Reconnecting

I’m currently 29 years old and struggling to connect with people and places that sometimes feels like I have no right to. my moms side of family came from the Philippines in 1930 for work at the old Waialua sugar plantation. I have a large extended family on that side. Having 4 older siblings and then me on the way my parents couldn’t afford living in Oahu and moved to a small midwestern town that’s one step away from a “sundown town” to be near my father’s adoptive family. My parents still struggled on the mainland but made it work. We went back to visit in my childhood and stayed a whole summer after my tutu passed away. Family was everywhere and mixes of people who looked like me, it was the first time I ever remembered seeing all these people and a sense of pride in myself. I think being away from home and then losing her mother and regular in person relationships with aunties/uncles had to of been hard for my mother. Living in the small midwestern town, my family my siblings and I would be picked on and called not so wonderful names growing up. There was this weird mix of pride for who we are but also shame and “we must not draw attention” thing going on. When a chance arouse to learn hula as a child, in fear that the other kids would find out I refused and fought my mother over it and then never learned. I was given a Hawaiian name when I was born that came to an auntie in a dream right before my birth. I always was ashamed of my name as a child as kids made fun of me constantly and even some of the school teachers. When I turned 19 I legally changed my name to something “easier”. Fast forward to now being an adult, and being away from that small town for a few years now, I’ve been working to remove the layers of shame that draped my childhood, finding out some of the way I say things are pidgin or Tagalog was a journey, things we ate/did growing up…etc etc I live in a much bigger city now with a lot of diversity and with some access to Filipino or Hawaiian community groups. But I feel like I’m just struggling to connect, like I feel like an imposter intruding. I’m engaged and I so deeply want to go back to my birth name and to visit Oahu and meet in person with family as an adult now before they pass away as some of them are getting up there in age. But it all just feels… wrong sometimes like I don’t belong or am misplaced. As if my name isn’t my name anymore since I gave it up.

Has anyone struggled like this before or had something similar happen?