Mrs. Smith

Just to give you an idea, and also to refresh your memory and understanding of familial relationships, kinship in the Philippines (at least in the household where I grew up) not only refers to the immediate relatives but it also extends to a long list of generational levels especially if we carry the same last name regardless of how common the last name is. Having said that, to regard a person as being connected to another person by affinity becomes a generalization in most cases. This reminds me of an encounter that I had on my first US job as a nurse at a hospital in the South that occurred on my first day. Since it was my first day on the job, and not to mention, my very first day at a US hospital, everything seemed to be self -focused, work-driven attitude, and not really paying attention to external factors such as remembering names of co-workers as they are introduced, etc. Mrs. Willie Smith, the shift’s charge nurse, was busy writing the patients’ assignment for the shift, and everybody else was patiently waiting. As the caseload assignment was handed to us, I noticed there was another nurse whose name was Judy Smith. So I instantly and excitedly asked Mrs. Willie Smith, “Are you two related?” Mrs. Willie Smith just stared at me with a bewildered look, and the rest of the group did just the same thing. I realized later on that Smith is a very common last name in the US, and it also turned out that Mrs. Willie Smith is African American and Mrs. Judy Smith is Caucasian. That explained all the prolonged strange looks.