A/N: I stumbled across a multi-fandom racebending revenge ficathon (in case the formatting doesn't take, here's the URL: dark-agenda(dot)dreamwidth(dot)org(slash)7371(dot)html) that attempts to undermine the weaksauce claim that white characters' racial identities don't play a significant role in a story. The challenge is to take white characters, and rewrite them as non-white/persons of color/chromatic, while acknowledging how this difference would affect the story.
As a non-white, non-Westerner constantly bombarded by white-dominated, North American narratives, this particular fic challenge spoke to me on a very personal level. So, despite the fact that I discovered the challenge at least five months too late, I decided to write something for it.
A/N 2: Just to be clear, I'm not Tsinoy, I'm not American, and this is not a self-insertion. I wanted to explore the difference between ethnicity and nationality, and I mean absolutely no ill will to anybody, so if I should offend, please accept my apologies in advance.
And Everything In its Place
She knew she would never quite fit in, but she told herself that she would have an advantage in the CIA. It would be easy for her to go incognito ...in East and Southeast Asia. She expected she would mostly be assigned ops there. After all, it wouldn't take much of a stretch of the imagination to assign the Asian to Asia. She suspected that if her stock had been something more "neutral," like Danish or Italian or hell, even African, she would stand to expect a little more variety.
In America, it was already easy for her to pull out the "No speakee English" excuse when the situation called for it. People took one look at her and accepted it, even when she deliberately failed to fake any kind of accent whatsoever. Even if she spoke eight languages with almost native fluency, not including the two Chinese dialects her grandparents hammered into her, and the Cebuano her parents spoke in the house.
Annie Ongtauco knew that the Agency would probably keep a closer eye on her. One of the first things they taught them in the Farm, was that no one was to be trusted. And what she was, was just one less reason for people to trust her. As the daughter of first generation Filipino-Chinese immigrants, her loyalties would always be in question. She knew it long before she opened the door to the polygraph room.
"Anne Isabelle Mei... Ongtohco?" The white polygraph operator's face was impassive.
"It's OngTAUco. Spanish pronunciation." Annie gave him her best smile.
Her name never could quite roll off people's tongues. Everywhere she went, there would always be at least two other girls named Annie. Most people called her Annie O, to differentiate.
Maybe if her surname was something Anglo-Saxon, like Walker, people would bother saying her full name. Annie Walker was easy to say. She used to wish that had been her name.
The operator grunted and asked her to sit down.
He asked her about her love life first. And that was painful. She knew that she was a bit more defensive than she should have been. Her baseline was easy to establish.
And then the important questions. The ones that she knew were coming.
"Your parents arrived in the United States in 1984?"
"Yes. I was two. I became a naturalized citizen when I was ten."
"Did your parents or other immediate relatives have any involvement with the Philippine government?"
"None. Except that my mom used to be a surgeon for a public hospital. She went to nursing school and got a job here as an RN because the pay was better."
"Do you resent that?"
She shrugged. "My mom did what she felt she had to do. The quality of life here's just better." And for good measure, "Things are just better here."
"So you've been to the Philippines before?"
"Two and a half years ago, a few months before I met Ben. I was in the neighborhood, so I figured I'd visit relatives there. I stayed for a couple of weeks. They fed me a lot."
"Have you ever had any dealings with the Philippine government?"
"None."
"Do you harbor any loyalty for the Philippines?"
She inhaled. She had been rehearsing and revising this speech since she entered the Farm. She had given different versions of it to instructors and classmates alike, and it had gotten old long, long ago. "I'm an American. I was born here, I grew up here. My heritage is a little more... plural than other people's, but that doesn't change the fact that I've been pledging my allegiance to the U.S. since I was in kindergarten. So to answer your question, no."
"And China?" The operator's eyes flicked from his computer screen to her face, expectant.
Of course. She knew her international politics. The Philippines had never posed any threat to the United States. China on the other hand, was an entirely different story. She had a spiel prepared for this too.
She shook her head, "None. My grandparents on my father's side were mainland Chinese, but I've never been to China, and I feel no loyalty for the country."
The machine measuring her heart rate continued bleeping steadily.
"But you acknowledge your cultural heritage?"
"I can't not. I mean, look at me. Besides, culture and nationality are different things. I have Filipino and Chinese culture in me, but I have plenty of American in me too, and at the end of the day, I'm still an American citizen. This is as much my country as it is yours."
She noticed the way the side of his mouth twitched when she said the last sentence.
Typical.
The questions followed the same vein for another fifteen minutes.
Annie tried not to get too irritated, but by the end of it, she stepped out of the polygraph room wondering if she had any place in the CIA at all.
-END-