One day I will be a Lola
& wear my flower print duster

As I write this reflection in my underwear and big t-shirt, I look like I just took a shower.  But I didn’t.  I just walked home in a thunderstorm.

This morning Christina and I woke up at 10:00 in our apartment in the Garden District.  In the middle of getting ready we stopped to grab long island iced tea and a mudslide from the nearest mom & pop shop that sells liquor, and went back home to enjoy our drinks while finishing our make-up.

Once we were dressed, and a little tipsy, we were ready to head out.  It was sunny still, and hotter than yesterday. It is so hot that Christina’s teal nail polish is melting off.

We took the St. Charles Street Car to Canal St. and walked to Cafe Du Monde in the French District.  There we ate beignets buried under a mountain of powdered sugar and shared a cafe a lait.

Then it was time for what we came to New Orleans for – jazz!  We attended the Louis Armstrong Satchmo SummerFest jazz festival and listened to brass bands and a rendition of “What a Wonderful World.”

The Festival was held at the U.S. mint, a historical landmark that also houses the Lousiana Civil Rights Museum.  What an amazing exhibit!  I could feel the emotions in the room as black, white, and 2 Filipina visitors stood together to revisit the history of race, racism, and white privilege in this country. Christina and I had a passionate discussion with Darren and another man (I’m sorry I can’t remember your name) who had a raspy voice like Louis Armstrong.  Louis was upset because we were standing next to a display that showed bundles of cash stacked up to represent the net worth of households of different races.  White and Asian net worth was stacked high.  Black, Latino, & “Other” was not even a 10th as high.  He was mad because of how people of color suffer in poverty, and because he believed the stereotype of the “Asian Model Minority.”  I explained that the model minority was a myth, that there are poor Asian immigrant and refugee communities who have been forced to leave home and come to this country because of war and lack of economic opportunities.  He was appreciative, and told us that Christina and I were the first Asian Americans he’s ever had a conversation with.  We decided together that misconceptions like the model minority myth keeps people of color divided and pitted against each other. Louis and Darren are native to New Orleans, and from the 9th ward, the district hardest hit and slowest to recover since Hurricane Katrina.  He told us how sad it still is, even two years after Katrina.  We also talked about Japanese internment and reparations, and he showed us his anguish about slavery: “We’re still paying for that.  No one ever gave us reparation.”

Christina and I hugged and parted with Darren & Louis, and stepped out of the museum back into the festival.  The ground was wet, the sun had left and rain had come while we were away!  We listened to a brass band play and sing “Who Dat Called the Cops?”  We bought ourselves a couple beers, mine was Abita Purple Haze, and then it started to rain again!  So we gave each other a twirl around and danced in the rain, beers in hand.

We listened to a whole set by the New Birth Brass Band before grabbing lunch from one of the festival vendors.  We bought crawfish etouffee from a man who thought we were so beautiful “it hurt [him] to take our cash.”  Too bad it didn’t hurt him enough to earn us a free meal.  We ate under the cover of a big oak tree and had a conversation with a flapper woman dressed in purple feathers who had just danced in the Zulu parade.

By this time the rain had turned into a full blown thunder storm, and so it was time to head back home to get ready for dinner.  We walked, laughing, through the rain.  We splashed through the French Quarter to the street car and made our way home.

So here I am, listening to Etta James and waiting for my hair to dry.  It’s almost time for dinner – we’re having boudin sausage, deep-fried alligator, and wood-fired oysters!  After dinner comes more jazz at the Spotted Cat.  There is more jazz in this city than I can soak up in a lifetime.  Guess I’m coming back next year!

Drink deeply
Breathe the air
Live in the moment.

Those are the words the loves of my life left me with before I left for Peru, and that´s what I´m going to do here.

It´s 2 am in Lima and I don´t board my next flight to Cuzco until 4:55.

After the eight hour flight from LA to Lima, I believe in fate again. I believe in fate. I believe in God. I believe in good people. Before I left, my mom asked me what my seat number was. My family is superstitious so whenever we go to a casino we always make sure to park in column D for “dollar” or C for “cash”. I was assigned to seat 24L, which I thought was lucky since the 24th is my birthday and my mother´s maiden name is Librea.

Sitting next to me, in seat 24J, was Lourdes. If you talked to me before I left, you know I was scared shitless. Lourdes, an adorable Peruvian lady, told me not to worry. She gave me advice, ordered me tea (because I´m possibly coming down with swine flu :/), helped me find my baggage, walked me through immigration and customs, introduced me to her family, and guided me to my next terminal. It was like i had my mom with me.

Lourdes was also superstitious with numbers and letters.  She was happy to be seated in 24J because her grandson’s name began with the letter J, just like me.

I’m drifting somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea.  This cruise wasn’t what I expected.  Embarkation at Southhampton – I was a speck of brown in a long line of grey English heads.

Then once on board we were greeted by more familiar brown faces – Mexican, Thai, and the smiles and songs of my people.  I think I’d feel more in my place with the crew, working hard and still smiling big.  But then who’s to say a Filipino can’t live large?  Eating and sleeping the days away between trips to Rome and Monte Carlo?

“Wherever you go you will always be a Filipina,” Tita Ning told me.  She’s right.  I’m no European.  The ancient ruins and grotesquely overbearing cathedrals I visit here are not my past.  My roots are with the sea that carried my people to every corner of the world – upon Spanish galleons and princess cruise ships.  And I’m proud.  My ancestors, my kababayan are strong and relentless as the pounding waves, bright and hopeful as the approaching horizon.

My only wish is that more often the tides would change.  That this ship might catch the horizon, the tomorrow when seamen can go home for good, survive and thrive from labor on their own land – sa atin.

Ate Kathy, Tito Milan, Ferdi, Max, Tito Solomon, Kuya Michael, Fireman A, Lolo Ernie, Lola, Journey, Tito Dennis, Tita Maribu, Tita Marie… Sana I’ll see you again.

for touching pen to paper

ink gliding so softly i can actually hear my thoughts

There’s something to be said for listening to jazz

late into the night while I’m in my underwear and my room is a mess

Must be something in the Los Angeles air

that doesn’t quite want you there.

You’re just tough enough

or stubborn enough

or angelic enough

to stick it out.

Something about writing a poem

tells me that I’m in love

and I’m an artist poet dreamer again

This was posted to a facebook group called “InZombiac”.  4 people like this photo.
On August 25 at 8:23pm ·Gregory Paneroshe commented: “she’s too hot to want rights.”

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=44504990&o=all&op=1&view=all&subj=2231388586&aid=-1&id=6018007&oid=2231388586#

I’m interning with GABNet LA right now, I might have met the woman in this photograph.  GABNet is a women’s mass solidarity organization with campaigns against the trafficking of Filipino women and children and against the US-led war of terror.  It is an organization that empowers women.

I don’t know how to explain how it makes me feel to see the image of an empowered woman made made a mockery of.  To say that this shit makes me hella mad isn’t enough.

A good friend emailed me the link to this image with the message “a reminder that people in these kinds of pictures are STILL people… people we can know very well, and then we realize these things are fucked up and hella offensive” (thanks Antonio, miss you).

We have a lot of work left to do.

—

UPDATE:  A victory!  The photograph above was reported to Facebook and taken down.  After informing GABRIELA Network about the misuse of their slogan, they were able to secure a copyright to the phrase “A woman’s place is in the struggle” so that we can take legal action against anyone who exploits the phrase in the future.

And then there are others.

I went to the pool in my housing community the other day.  I was wearing my bikini and basketball shorts.  As I was walking to the pool entrance an older man stopped to watch me.  He was standing right by the gate to the pool, I had to pass him.  I had my headphones on and I turned the music up as I walked by because I knew by the way he was looking at me that he had nothing good to say.  I didn’t hear exactly what he said as I walked by… but he made me feel gross.  I felt dirty.  I felt like a piece of meat.  I thought there must be something wrong with me to attract that kind of negative attention.  I was afraid he would follow me to the pool.

I’m a pretty confident person.  I’m not embarassed or shy in a bikini or dirty sweats.  But I haven’t always been this way.  There are so many girls who struggle with their image and self-worth.  For my internship I am doing video interviews to make a podcast.  It is so much more difficult to find women who will agree to be interviewed on camera because they are often self-conscious about the way they look.  What does it say when a woman who feels good about herself and her body is reduced to a piece of meat?

I blamed myself for feeling so confident, for not wearing a t-shirt over my bikini.

And then I remembered a note that my best friend, Christina Manalo, wrote:

“If I decide to dress promiscuously, I do so without the intention of creating an INVITATION for men to catch a feel. It is a choice about MY body, and MY image…

So, men , if you’re reading this, respect a woman’s right to her body and the way she chooses to present herself to the world.

And to my sisters , I hope this blog reminds you of your voice, your rights, your power.”

Read Christina’s whole blog here: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#/note.php?note_id=67849640674

inspiration…

all together…

“This stage is triggered by an event (either negative or positive) that helps the pinoy/pinay understand that he or she has been unjustly classified in the Asian American paradigm.  He or she has become aware of the marginalization of pinoys and pinays as Asian Americans, and he or she has been educated on the social injustices and invisibility of specificially to F/Pilipinos in American Society… the Filipino may be seen as angry, but he or she is even more angry because now the anger is directed not only toward the dominant culture but toward the entire society around him or her.  He or she does not want to be marginilized or neglected any longer.” -

This identity model asseses the individual on 5 aspects: his or her attitudes and beliefs toward his or herself, towards other F/Pilipino Americans, other Asian Americans, other minority groups, and toward the white/dominant group.

1. My attitude towards myself… I definitely feel a sense of self-empowerment through being able to proudly identify myself as a Pinay.  Many Filipino Americans go through a stage of self-depreciation as they strive to live up to white standards.  But I am no longer embarassed about my flat Filipino nose that I used to pinch every night before going to sleep in the hopes that I might one day wake up with a bridge.  There weren’t very many Filipinos where I grew up, so in high school I identified myself with the broader Asian-American group so that I could identify with a community.  Now in college at UCI, the campus with the highest percentage of Asian-Americans in the nation, I don’t think of myself as an “asian girl”.  I think of myself as a Filipina. 

2.  My attitude towards other F/Pilipino Americans… I am deeply involved in the Filipino American community.  I get frustrated with friends and family members, other Filipinos, who are still self-depreciating and are apathetic towards our culture and community.  Filipinos have higher high-school drop out, children out of wedlock, and HIV/AIDS rates than any other Asian American group.  But this isn’t something to feel hiya (shame) about.  It points to special needs in our community that aren’t being addressed.  “The model minority” is a myth especially when we are a marginalized group within that minority. 

3.  My attitude towards other Asian Americans… According to the model, depending on my experiences, I could either have a neutral or negative attitude towards Asian Americans.  I suppose I have learned to distinguish myself from the broader Asian American community not only because of the huge cultural differences between Filipinos and other Asian American communities, but also because of some of the prejudice I have felt.  I have been told from other Asian Americans that Filipinos don’t usually go to college, that Filipinos are cheap, and that Filipinos are not Asian.  I’ve heard the recurring “joke” that Filipinos are the Mexicans of Asia, referring not only to Spanish colonization but to the occupation of many Filipinas as domestic servants.  I once told my dad that I went to an event hosted by my school’s Chinese Association.  He laughed and told me they must have been wondering what I was doing there.  But I wouldn’t say that my attitude towards other Asian Americans is negative.  It’s important to recognize the huge cultural and psychological differences between Filipino Americans and other Asian Americans; the Filipino Umbrella Organization at UCI split from the Asian American/Pacific Islander Student Association because we felt that our issues weren’t being advocated for as strongly as we could fight for them ourselves.  But through organizing I also realize the importance of maintaining respect and a relationship with other Asian Americans as allies.

My attitude towards other minorities…  I’ve always been able to relate to Latinos as much, if not more than I have been able to relate to other Asian Americans.  While I was in Peru I felt comforted by the number of cultural similarities between Peruvians and Filipinos.  I’ve worked a lot with different communities of color  and can identify myself as a woman of color as easily as I can identify myself as a Pinay. 

My attitude towards white/dominant society… In High School I realized that one of my biggest fears was of older white men in business suits.  This is because I am afraid that I can never achieve any authority over him.  This man has power, privelage, and opportunity that I can never attain and my word will never be taken over his.  I guess that makes me angry.

Media coverage that I have seen of global sex-trafficking tends to sensationalize the issue and make a spectacle of the perverts and their sexual misbehavior.  But as much as we want to make scapegoats of these men, they are not the source of the problem.  In this sort of media entertainment, the voices of the victims are lost.  They are not just victims of pedophils and perverts.  They are the victims of poverty, inequity, weak states, corruption, and injustice.  We don’t stop sex-trafficking simply by putting creeps in jail.  The purpose and answer to anti-sex trafficking is to improve the lives of women and children who otherwise have no choice but to fall victim.