תִּקּוּן בֵּית פִילִיפִּינִים

Don't Call Jose Antonio Vargas an 'Immigration Activist' | https://t.co/hpwjtsIne4... https://t.co/R9mSSehgvb pic.twitter.com/niyeGRfUST

— LGBT NYC (@lgbtnyc015) December 16, 2015

Reblog if you are a Filipino Nephilim! :D http://t.co/q6yRLUK

— ⚡️the maze runner ⚡️ (@alltimeLOWEEY) September 28, 2012

half filipino, half alien HAHAHA

— ladylenn (@llavilac) June 6, 2016

So, in English, Filipino or Tagalog is an illegal language or an alien language.

— Julius (@_juliuscoloma) June 22, 2016

everytime I walk out of room there are Filipino nurses in my house telling my dad" oh my gahd your anak is so beautipul"

— kimmy j♡ (@ayekimmyj) July 1, 2016

"3. Jenny, Emmanuel and Rosefin, Tel Aviv

Just south of the municipal border between Givatayim and Tel Aviv, east of the Ayalon Highway, Tel Aviv’s streets grow narrow. The Hatikva neighborhood was once the city’s most notorious slum and hasn’t improved much over the years. Only the population has changed.

If once this was home only to Jewish Israelis of Middle Eastern origin, today migrant workers from around the world and African asylum seekers share the neighborhood’s neglect. The coexistence isn’t always ideal. Over the past year, right-wing Knesset members have visited the neighborhood, stoked xenophobia and sparked riots. Businesses have been torched and Africans attacked.

The neighborhood’s children all share the same schools, but the differences are expressed in social groupings in each class. Jenny, Emmanuel and Rosefin, three friends, meet me in Rosefin’s tiny but cozy house and describe the two main groups, whom they refer to as swags and arsim.

The three are children to three mixed pairs of Filipino and West African parents. They are Tel Aviv-born and speak impeccable native Hebrew.

So what do these terms mean?

Rosefin: “Swag is us − songs in English, hats, Shamballa bracelets, skinny jeans, Vans-brand clothes and [Converse] All-Star shoes.”

Jenny: “The arsim listen to Mizrahi music, wear Nike hats and swear all the time. They’re racist.”

Emmanuel: “Not all of them! I have arsim friends who aren’t racist, like Baruch and Or.”

Have you ever been to the countries your parents come from?

Emmanuel: “I’ve been to the Philippines. It’s really wonderful. You discover your culture. You discover a new side of yourself; fall in love with yourself anew.”

Jenny: “You speak such high Hebrew.”

Emmanuel: “You can too. Say: I am ill-informed about what happened there.”

Jenny: “I am ill-informed about what happened there.”

What are your dreams?

Jenny: “I want to be famous in dance.”

Emmanuel: “I want to be famous in acting.”

Jenny: “He’s also good at making up dances.”

Rosefin: “I want to be an actress too; I’m better than him.”

Emmanuel: “No you’re not. Watch how I cry [attempts crying].”

What do your parents do?

Emmanuel: “They work, they invest in us, they give us love and we give love back.”

Where in the world would you like to live?

All three: “USA!”

Jenny: “There’s more swag there than anywhere.”

And Israel?

Emmanuel: “It’s a nice country, but most people here aren’t like us.”

Jenny: “They judge people by their skin color.”

Emmanuel: “Everyone here came as foreign workers. They came from many places, from Morocco, from Yemen ...”

Jenny: “But they think of the foreign workers as if they were space aliens.”

Emmanuel: “Today I went to a long-jump competition, and the referee, who was about your age, said to me, ‘considering you’re black, you’re okay.’ They’ve even invented songs about us.”

Jenny and Rosefin: “Cushi yo yo. Cushi yo yo [cushi is a derogatory term for a black person].”

Emmanuel: “But I wear it with pride. We have to wear it with pride.”

The three are now joined by another friend, Nicole. Nicole’s father is Nigerian but her mother is Ethiopian and Jewish, so she’s considered Jewish. The conversation quickly turns to religious differences and gets too bogged-down in detail to describe here.

We learn that a boy who came to school wearing a crucifix was beaten up, and hear Rosefin reciting the Jewish Shema prayer with her hand covering her eyes in the traditional manner. The children have just celebrated Hannukah at school and find it perfectly natural that Christmas gets no mention there. Native-born or not, they identify as foreign − a designation that sounds so much more appealing when called swag."