Monday, June 25, 2007
OK, so I thought I had really written a lot more. I hadn’t. It’s been a jampacked couple of days. OMG, OMG, OMG. I am so happy I am this program. The people are great. The teachers are awesome. The Philippines is amazing. It’s hard for me to be more specific than that because so much has happened and I am so tired and my internet access is limited.
The program began on Saturday morning; it’s been intense. My Tagalog is improving rapidly; the first 3 days of the language curriculum is—they told us— equivalent to a semester at NYU. I totally believe them. Today we had Tagalog class from 8 to 12:30 and then 1:30 to 4. And then we were taught a couple of indigenous (there are, I am finding out, many different tribes in the Philippines; I only knew of a couple).
I have only know the people in the program for a couple days now and already there is a comfortable bond. We all want to be here. We all want to learn the language; we all want to know more about what it means to be Filipino-America; we all like to go out ☺; we all like to eat (uh, we’re Filipino).
Some goals I’ve set for myself here, in terms of the language:
I want to write an essay in Tagalog.
I want to write a letter to my mom in Tagalog—I think it would make her really happy and she’d probably cry and I may cry writing it.
I want to write poetry in Tagalog—not just use Tagalog words in my poetry.
It hasn’t gotten intense emotionally yet (not really, really—although, when Susan, the head and director of the program, told her story of why she started TOS and her life story, my eyes welled up a bit. More on that later), but I have a feeling it will.
Just being here is a bit overwhelming—my senses are assailed in everyway. There are so many smells, sounds, textures, and tastes here. Also, being able to see ONLY Filipinos is overwhelming in and of itself. Filipino people are beautiful to me. Even the ugly ones.
I just reread that and it seems like I am exoticizing my own people; but, the sight of some many different Filipinos is remarkable and humbling to me. I am beginning to be able to differentiate different “kinds” (for lack of a better word) of Filipinos. There are Filipinos with indigenous faces, with Chinese faces, with Malay faces, with Spanish faces, with Japanese faces. Filipinos are such a mix of so many cultures, features, words, sounds, foods…but we are uniquely Filipino.
I am bordering on cheesy here, but I am awestruck and excited and happy and proud and nostalgic and sad and incredulous and … I don’t know. I’m feeling a lot here. I’m learning a lot here. And—it’s been 3.5 days since the program began.
No one here knows about my dad, yet.
My dad. I have actually been thinking a lot about him on this trip. I keep trying to imagine what I would say to him if I could call him at home, like I call my mom. I keep trying to imagine what he might say to me. I want to know more about what it was like for him growing up here. My mom was kind of s square growing up (she didn’t really have a choice, being female) and didn’t go out or have a barkada (Tagalog for “gang” or “group of friends”). But I know my dad did. My dad was the youngest of 11 children. His family was full of drama. I mean full. Like crazy loco crazy full. As my Tito Rofel told me—my dad was a good kid, who didn't really do anything infamous or extraordinary. So he was often overlooked and unseen with brothers and sisters who were extreme achievers or extreme, for lack of a better word, fuckups. To me, it’s unimaginable that my dad could’ve been an overlooked personality. In my mind he is such a large figure: charismatic, loud, funny, flamboyant. Everyone who came to his funeral had something to say that reflected this big personality; the cafeteria ladies from Saturn came to pay their respects and tell us how kind and happy my father always was, even though they admitted they didn't really know him.
I guess he became this person because he was overlooked as a child and as a young man living in the Philippines. I wonder what would’ve happened to him and who he would’ve become if he had stayed. I try to remember our visit to the Philippines when I was 13 and he was still alive. I want to ask him now what he thought then. How did he feel seeing some of his brothers and sisters living squalor after having been in the States for 20 some odd years? What was it like to come back and see San Pablo? I don’t even know which of his siblings her was close to; I think it was maybe my titas in Michigan, but I think they only became close after they were all already in the States.
I wish I could speak to my father in Tagalog. I am sure he’d get a big kick out of it. He’d probably laugh and maybe try to teach me bad words or see if I knew them already. I hope he’d say he was proud. I think he would be.
