How Long do We Have to Wait?

By Meggy Grosfeld

Collage by me

I grew up in the same New York City apartment my whole life. I never experienced a white picket fence or a mailbox or a front yard. My bedroom was pink, of course, and filled with stuffed animals, of course. As a little kid, my room was my safe space to dream and run around pretending to be whoever I wanted. My room seemed so big when I was little, but now I feel like it could swallow me whole.

Filipino Fairytale

I gravitated toward books at a young age. The bookshelf in my room is overflowing with picture books from my toddler years to the cliché romance books from my teen years, with a sprinkle of book report novels I accumulated over the years. My favorite books growing up were fairytales. I loved how they made me feel magical beyond the pages; I wanted to dramatically run down the palace stairs and miraculously lose my glass slipper as a seven-year-old. As much as I loved reading about these beautiful princesses and the toads they had to kiss to find true love, I always felt something missing from their stories. I remember the feeling of looking at Aurora and wondering when my hair would turn golden. Maybe, just maybe, if I pricked my finger hard enough on some magical sewing needle, I would turn into what had seemed to be the ideal princess: white and blonde.

Mulan singing "Reflection" by Google Images

Can it be I'm not meant to play this part?

This love for books eventually translated into a love for movies. I watched Disney princess movies religiously. I would make my mom pop in the VHS tape while I sat crisis-cross-applesauce in my princess costume, no matter how itchy the tulle irritated my skin. My favorite was “Beauty and the Beast” because Belle loved to read and we had that in common. It was a plus that she kind of looked like me with dark features, but fairer skin. As a child, what would hurt me was the idea that all these fairytales and love stories could never come to fruition because I never looked like the princess. I was young and thankfully aware of my Filipino culture, but this awareness ruined the fantasy. I remember my mom telling me how Lea Salonga, a famous Filipino actress and more importantly, singer, was going to be singing for the part of Jasmine and Mulan. I was thrilled to hear that as a little girl. I had always looked up to her as a singer, performer, and overall talented woman who shamelessly represented Filipino values. As a kid, a part of me felt a little betrayed because neither of the princesses she was voicing was Filipino. I personally love the song "Reflection" from Mulan because it talks about the very struggles of identity. She grapples with choosing between two parts of herself to please the masses. Sound familiar? And of course, I resonated more with the non-white Disney princesses. To this day, there is no Filipino princess or let alone character in any children’s movies or tv shows (or if there is, it's never explicit, as if it's embarrassing to be Filipino). I recently turned twenty-one years old. The little girl inside of me is kicking and screaming, asking how long do we have to wait?

Moana, Image by Disney

How Far I'll Go

I remember one day at school, when I was fifteen, a boy in my class "jokingly", called me Moana, as in the Polynesian Disney princess. I was so upset that I cried on the bus ride home and when I finally got to my bedroom, I stared at my bookshelf filled with all the fairytale princess books. At that moment I gave up reading for a while. I wasn’t upset because he called me Moana. She is a beautiful, strong princess and an amazing figure for young Polynesian kids to look up to. She’s the first Polynesian Disney princess and makes choices of her own choosing that aren’t influenced by a prince. What I was really upset about was that she wasn’t representative of my ethnicity and that racist comment sent me over the edge that day. Sometimes, I feel as if people don’t care to know my race but always feel free to assume or speak about “what I am”. The lack of Filipino representation in media and literature perpetuates this erasure and makes coming to terms with my identity as a biracial grown woman harder as I leave my adolescence behind.

"The little girl inside of me is kicking and screaming, asking how long do we have to wait?"

Me when I was younger in traditional Filipino dress

Perfect White Princess

A part of me wishes that I had my own Moana to look up to as I grew older, someone to empower me. I don't think we realize how malleable our brains are at such a young age. I didn't register how badly these moments of racism, microaggressions, and othering impacted my upbringing, further developing the way I see myself in today's America. Racial identity is both externally shown while simultaneously internally constructed and having absorbed these images of the "perfect white princess" at such an early age, it imprinted that this was the norm and I was the outsider. I often think about when I have kids and if there will ever be a Disney princess or story to represent them in mainstream media.