Growing Up Filipino II

I was 10 when someone gave me my first diary. It was small, hard-backed, had a teddy bear on it and, most importantly, a lock. What more could a kid want than a space where she could say anything she wanted? Crushes, rants, dreams, magic, love songs. It was all in there. What my first diary meant to me can be summed up in one delicious word: FREEDOM! I was hooked on recording the details of my life, the soaring search for the right word, playing with poems and stories from that moment onward.

I was one of those kids who loved her English teachers and was wide-eyed with wonder (and a little intimidated!) at these wise-owl women we called librarians. In L.A., in the 1980’s, there really weren’t too many stories with Filipino or Filipino American kids on the bookshelves. In third or fourth grade, I had an assignment to write a report on my heritage. When I went to the public library, the librarian wasn’t able to find any books that mentioned Filipino culture. She shook her head sympathetically. The invisibility of my culture in books  sank into my consciousness quietly, stealthily. Because I never saw an author of my heritage, I’d assumed that people like me didn’t have any worthwhile stories. Hey, if my beloved English teachers and the wise librarians didn’t have stories of families like mine on the shelves, the stories couldn’t possibly exist, right? Kid logic.

So I wrote, secretly. I was a writer before I even had a word for it. No one in my family and no one we knew wrote stories. The grown-ups in my family were all nurses and navy men, vendors at  sari-sari stores, and med techs who worked long hours and relaxed by watching TV and movies and feasting at potlucks. No books for pleasure, only text books for saving patients’ lives. I thought I was weird for writing my stories and kept my weirdness private. But, man, the joy of locking my bedroom door, curling up on my window-seat with flowery cushions, turning on the radio, and letting my black felt-tip pen glide in loops and swoops across the page!

The first time I ever met a Filipino writer, I was already 19, studying at UCLA, and firmly convinced we had no stories. It was one of the most awesome moments of my life to learn, at last, that someone from my background was an author. His existence showed me that dreams are possible (and that, perhaps, I wasn’t so weird after all). The writer happened to be N.V.M. Gonzalez, who is considered a national treasure and one of the founders of literature in the Philippines. He was also a keen teacher who respected his young students greatly. N.V.M. didn’t make a big deal about himself. Humble, like the characters in his short stories.

So it’s with the greatest pleasure that I share with you all the U.S. launch of the anthology Growing Up Filipino II, edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard. Cecilia is tireless in publishing stories from the Filipino diaspora — a fancy word that simply means my sea-faring, adventurous, and  hard-working community has traveled and settled around the world. It’s filled with 27 stories from writers of Filipino descent who grew up in the Philippines, the United States, and Canada. There are wonderful writers like Marianne Villanueva, Paulino Lim, Jr., and Cecilia Brainard. One of my own YA short stories, “Shiny Black Boots,” is included in Growing Up Filipino II. And I count myself lucky to be in such fantastic literary company.

I think the me who was the L.A. Valley Girl in the 1980’s would have loved to see Growing Up Filipino II on the bookshelves. I wouldn’t have had to wait so long to learn that we, too, had stories worth reading. And to my friends who, also, never knew that Filipino stories existed, this is a great time to introduce them to your teens. As a kid I loved Scott O’Dell’s Island of the Blue Dolphins and Elizabeth George Speare’s The Witch of Blackbird Pond. Stories of survival and resourcefulness, creating bonds of friendship, and taking care of your family are universal.   James Baldwin said it best in his 1984 Paris Review interview: “Your self and your people are indistinguishable from each other, really, in spite of the quarrels you may have, and your people are all people.”

- MGB

-MGB

“Cory in Yellow”

by Mary Grace Bertulfo

Here on EDSA

there is a statue

of Mama Mary,

her hands outstretched

in blessings over Manila.

It is to help us

remember

the place

where peace won out.

Cory in yellow,

I saw her on TV,

she looked like my mom,

short, permed hair

and glasses.

But she marched

in front on EDSA

making an “L” with her fingers.

“Laban! Laban!”

Fight! Fight!

She led her people

to walk and face the police

who guarded the dictator.

Her people swarmed

behind her,

Cory in yellow

who fought greed and killing

with peaceful marching

and prayers

instead of guns and fists.

They stormed Malacanyang Palace

The police gave way

the dictator fled.

Cory in yellow

made the victory sign.

Cory in yellow.

Aquino.

They called it

the Bloodless Revolution.

Milking the Rhino shows just how complicated it can all be — the tangle of race relations, colonial history, poverty, women’s place in traditional society, and conservation. This film is honest. It interviews Himba women, Massai men, European eco-tourism business owners, African conservationists like fiercely eloquent Helen Gichochi, European tourists, and an expatriot who started his own wildlife preserve. It shows all the rough edges and also shows people (from all parties) being challenged, undergoing transformation as they figure out how to change their relationship to the wild ecosystem and their natural resources. I really dig that it’s raw and that people, in the end, seem to learn how to work with each other despite not always agreeing. Can there be win-win-win solutions? Yes, I think Milking the Rhino shows there can.

The second documentary I’d recommend is Arctic Dance, narrated by Harrison Ford. (Okay, ya got me – I’m still an Indiana Jones fan at heart, pulpy and antiquated as it is.) This film chronicles the life and impact of Margaret (“Mardy”) Murie, who is known as the Grandmother of the American conservation movement. She and her husband, Olaus, worked tirelessly to establish the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. She was riding dog sleds and trekking across Alaska’s tundra, punting on rivers (baby in tow) when it was unheard of for a woman to be doing these things. Mardy was the first woman to graduate from the University of Alaska, Fairbanks. She often worked as Olaus’ secretary, and seemed, by nature, to be a behind-the-scenes kind of person. But after he died, she gently took to the microphone to lobby in Washington, D.C. for the wilderness they both explored and loved. President Clinton awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom for her work.

What’s touching about Mardy is how humble she was about her own role making environmental history. It’s as much a love story as it is a piece of American history. She truly makes the personal political — it seems to me that she loved the land and terrain of Alaska where she grew up and she shared this with her dearest love, Olaus. There’s a solitude, and solid peacefulness to their existence. And the humility she shows is the mark of a truly great spirit. A gentle strength — I love that. Plus, come on, now, she shows that elder women rock. What a role model.

Milking the Rhino and Arctic Dance, two really different takes on conservation. Check them out if you can!

~ MGB

Check it out under “Com.passion”.

I feel beyond fortunate to have friends who are interesting and insightful and dear, like my friend Elaine, who introduced me to this magazine, Greater Good. It’s published by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center which (according to its own copy) “promotes the study of human happiness, compassion, and altruism”.

This 5-year-old mag, which will go online in the spring, looks at human happiness through methodological scientific inquiry. In other words, it’s where science meets positive human emotion.

This month’s issue rocks. They feature the question “Why Make Art?”, look at the human history of making art; interview a writer, a rapper (KRS-1 !) , a photographer, a choreographer, and a filmmaker — all of whom have distinctly personal answers to the question; and look at the arts in public school education and the benefits of creativity and art in hospitals.

But the topic that’s blown my mind so far in this issue is their feature “Bhutan at the Crossroads”. Mirka Knaster writes about this amazing country where happiness is a governmental policy goal.  (Admittedly, I was a bit skeptical at first and wondered if it was like Big Brother in Orwell’s 1984. Someone watching you all the time, rigid codes of conduct, punishment.) But it’s really fascinating…Bhutan has a policy on GNH. What is GNH? Gross National Happiness.

That’s right, GNH. They do still have GDP, Gross Domestic Product. They’re not a super rich country. But they do rank first in Asia and eighth in the world in the University of Leicester (UK) world map of happiness from 2007. It’s amazing what’s possible in this world, what ways of thinking we can create, improve, or change.

So if the spirit moves you, check out Greater Good and “Bhutan at the Crossroads”. It’s pretty happy-making.

- MGB

I’ve got it linked under “Bayanihan Spirit”. Hyphen is a non-profit mag. The staff works for FREE. “We do it as a labor of love,” they say. I lift a glass of Dom to you — that’s bayanihan spirit. Mabuhay to Hyphen.

Check-it and subscribe if the spirit moves you. Let’s get that staff of artists, writers, and editors paid.

~ MGB

A new category of links, “Bayanhihan Spirit, Cooperative Spirit”. These are links devoted to people and orgs engaged in collaborative work and community-building.

• Anti-Gravity Surprise – collaborative arts for social change.
• Pinoy+Proud – celebrates Filipino heritage, history, and arts; helps cultural centers; all welcome. (Yes, my cousins and I run this site.)
• Tanikgalang Ginto – Ken Ilio’s pinoneering site that serves as one of the largest Filipino culture directories online.

Under “Natural Heritage” category:

• Ansel Adams – awesome nature photography, environmentalism, and majestic images of Yosemite.

Enjoy!

“Advice for Visiting Relatives” is my in-progress poetry collection for children based on my first trip to Manila when I was thirteen. Enjoy!

MGB

• In “Joy of Artistry” –> Kim Taylor Reece and his gorgeous, sensual, and well-researched sepia photos of kahiko hula, ancient hula. Beyond mainland novelty plastic skirts, 1950’s kitsch posters, and hula girl bobbles, Reece’s photos capture the power, spirituality, and sensuality of the dance. Breathtaking.
• In “Globe-trotting and Time-travel” –> The Wampanoag Homesite, part of the Plimoth Plantation site. Learn about Thanksgiving from the perspective and experiences of the Wampanoag community. (National Geographic has a children’s book, 1621, A NEW LOOK AT THANKSGIVING, which shows historical re-enactments of the multi-day feast. A real eye-opener. What is factual? What is national mythology? Great for kids.)

Enjoy!

MGB