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Nara  (They chose this as their pseudonym.)

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18

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Undisclosed sex, gender is Nonbinary

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Not married, has a boyfriend

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Asian (Filipino German)

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Friend

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Background+Experiences and How They Affect Their Life Now

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Background+Experiences and How They Affect Their Life Now

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Nara was born in the urban Manila, Philippines on March 23rd, 2004. They have 3 blood brothers and sisters including a twin and 5 step-siblings. They don't have much contact with their step-siblings and they only live with their twin. In the Philippines their mother was a professional hair stylist and their biological father was not very "in the picture". He was born in Germany and their mother and mother's family came from the province Cagayan. They remember their childhood being a constant struggle for money and trying to keep strong bonds with family.

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Manila, Philippines

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At around 7 years old, Nara was awoken in the middle of the night in their aunt's arms being told to stay quiet. They remember waking up at an airport, boarding a plane, driving out of the airport, and stopping at their step-dad's house. They were scared but since they had no real opinion or choice in the decision, their main dilemma was trying to make friends and fit in. Eventually they would join a Filipino community in town (Little Egg Harbor) made up of women and children. They would go to a Filipino church together; though, Nara is a Catholic, they have stopped going to church due to feeling uncomfortable with anti-LGBT views and is now leaning towards being agnostic. In their workplace they have experienced discrimination for being queer with one example being that another employee expressed disgust over their Pride themed lanyard. Politically they don't lean towards any party and believe that their say in higher government actions is extremely low because of their immigrant status. They haven't been able to vote because they haven't found a way to get a citizenship. They feel like protests and petitions are something they can affect more.

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In the Philippines, Nara went to 4 different schools and in America they went to 3 more. All of these schools were public except for their first school, private, which was chosen by their father. In elementary school learning was very difficult because of ADHD and the pressure from their mother to do good. The only enjoyable aspects were seeing friends and taking their favorite subjects which are art classes, math, and health. Their least favorite classes were history and English. Now they are in their first year of college.

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They are very focused on getting their college education in order right now. They have a long time boyfriend with no plans for kids yet so thinking about their future together is not as important to them as pursuing their career. Nara plans on becoming a Physical Therapist because not only is it something they are interested in but they also want to get enough money to help their mom. Right now they work in customer service at Acme with past jobs being a bake shop and a mom and pop seafood store.

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From day one, Nara was used to putting people they care about like family and friends before themself. The way they were taught was not in a way that advocated for self-care. With the stress of letting others down and feeling useless, suicidal thoughts were frequent and overbearing. In the midst of having little to no regard for their safety they made a truce with a friend that neither of them would take their own lives. On March 23rd, 2021, our friend who Nara had made that promise with fatally shot himself.  This caused a harder mental decline of course but their boyfriend helped them through it. The months following helped Nara realize that putting others before you was not helpful for their health and that if that really wanted to help others they needed to put themself first. After trying these self-care methods they noticed improvement that confirmed their thoughts. Nara now advocates for more teachings of mental and physical healh such as identifying disorders, how to go about self-love, teaching safe-sex and educating students about their bodies. This turnaround prompted their best time in life to be the summer of senior year / going into college. Advice that has stuck with them has been to trust their gut and make sure that they are okay before anyone else. They're proud of themself for making it to college, being able to pay bills on their own, and getting their tattoos. Nara enjoys knitting, crocheting, reading manga, watching cartoons and anime, and cooking. They can play the saxophone and enjoy the opportunities in the U.S. to meet people and make their place in the world.

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Nara has told me about how staying in touch with family and taking care of them generation through generation is very important in their culture. This causes closer bonds, guaranteed assistance from family in the future, and a long lasting line of the same values. This can be beneficial for obvious reasons but can also be detrimental for mental health. This type of family can sometimes make members feel as though they can't make any mistakes and like they don't matter as much as the people around them. The selflessness turns into self hate and can cause upsetting days to turn into suicidal ideation, thinking their family would be better off without them. This interview made me understand the advocation for mental health in family-centric communities much more clearly and helped me get to know why my friend is the way they are.

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Nara enjoyed the interview and was excited to talk about things that nobody had ever asked them before. They said they usually find interviews scary but that this one was nice.