No reservations, no regrets - I don't hate that I didn't know then what I know now

My class seems quite nonjudgmental and forgiving about the diversity of Filipino ethnic performance (or nonperformance).

Oh, please! C'mon, give me some hate. Haven't I created a safe environment to share your honest thoughts?

Huh?

Okay, so at the beginning of the semester I asked everyone to write an essay about themselves and answer the question (no matter what their race) what they think it means to be Filipino American. Last night, I literally cut out sentences from their essays and randomly stuffed them into five envelopes. Today I divided the class into five groups, gave each an envelope and asked them to do a thematic analysis of the contents.

But before dividing the group up, I showed clips from Anthony Bourdain's No Reservations Philippines episode. I chose clips that showed the diverse influences we have, and Augusto and his identity crisis. In between I asked the group for their reactions and a few pointed questions. Two of the students (both Filipino) saw it when it aired. They both thought it was a fair representation of the diversity of food, for an hour-long show.

When I asked the group to describe to me what authentic Filipino food is, most of them responded with a variation of "it depends." I probably conditioned that response so I asked it another way: if you ate at a Filipino restaurant, what would make you give it a good rating? One student volunteered that he does expect a certain saltiness, reminiscent of his mother's cooking. Then I showed the clip where one (probably uncharacteristically well-stocked) cook explained the commonality of sourness. I skipped over the clip that proclaimed the commonality to be bitterness. So even in defining what's common, we have to allow for diversity: salty, sour and bitter.

Then I showed Augusto's audition tape, his meeting up with Bourdain in Cebu where he explains his detachment from being Filipino, and Bourdain's disappointment with Augusto's inability to be a guide. Three students quickly raised their hands:

"Bourdain is expecting too much. The kid grew up in NY. Culture does not stay with you like skin color. I spent a week with relatives in Germany and I couldn't explain the cuisine. Eating is not the same as knowing the meaning." I wasn't expecting these insights.

But those three students were not Filipino, so I asked the Filipino students: what do you think? Is this hitting close to home? Chuckles. Most of them are Augusto. One Cebuana said that her family is just like what they showed: quiet. And besides a film crew can be intimidating. Another said that when he went home, they didn't have a parade for him. They identified with feeling like an outsider in the Philippines, with feeling detached from "Filipino."

And when I pressed, they recognized the pressure of Bourdain's expectation, however unrealistic. Relatives, friends and strangers, Filipino and not, often expect us to know the culture we came from, as if culture was innate or inherited. And we're expected to retrieve it easily, as if we just temporarily misplaced it. We all agreed, as Bourdain said, that no matter how much we read, eat, try and (re)learn the language, we can never go home.

So then the group activity started. Here are just a few of the responses that they were categorizing (paraphrased, I had about 90 clippings, 18 per group).

A Filipino American is...
- Filipino first.
- an American. Filipino is just a description of root and origin.
- are from close knit families and groups.
- something I have only recently become proud of.
- is proud and connected to his roots.
- must first be active in taking part in cultural practices to earn the right to be labeled as such.
- short, brown, loud, kind, driven, hard working, funny, hospitable [these got categorized under the theme of stereotype].

After all was said and done, they were quite willing to accept the diversity of opinions on what it means to be Filipino American. I liked the apparent dichotomies in the responses, so I tested them: So Augusto was not Filipino American until he got interested in his culture? Yes, he was--they were adamant--yes he is. He wasn't self-aware, but that doesn't mean he's not Filipino American. I don't get to tell him he's not Filipino.

Oh, please! C'mon, give me some hate. Haven't I created a safe environment to share your honest thoughts?

Seriously, though, I'm glad they are so nonjudgmental. But I'll have other opportunities to hit them in the gut with the reading that's coming up. I'm going for affective learning (heart) as well as intellectual.

One comment that I recognized as my own judgmental bias was this:

- just being the child of Filipino immigrants may qualify you, but if you aren't divesting [I think she meant investing] a certain amount interest into wanting to learn moare about your culture, your family, or the struggles that the Filipino community faces, then what's the point?

This is me at times because, as an activist, I have often wondered, why am I the only Filipino in this room full of Asians fighting for xxx issue? The aunties put on their banquets and uncles proclaim a vague pride in being Filipino, but where are they when it matters?

I know, though, that the criticism is unfair. I judge from a position of privilege--educated, English-speaking, assimilated--and fortunate to have had my consciousness raised and get paid for it. I am Augusto, more so than my students, because I was probably the same age as him when I decided to wrestle with identity (and I don't blame my parents cuz they were as colonized as I was whitewashed). I don't hate that I didn't know then what I know now.

And now I have a unique opportunity to teach a class on Filipino American activism.

This excerpt best exemplifies the class's inclusiveness:

To me, the definition of being Filipino American is as flexible a term as the people who embody it. There is no qualification to being Fil-Am--you don't need to know Tagalog, you don't need to eat "our food." The more Americans we can also call Filipino the better.

There is no right or wrong answer, the kids want to say (just like in my other class). Okay, I said, I can accept that. But there are consequences. Foreshadowing...

Have a good spring break!

Community organizers

So here is my OMG from today's class:

OMG they don't know why or how "community organizer" became such a loaded term! Ok, one person knew that Obama considered himself a community organizer. But no one remembered that Sarah Palin disparaged them. Where were they?!?!?! Just 5 months ago, right? Sheltered? Inattentive? Selective? Or maybe Palin's comment didn't have that much play except among those of us who got offended. Hmmmm.

But today was a good class. We discussed "Philip Vera Cruz: A Personal History..." with questions like these:

• Let’s call Philip Vera Cruz a community organizer. A loaded term, I know. So let’s reload it. How do you think Philip Vera Cruz would define “community organizer”? Think in terms of knowledge, qualities, skills and other factors that you think are important.

I also asked about his lessons in leadership and coalition building and participation. Most importantly, I threw all sorts of current events into the mix: harassment of day laborers, "illegal immigrants," the stimulus package, majority rules, bi-partisan "compromise", driving while brown. What does Philip Vera Cruz's personal history have to tell us about these issues? Got a lot of participation! And my favorite, we got some disagreement and surfaced some prejudice. Teachable moments! Yeah!

Diana Ross

I came out to my Asian American Sexualities class today (3rd meeting). I'm never sure how to do it (oblique reference? or ellen-level declarative?) and it's always a bit unnerving. And as usual with this generation, the class is nonplussed. Next subject.

Of course, I don't think my students are representative of the school. The title of the course, I'm sure, selects for a certain set of students.

Today was declarative, minus ellen's elan.

History live!

There's nothing like hearing history from the history makers themselves. Today in class I was lucky to have the two fierce pinays whose activism created Asian American Studies at UMD, Christina and Angela Lagdameo. If I can figure out how to link to the Washington Post article about them (Aug 31, 2000), I'll post it. And then Juanita Tamayo Lott came by too, so that we could also hear about her experience in the 1968 student strike at SF state. Hearing them speak reminds me of how much history does not capture. The passion, the enthusiasm, the moment, and fascinating tidbits get freeze-dried and abstracted for our textbooks. Of course we should still clamor for inclusion in those books. But never let books be the only tool for learning.

My course is titled (not by me) Filipino American History and Biography. But today it dawned on me (or maybe I'm just admitting) that the more appropriate title is Filipino American Activism.

We hear over and again about the Asian communities' lack of activism and interest in engaging politically. About our meekness and desire to not rock the boat. And I hear this mostly from other Asians. But maybe that's the narrative we've been fed to keep us down (and that we believe it means we've internalized the racism it represents). Maybe it's that we don't know where to look for the activists, because Asian American studies isn't around in enough places to raise our consciousness about how much we've actually done. And because people like me often do complain, why aren't we being louder? Where are we (on x issue)?

We need to hear more stories about ourselves to repudiate, complicate and diversify this portrait of the non-activist Asian American. And in recognition of my very diverse class, I should clarify that "we" and "ourselves" is not just Filipinos or Asians. My class will leave knowing who the activists are.

Butterfly kisses and consequences

Today in my Asian American Sexualities class, I had the students share their first writing assignment with each other in small groups, a 1-page paper entitled, "AAPI Sexualities are..." Their responses were many and varied, and that was the point. It's the first week of class and I'm trying to assess what they know and think coming in, and to show them each other's perspectives.

And to let them sit there in that ambiguity. I told them that I would rarely try to push our conversations toward convergence or agreement. I value the ability to entertain a thought without accepting it (Aristotle). Good thing I have a high tolerance for ambiguity.

At the end, one student remarked, "Well, there are no right or wrong answers." To which I replied, "True, but there are answers with consequences, and we'll be learning about how severe some of them can be."


Somewhere in the sharing, there was occasion to bring up the annual fertility festival in Japan (http://www.wordpress.tokyotimes.org/?p=2088) which I called the penis festival. They got a kick out of hearing about such a thing. But as I was driving home, I thought to myself, if it's a fertility festival, and couples go for good luck, why is the phallus the only symbol for fertility? I'll ask them next class. Shout out to my sistas in the Pukengkeng Liberation Front.

Immediacy

so my unwritten (until now) goal is to blog within the first few hours after class...to capture my reactions before they become reflections and resolutions. i met that with the last entry. reading it now, i see that i captured the incident that i need at the beginning of every semester that reminds me to adjust my expectations. i'm still flummoxed that no more than 2 or 3 students vaguely recognized the hooded prisoner. and i'm wondering if i could really appreciate what reagan meant since i was only in college at the time.

but on the point of whether a student can get it, well it only takes one to make me feel good. this is what made me feel good at the end of last semester:

"The International Hotel story was one that touched me greatly. I had never heard about the struggle that Filipino Americans faced. What was even more heart wrenching to me was it was not that long ago, in fact my parents were both alive at this time. What happened to the Filipino Americans living in the International Hotel at this time was monstrous and disgusting."

this excerpt, a response to a final exam question, reminded me why I teach Filipino American studies--and it's not about academics. the film, the Fall of the I-Hotel--as dated and slow-paced as it is (probably cuz I've seen it a dozen times)--is still worth showing. when i told the student how this made me feel, he thanked me for a class that taught him some truly valuable lessons.

~:'-)

Abu Ghraib has no meaning

OMG they did not recognize this image. It was only 6 years ago (Spring 2003)! Are they really so sheltered? So unaware? But okay, they were teenagers. Maybe their parents kept them from seeing the images from Abu Ghraib.

Still it makes me wonder how to teach the meaning of this and other events. I teach from a place of experience, of having events in the real world propel me to look for meaning. Of working with others to "sense-make", and in turn, to create change.

That's what I, and I'm sure other ethnic-studies professors, bring to teaching. And yet, what is this image to my students? I can express myself passionately, I can tell them the meaning, but will they feel it? Will they get it? Will it make them feel connected to other's suffering? Will it propel them to action, or at least to look for meaning, too? So what is the whole exercise of ethnic studies about, anyway?

Anyway, this isn't a soul-searching moment that I'm expressing. Just a reaction to my second day of class. I've got 38 students, though today only 23 showed up because of snow. I asked if anyone knew who Maj Gen Antonio Taguba is. As expected, not many knew. I pulled up this photo, thinking I would then make a point about how only parts of a story get embedded in the public psyche, and that we often forget really important people. But their psyche was empty. Al laa.

I got a similar shock when I first started teaching and no one could tell me what People Power was. It had meaning for me when it happened because I was a whitewashed 2nd year college student with a politically connected roommate. So even though I didn't really want to care, he kept the TV on the story and I, like many others, was gripped by the nuns kneeling in front of the tanks. It was one of my consciousness raising moments. But most of my students weren't even born yet. That really woke me up.

But 2003?!?!