Short background

Being lighter-skinned in the Philippines is a strange experience, shaped by country’s history and
hierarchies. Laurel Fantauzzo manoeuvres Manila, consciuos of her difference, and tries to translate
the experience in the 2nd prize-winning entry under the Essay category of the 63rd Carlos Palanca
Memorial Awards. And also this is the personal essay for The Manila Review on how she manoeuvre
race and class privilege in the Philippines. “Under My Invisible Umbrella” first appeared in the
second issue of The Manila Review, March 2013.

About the author ( Laurel Fantauzzo )

She is a storyteller and a college lecturer. She was born in Southern California, with stops in
Brooklyn, Manila, and Lowa City since then. She teach in the Writer’s’ Centre at Yale-NUS College in
Singapore, and she is represented by Geri Thoma and Andrea Morrison at Writers’ House in New
York City. Her debut nonfiction book, The First Impulse (Anvil Publishing), was published in the
Philippines and abroad in 2017. Her mother is a Filipina and her Father is a half Italian and half
American basically she is a Fil-am. Writing can be a solitary practice, but no writer develops alone.
I’ve been lucky to have support along that way.

Synopsis

This essay is all about the life experience of Laurel Fantauzzo here in the Philippines. She told in her
essay that being lighter-skinned in the Philippines is a strange experience and how she manoeuvre
race and class privilege in the Philippines.

Here are some scenarios: VIP treatment on her

She accepted the man’s service without question, as if he had standing at the doorway of the
Olongapo office building waiting only for her. She knew he would head into the downpour, open his
umbrella, hold the tenuous shelter of it over her head, and walk at my pace, getting wet himself. She
accepted his work without a “Salamat po”.

Whether she use checks, credit card or cash, she can count in her skin colour not to work against the
appearance of financial reliability. She can choose public accommodation without fearing that
people of her race cannot get in or will mistreated in the places she have chosen.

She wondered onto a fence-in, exclusive university campus for the sole reason that it was a nice
walk, and she wanted to be there. The guard smiled and tipped his hat on her. He did not require her
to sign his security book.

In a live, crowded theatre, she crossed a restricted area to use the much less crowded staff room.
Four guards said nothing to her.

Here are some scenarios: “Dayuhan tax” on her

Her cab driver who dozes off at the spotlight-who apologized when I nudge him- since the twenty-
third hour of his twenty-four hour shift. How often will he get the chance to sheepishly say, “Extra
charge, ma’am”, for a cross Quezon City ride?

In the end she call the overcharges my dayuhan tax. Her foreign tariff. The extra cost she owe for
post colonial privileges of her face. As long as the population remains economically stranded, she
suspected her American whiteness continuous to be kind of cheating to modern Philippines.
Here are some scenario: Inequality bet. The rich and the poor/ economic struggles

The reality of the kalesa driver, who winces when he tells her about his wages, as he plies the
avenues of Malate. He is allowed to take home only twenty pesos of each 100 pesos ride. The rest
he owes to the owner of his kalesa. It’s perfectly legal. He does not say the rest but she can perceive
it: he can go to one for fair wages.

When she finally exit the gate, she is surprised to find another, more muted party-party in the most
utilitarian sense of the word. These are the drivers and bodyguards, waiting for the Philippine elite
inside. They smoke and murmur to each other and check their cell phones . Their own families are
waiting for them at homes fa from Forbes Park.

Settings- Manila Philippines

Characters- Laurel Fantauzzo, herself the Filipino who gives her VIP treatment and the so called
“dayuhan tax”.

The symbols are umbrella as privilege, Umbrella as burden

The themes is racial color can give you a privilege or burden.

Conflicts

Based on her experience, umbrella as privilege, because based on her essay if you have white pale
skin, pointed nose or you’re a foreigner here in the Philippines you van receive VIP treatments.
Umbrella as burden because if you’re a foreigner here in the Philippines you can receive “ dayuhan
tax or extra charges”.

Analysis

We all know us Filipino were colonized by different countries like Spain, United States of America
and Japan. During that colonial period that sets the idea of hierarchy meaning a system or
organization in which people or groups are ranked one above the other according to status or
authority. As times goes by we have adopted the trait when we cross with some foreigner we have
much higher respect in them rather than our fellow Filipinos. But it is not generalized that all of the
Filipinos, some have this trait and some have fairness trait.