The Re-Education of Ms.FuDaddy: Third Worldism

Showing posts with label Third Worldism. Show all posts

Saturday, September 3, 2011

I Want to Sing Like This

I had the opportunity to see this woman sing at Lake Sebu. She is one of the most well known T'Boli singers around. Her voice is amazing. I wish I could just sit and learn from her and sing, sing, sing like this.

Thursday, August 11, 2011

Her Wild American Self

I'm finishing up a set of short stories by M. Evelina Galang called Her Wild American Self. The book came out in 1996. Part of me wonders why I didn't read this earlier. I guess I was a bit young to read it in '96. I do have a vague memory of seeing the cover and not being ready for it. In any case, I'm glad I found it at Arkipelago Books when I did. The stories about Filipino American families and Filipina American women in particular are honest -sometimes painful, sometimes sweet and always familiar.

One of my favorite paragraphs in the book is from the story "Lectures on How You Never Lived Back Home." In the first lines of the story, Galang writes:

You grew up hearing two languages -one you can pull apart, name, slap a series of rules to, twist like clay-dough in a child's hand -the other you cannot explain, you listen and you know. It is a language you understand intuitively -like being able to read the sunrise, the strips of pink and orange, the clumps of uneven clouds, a thin patch of grey and the moon and somehow, without thinking twice, you know what kind of day it will be. You understand like this because you are the first born. First generation. First American. First cousin. First hope.

How does she know me so well? How does she know what it feels like? What I can do? What it sounds like? Did she write this for me?

Yes, yes. I think she did.

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Re-Discovering NY: Pedestrian Protection

I spend a lot of my time driving...too much time driving, actually. Today, as I was running errands in Harlem for work. I was in such a rush and traffic on 125th was not moving (I didn't expect it to, just saying. And yes, I know, who the heck takes 125th when they're in a hurry?). As I approached the intersection of Adam Clayton Powell, the light turned yellow and I decided to try to make it. Alas, I got stuck in the middle of the intersection because of some pedestrians and a too slow moving car.

After a few seconds, I noticed the broad back of a young man in red standing directly in front of my car. He had his arms out like a crossing guard and was motioning for people to walk. To his left a young woman stood in front of a truck, similarly, with her arms held out as if to block oncoming traffic from careening into the pedestrians. Though the truck and I in the middle of the intersection managed to garner harried honks from the cars being blocked from crossing, I had to smile at the two civilian crossing guards protecting pedestrians with their bodies.

It's little things like that that make me really miss living in a city, close to other people, where I can watch, listen and constantly learn. They also really make me appreciate how communities continue to creatively adjust and strategize around ways to protect our people.

Monday, June 27, 2011

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian

I was finally able to read Sherman Alexie's The Absolutely True Diary of a Part Time Indian. It was fantastic -so fantastic it sometimes made my chest hurt. Arnold "Junior" Spirit tells the sometimes poignant, often funny, most times painful story of his journey through high school as a "Part Time Indian." He lives on the rez but decides to go to school in a nearby all white town -at times he finds himself to be too "Indian" and other times too white.

While some brown folks look back into their childhood, trying to identify specific moments where their double consciousness was most palpable. Junior brings us through his double consciousness, flipping open and shut the veil of his identity(ies), showing us that it's everyday. He reminds us how much it matters and how much it doesn't while highlighting life on the rez with his astute observations.

This is a definite must read for brown people of all ages.

Sunday, June 26, 2011

Faces -Flashbacks

Everyone has triggers -sights, sounds, smells that bring them back to a different time and place. They may have lived it, they may not have, but those triggers take them somewhere else. Up until recently, faces weren't a usual trigger for me, but today at Mass, I was unassumingly looking around when the face of a Filipino man smacked me between the eyes and reminded me of home. It's been a while since I've had so visceral a reminder.

What's funny is, I've known this man almost my whole life. He is the father of a girl from my grade school. While we weren't close, her family was always around so I was very surprised when his face threw me across the world into a hot, muggy, open air Church where the old women were wearing veils and Church uniforms and the men Church vests or barongs. He threw me so far back I had to catch my breath and squint my eyes so as not to let tears fall.

What is this connection? I still can't figure it out. Is this what happens when somebody moves to another place, even if it's only for four months? It sticks with you? Sticks to your ribs and pulsates in your mind, waiting to flash through you like an electric shock? I can't figure it out, but all I know is that it's there and it's strong.

*On a complete side note -What is up with girls and women in Church wearing no clothes?! If they're not the shortest shorts in the world, they're the tightest pants ever or something inappropriately see through!!! And it's not just young girls, it's older women too. Whhhyyyy?!?!?! smh.

Friday, June 3, 2011

Diwata by Barbara Jane Reyes

Next on my list of poetry to read is Diwata by Barbara Jane Reyes. If this portion of a poem is any indication of what the rest of the book is like, I'm finished!

"She was born with fins and fishtail,

A quick blade slicing water.

She was her father's mermaid child.

A river demon, elders said.

...She lit oak pyers and bade the wind

A whispered requiem."

-Barbara Jane Reyes

Wednesday, May 18, 2011

Third Culture Kids

It's a constant thought in our minds -home, home and home. Yes, I wrote 'home' three times, but I don't mean the same place with that one word. So many of my people consider themselves to be multi-cultural, multi-lingual with a 'double-consciousness' or maybe a multi-consciousness. Recently, my girls and I connected over an article in McCombs Today about a man who considers himself to be a "Third Culture Kid" -with a Togolese father, a Black Texan mother and born in Coite de Ivoire. While some of us disagreed over whether the title was too broad or too limiting, one of the major factors in what brought us together as friends is that shared experience of having many different homes and having to learn how to navigate multiple realities, oftentimes, simultaneously.

While it is certainly a gift in so many ways, it can also be extremely challenging. Sometimes your spirit gets mixed up and you wonder to yourself if you're just falling for the supposed greener grass on the other side of the fence (or world) or if you're legitimately homesick. Either way, the feeling is real. Though I've been back home in New York for a number of months now, I'm still surprised to find that I'll feel strong pangs of homesickness for the Philippines. One day, I felt it particularly deeply and had to write more. This is for all my Third Culture Kids!

May 14, 2011

I look out the window as we pass conifers and desiduous trees native to the Northeastern United States finally beginning to bud after a long, cold winter that I had the great luck of missing. As the winter thawed and I found myself back in a world full of frozen, bronzed spirits and surrounded by pure artifice, I thought that the buds of spring would re-energize me and bring me closer to the endless summer that I had left behind.

There are days when it works. When I can breathe in next to a body of water and feel my spirit shudder in anticipation. There are days when it doesn’t. The leaves look tight and rigid to me, as if they are bracing themselves for their impending death in the fall. The branches and trunks, too stiff, too straight, too thin to make my heart beat harder. They stand far from one another –isolated and almost awkwardly misplaced.

Unfairly, I compare those sharp, pale leaves to the expansive, bawdy green of home. The branches that grow endlessly and the trunks that bend under the weight of its fruit. I romantically remember how those trees and leaves disappear into themselves, never letting you see where he ends and she begins, mated restfully until a breeze causes him to turn here and her to shift just there.

I wonder why I torture myself with such comparisons and remind myself that after all, I was born here! Mama wasn’t even pregnant with me when she left home. That I could understand. If I was conceived in the humidity of February and forced to fly to JFK while being jostled in my liquor amnii, I might understand my spirit’s longing to lift itself from my body and visit for a little bit. I almost wish it would, in the darkness of my sleep -just leave and catch its fill of home so this void wouldn’t continue to punch me mercilessly at the most inopportune moments. Fly through the muddy terraces and warm waters for hours only to burst back into my body with my first waking breaths.

Sometimes I urge my spirit to leave while I’m awake. Leave my body in a trance while you collect the remnants of a place I miss so acutely. I won’t mind.

What is calling me home? Who is calling me home? I can’t see their faces. It is my own? Is it simply myself? Will I always feel broken in two when I look out the window? Places that were once so familiar, places that defined me are now secondary identifications of where I came from. Does my ancestry supersede my circumstance? Will I ever just be able to simply exist?

Do I want to?

A bird shrilly calls, crickets chirp and I feel my blood lift in response. At night, I lie awake, straining to hear the bird sing. I know this creature for some reason. It sings alone, reminding me of home, reminding me of myself. Besides the regularly scheduled trains passing, it is the only sound I hear at night. All should be sleeping, but this bird sings as though its breast is sweating under the heat of a noontime sun. It reminds me that somewhere, far from here, it’s daylight. Somewhere far from here, birds and people sing and sweat under the noontime sun. While I sleep, someone calls and my spirit flies to meet itself where dreams and reality merge into one.

Tuesday, May 17, 2011

Rani Mukerji

I can't stop listening to this song off Blue Scholars' Cinematropolis!!!

"She got her hands in the air
Holding most of the sky
Still got time to stay fly...

...Don't need to flaunt,
Don't need to hide
Brown skinned lady
Let your darkness just shine!

...so many love songs,
but you never heard this."
-Blue Scholars

Monday, April 25, 2011

Funding and Support from the People

Yo! Respect to the Blue Scholars for this project called Cinemetropolis. In their effort to release their new record in true independent fashion, "No record label. No marketing and distribution deal. No middlemen. No bullsh*t," the Blue Scholars signed their record to the people enlisting the support of fans through the medium of Kickstarter. Depending on the amount invested, backers were promised advanced digital copies of the album, an actual cd copy, vinyl record, etc.

What I love about the project to sign to the people is that it gives the consumer the opportunity to give what we can and/or value the work and contributions of the Blues Scholars for what we think it's worth. So, if we feel the quality of their work (based on past experience) is worth more than a $12 cd, then we can give $50 instead. Sure, there's compensation, but there's absolutely an opportunity for choice and some self determination through this model.

And does it work? Hell yeah, it works. Out of a fundraising goal of $25,000, the Blue Scholars made more than $60,000 off the project. It's a testament to their artistry, intelligence and loyal fan base. Definitely a great teaching and learning experience from the Blue Scholars...as usual.

Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Rediscovering New York: Palisades Parkway Sunocos

Everybody who takes the Palisades Parkway to and from the city stops at the Sunocos right next to the GW Bridge. This evening when I stopped for gas, I saw the most bittersweet sight at the gas station -all these older brown men pumping gas for folks while laughing and joking with one another in their neon yellow Sunoco jackets. Lots of them were Latino, West Indian or West African and while it was somewhat sad to see these older men pumping gas in the cold weather, it was just a heartwarming sight to see their laughing and joyful camaraderie. The folks always make something out of nothing. Always.

Friday, April 1, 2011

Unclench, Unwind, Breath Deep

Since arriving in New York, I've tried (not always successfully) to maintain the calm, relaxed state of being that I constantly found myself in in the Philippines. I was rarely wound too tight while I was there. Admittedly, much of this is because I was not working and did not have to surround myself by other people or live up to other people's expectations but my own. As my time in New York has gone on, I've found myself clenched tight more often than I would like and my forehead in my wrinkle inducing frown. Today, I realized that if I didn't consciously address the clench, I'd make it a habit. I'd make it part of my everyday.

Don't get me wrong. I love New York. I am sooooo happy here, but there's no denying the reality of the New York rush -folks speed on the freeway, people push on the subway and rush by on the sidewalk passing hundreds of people and looking into the eyes of none.

So for all those moments when I find myself burrowed deep in the negativity of the culture of the GRIND, I'm just gonna UNCLENCH, UNWIND and BREATH DEEP. If you're lucky, I might even add a smile to that.

Sunday, March 27, 2011

Hālau o Keikiali'i

During the Tribal Tour, I was able to meet one of the LOVES of MY LIFE -Maharaj Singh. hehe. We spent such a short time together, but I know this man is gonna be in my life for a long time -a brother for life. Aside from being a simply beautiful person, extremely intelligent student and amazing teacher, the man is a traditional hula dancer.

I recently had the opportunity to check out his dance troupe, Hālau o Keikiali'i, at their New York performance at Symphony Space. It was beautiful and it was one of the first times since the Philippines that I was so strongly moved by the spirits invoked by their chanting and dances.

If ever you have a chance to check them out, do yourself a favor, buy a ticket and GO!

Thursday, March 24, 2011

Eating Pinoy Food Tutorial

This Mikey Bustos is too funny.

I really love, "Soooaappp allreeeadddyy!" during the fight over the dishes. How many times have you done that?!

Friday, March 18, 2011

Blue Scholars "Cinematropolis" Project

There are so many reasons why I love the Blue Scholars, and now I have one more reason to respect their work. This year, they'll be completing a project called Cinematropolis and instead of going through the conventional record label route, they're calling the people to make a deal with them instead. We pledge to the project and make it happen as a community. Geo describes it in the video below and you can read more about it at the Cinematropolis Kickstarter Page. Good stuff. Great stuff.

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Diwang Pinay -Spirit of the Filipina

When I heard about the production of Diwang Pinay, I was unsure of whether I wanted to attend. Would I want to see something about Filipinos overseas workers here after coming back? Would it be watered down compared to my last four months or would it be too much? Did I want to deal with either of those outcomes?

Ends up I didn't have to deal with either of those possibilities because it was perfect for my reentry to the us. I'm no critic but I felt and learned so much from the show which was brief but laden with the density of truth, love and struggle.

Each of the seven scenes focused on common themes experienced by real Pinay domestic workers living and working here in ny. The actors taught us about the struggle of raising other people's children, the interchanging monotony and rush of tasks, abuse, being away from one's family for years at a time, economic struggles, and coping mechanisms.

The play was powerfully created and produced using the stories and voices of the actresses themselves many OFW's for at least 5 years. because of the way it was created and produced. These were the stories of real women working in ny and they wrote the play themselves through a process that empowered them to have a voice.

So often I've seen the lines of OFW's in the airport and my heart always wrenches at the sight of modern day manongs and manangs who still have to make it work away from family, in a foreign place with so few resources. Diwang Pinay allowed us to hear intimately those voices on the OFW line and the voices of those who never or rarely even make it to that line.

In the last scene, the writers came to the front to share messages written to their families, mostly to their children. The room was filled with the tears and sobs of both the actresses and the audience who felt the separation, "the distance" as Geologic says "between our souls and our hearts."

I'm so grateful I was moved to go, even though I was uncertain of how it would make me feel. It's the little things that can keep us connected and it's the little things that will keep us apart. Diwang Pinay was definitely a bridge to home for which I am so thankful!