look good enough as the best looking White men can be. Yet, I only dated one after my fitness regimen just became a maintenance.

My father was a Muslim but when he emigrated to the US, he appeared to be more like an agnostic and therefore irreligious, while my mother maintained her Catholic religiosity. She's the one whom I can credit to give my 'cultural conservatism' while my father contributed to my secularistic viewpoint. They love me much, being the third child of a family of five (where all of my siblings are girls).

Even if the norm of the day is personal freedom and independence, my parents were able to instill in me the value of close-family relationship, and we see to it that every available vacation goes with them along with my sisters' boyfriends and their 'hot' brother who still can't get a date or even a girlfriend. That means Christmas, Thanksgiving, Easter, 4th of July and even Philippine fiestas.

With a three-story brickhouse near the main road and our usual family effort to shovel off snow and ice from the roof and snow-covered lawn every winter, my life as a kid and teen is quite lonely.

I do have a close friend then, he's Joshua. He frequents our place, being a Filipino also and lives a stones throw away from our house.