 Migration, whether voluntary or involuntary, might be the central theme of American literature and one that unites Americans across ethnic and racial grounds. Using poetry, documents, prose, and manifestos, American Filipinos add their stories to this body of literature. Spoken Into Existence by Adrienne Formendos Before my grandmother died, I always imagined fulfilling a lifelong goal of speaking to her in one fluid conversation in Tagalog. But for all the five years she was sick, all I could ever muster was a timid gumustapo, the form away of asking an elder how she was doing. She always gave the same cheeky answer, my beauty Parin, still beautiful. In the Bay Area, an extensive network of Filipino elders, fresh off the plane or not, is as common as the bridges that connect the condensed cities surrounding the Bay. My dark brown skin, flat nose and barely four foot eleven inch frame, is an obvious giveaway for the Filipinos who come from home and are always seeking someone familiar. I can be sitting on Muni or volunteering at my clinic, but within moments I'm always bombarded with the same set of questions about where my parents are from, how often I've gone back, and how I like the Philippines. Inevitably, I'm always asked, do you speak Tagalog? I've lost count of how many times a light has gone from someone's excited eyes when I reply that I can't. Like a connection has been severed, the girl before them, so much like a niece or a cousin or even a daughter, is not like them at all. Even in the kindest of situations, there's always a matter of, ho, what a shame. My feeble attempts at redemption just lead to more awkwardness, and every time I try to explain, then I can at least understand Tagalog. I always feel like an imposter. After all, hearing the words and knowing the meaning is vastly different from really understanding what someone is saying. In miscommunicated conversations with my dad, for example, I often think we are on opposite sides of the Pacific. Him, standing in the forgotten rice fields of yesterday, vowel enunciating hard sounds with punctuated cadence. There might as well be oceans. A teacher and friend once told me, nothing is real until it's spoken. Once a thought has been verbalized, it exists. If this is true, then there is so much about my relationship with my father that does not exist, or my grandmother. But I refuse to believe that. My entire life, I've only known the American English response for the questions and greetings and sound bites of each day. I am an American, born and raised, but two places reside within me. Two voices run parallel. Only one speaks, but that doesn't mean the other is silent. I've made small attempts at mixing in bits of Tagalog into my day. I use basic Tagalog for common household items, as well as catchphrases that do not quite have an English translation. Or simply phrases that taste better in Tagalog, and are more satisfying to say. Like the feeling when you get, when you're exasperated, doubtful, annoyed, and yet still humored by life. Yes, I'm the short, sweet version of that. And it's delicious to say at the right time. I want to connect the words within me that cannot always be said, but are always there. At present, I make linguistic trips to the motherland, because I recognize the importance of meeting my elders more than halfway. Of meeting my father more than halfway. The acrobatics of bouncing Tagalog between my tongue and the roof of my mouth is foreign and strange. But it is worth it if it means empowering that other voice. I'm sure my grandmother would still think that it's beautiful. Thank you. Not long ago I saw an interview with a Filipino writer who spoke of cliches that Filipino writers, mostly beginning Filipino writers, use. He cited such things as mango colored suns, white sand beaches, and of course the obligatory carabao as hindrances to the literary landscape one is trying to create. This writer's comments made me think of my own writing and the role the carabao has played in it. Firstly, I have never seen a carabao. The carabao is a beautiful animal, hardworking and loyal, I've been told. The people who told me this of the carabao also happen to be hardworking and loyal. And I have been told that I have displayed just the opposite qualities, namely by my father. I have seen the carabao in pictures in National Geographic and numerous books showing the landscape of my indigenous ancestral home, the Philippines. I felt somewhat guilty in regards to the writer's comments because I had used carabaos and mango colored skies as metaphors in my writing. You're a sham, a friend once told me. You've never seen a carabao in your life, nor have you been to the Philippines. Now this was true, but I began to think about this writer who is quite well known since the release of his book. I looked at his face, his clothes, his hair. All were immaculate, all impurity swept away in the archipelago winds. I was curious if this writer had ever stepped into a steaming mound of carabao dung in his oxfords or boat shoes and subsequently fallen. Or had he ever awakened to find carabao crust in his eyes or walked with carabao mud between his toes or carabao snot running down his nose. These and other questions remain. The mystery persists. Now my uncle, the poet Al Robles, he also wrote of carabaos. His book of poems, rapping with 10,000 carabaos in the dark, are carabao tracks on the page tracing their journey in the Philippines and in the U.S. Each poem is stained with the mud, saliva, tears, tae, the life of the carabao, the memory of the carabao, the music of the carabao, the heart of the carabao, which is the heart of the manongs. The sound of the carabao brings us closer to home, closer to the earth, closer to ourselves. Carlos Bulasan wrote of the carabao in America is in the heart. In the story his brother Amado beats a weary carabao with a stick to which his father responds by slapping him sharply across his face. What are you doing to the carabao? I think one of my uncle's poems, I think of one of my uncle's poems and the reverence he had for the carabao. He's a nice one, you know. The carabao is nice to you. When you come in the afternoon from the rice field, he goes home too by himself. After the sun goes down, he lays down. God damn, like a human being! International Hotel Night Watch, Manong Carabao. I ride you through the eye hotel rice fields, one by one the carabao plows deep. I recently took a walk to a grocery store in my neighborhood and I live out in the outer Richmond. A couple blocks from my house I came upon a garage sale. I approached and saw the usual books, plates, clothes, knickknacks. All kinds of stuff. It all belonged to a young white guy wearing a giant's t-shirt. His face had a pinkish tint due to the unusually hot weather. He sipped on a perhaps blue ribbon as people browsed through the items making up his life. I looked at a few things but didn't see anything I wanted to buy. I was ready to leave when something caught my eye. It was on a table, a wooden figure that looked worn but beautiful. Crafted by someone I'd never met but whose feelings I'd feel as my own. I reached for and touched the figure. Its eyes whispered. I tried to make out what it was saying but I was interrupted by the guy with the beer. You like my yak? He asked before taking a swig of beer. He took a very long swig before proceeding to crush the empty can with one squeeze of his freckled hand. He stood examining my face. I looked at the wooden figure and realized it was a carabao. It was not a yak, it was a carabao. It was beautiful. It had eyes that were alive. But before I could tell the garage sale guy that what he had was a carabao, not a yak, he went to the cooler and pulled out another beer. He walked over and told me that his yak had belonged to his ex-wife who had gotten the lion's share of the divorce. He made fun of the yak saying that it needed another yak to yuck. He didn't use that word, he used the heavier word but a yak to yuck. Positioning the yak on top of the other yak which was the carabao actually and not the yak at all. Simulating copulation or fornication or an odd combination of both. I looked at the carabao, it looked at me. We knew. I'm telling you we knew. Then the man started rambling about this and that which was basically a rant of belligerence mixed with a twinge of sentimentality. His words spilling forth in a spirited froth of beverage inspired verbiage. As I recall it went like this. Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak. Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, Yak, yak, yak, yak, yak, yak. He yak my head off for half an hour. Finally he stopped, then I uttered the words, how much? Five bucks, so five bucks. I dug into my pocket and the carabao seemed to say get me out of here and away from this fool. I'm gonna back up, run as fast as I can, dead at you and ram one of my horns up your ass. I found the $5, gave it to the guy and picked up the carabao that had to endure being called a yak for who knows how long. I brought it home where it belonged. So my story is actually a couple, it's like three section. I'm just gonna read it a little bit of each section for a time purposes. Pickle papaya. I believe the three things that represent the fabric of our culture, our language, beliefs, and of course, food, because we're Filipino. It's how we identify ourselves and how people identify us. It's what makes us unique and what makes us proud. My language, alone, go in English. So I'm the first American born of an immigrant family from Ilo Ilo and I'm also the middle of five children. In kindergarten, my teacher called for a meeting with my parents. I said I'm the meeting quietly as a good, obedient Filipino daughter should. My teacher thought there was something wrong with me. She said, I'm worried about Genevieve because she doesn't talk or communicate much in class, but her paperwork is superior. There wasn't anything wrong with me. I just didn't talk a lot, which is funny because I talk a lot now. I learned English in Ilongwa at the same time and at home we spoke in Ilongwa. We didn't speak in Ilongwa at school, so I just didn't speak. My beliefs, faith, family, and friends. Every evening, like many families did, we prayed the Novena. When we got old enough to read, we were tasked to lead the Novena. And we would like fight over who didn't do it. A lot of fights. We made a game out of it to make it interesting by memorizing or reciting the prayers fast, although we would get in trouble for not taking it serious and we would object by saying, but thought I fell asleep, thought I was a dad in Ilongwa, and he would, he'd fall asleep a lot and snore through Novena. But he wouldn't get in trouble, right? On nights where our favorite shows like 90210 came on, this is in the 90s, we would schedule our Novena either before or after the show, so we didn't miss any part of it because DVR didn't exist back then, right? But no matter what, we prayed as a family together every night, every day. Our faith is what keeps our family together. My food. So recently I just went to the Philippines earlier this year with the San Francisco Manila Sister City Committee with Mayor Ed Lee, it was his first time to the Philippines. And prior to my arrival in the Philippines, my aunties, my dad's sisters, were taking orders for what I wanted to eat when I visited, so they knew what to prepare for me. I said, anything soup, nila gat yinola binakol, anything with sabau, with soup, because that's what I grew up with, soup and fried fish. And when they asked me what I wanted to bring back home, as Pasalobing, as a give back, I said homemade achata, pickle papaya. And so I did, I brought back 10 pounds worth, you don't even know. You don't even know. It was very important. I brought 10 pounds worth of my Titha Rosi's homemade achata with bamboo shoots. My luggage was overweight, of course, and I put the excess weight in my carry-on and large purse and carried 30 pounds on my shoulders. And I even had to talk through security to let me carry it on, because it's double the weight that you're supposed to bring. Anyways, so. When people ask what I brought back, I say homemade achata, and they laugh. They think it's silly, but to me, it's important. The large jar of pickle papaya represents pieces of me that are important. Pieces of me that my parents made sure I knew were important and never forgot. Pickle papaya that my cousin went out early in the morning to buy fresh ingredients for. Pickle papaya that my aunt made with her own hands. Pickle papaya that my dad's other sisters made sure was sealed and wrapped over and over with that brown tape or duct tape, I don't know what it is. So it wouldn't break in my luggage because I had to bring it home. Pickle papaya that makes my family in America happy when I open my luggage and I come back from the airport and they see it. It's what bridges me and my family back in the Philippines. It connects me and my parents that what they taught me was not lost and will never be lost. It is my family, my roots, and my upbringing. I am Filipino, born in America. Thank you. 1946, I belonged to a generation that spent much of its childhood playing hide and seek, where I often hid under the dolly, switching off my grandmother's tablecloth and ran through the woven plumeria and orchid garden in her front yard. A generation that swung among the tall tree vines into the shallow pools of the river. A generation lost in a coconut daze, one that would not be possible without the seed planet when my great grandfather made another man's opportunity his own. 1946, on a gusty evening sometime in May, Cristiano Alvarado rushed to find a seat in the back row of the town hall where he immediately settled in. Fingers woven in his lap, dumb suppressed, one against the other, palm sweaty in the silent depression found in filled rooms where everyone wants the same thing, but not everyone can have it. This was one big day for some in the poor providence of Umigun Paganasan, a wet green lowland area speckled with rice fields angered by cider block, huts stretched with dried banana leaves roofs, Cristiano a bronze skinned fellow in his late 20s, with a smile that leaned to his left and a part in his hair pushed right to his right. Bobbed in and out, working odd jobs to support his family of six, at home his wife Rosa, a neighborhood seamstress worried about the possibilities of the big town meeting. Pricking her fingers over the potential change it could bring to the family. She looked at her youngest son Felix, crawling on the dirt floor of their tiny shack inside. Today's assembly was no ordinary one. Hiring officials from Hawaii Sugar Plantress Association, HSPA, were in town to find workers to tend the tall cane fields combed by humid breezes during Hawaii's sugar cane boom, since so many were interested in leaving their improvised surroundings, men across the Philippines entered a lottery system, interested in the idea of a glamorized version of a plantation life, a $10 advantage, free passage, a three year commitment, and free plantation housing. Yet there were not enough spots to satisfy the crave. The loud roar of townspeople fantasized about the new opportunity and new money and the pattering of barefoot children playing games of tag filled the town hall. All activity was immediately hushed in the clacking of boots, lunas, four men of the cane fields, and their translators were heard entering the room. The lottery began. One by one, names recalled as local townsfolk teared up at the sound of their own names, hugging their family members as they walked over to a table to sign their lives over to the Hawaiian plantations to which they would belong. In the back, Cristiano waded fingers woven in his lap, thumbs pressed one against the other, palms sweaty in the silent desperation bound in filled rooms where everyone wants the same thing, but not everyone can have it. Anything was better than here, he thought, reaching for hope in his empty pockets. Names continued to be called, seeming to be everyone but him. Call Cristiano, he now prayed, he now prayed head down, his callous hands cussing one another. Call Cristiano, he continued to whisper. Rafael Archiella shouted the Luna who was nearing his last rounds of the lottery. Cristiano looked at his head, halfway happy and halfway jealous for Rafael, a lifelong acquaintance who he grew up with. Rafael Archiella, the Luna reiterated, Cristiano looked around, waiting for Rafael to surface for some corner of the room, jumping for joy as did everyone else chosen in the lottery. Rafael Archiella, the Luna exclaimed, as if his hoarse voice was irritated about the drag Rafael was putting on the process. I'm here, Cristiano said, as he stood from the bench from the back and it made his way toward the front. In 1946, my great-grandfather, Cristiano Alvarado, left his family behind to earn money working, the sugar plantations in Kauai's and eventually Mali's, becoming part of an elderly wave of Filipino ignorance to come to Hawaii. Cristiano returned to Rosa and their children in 1952, a move he thought would plant them in the Philippines for good. Here, Rosa and Cristiano rekindled their love between the youngest of their children, Ruth. While Ruth was still a young girl, Cristiano had a change of heart about staying in the Philippines. When Hawaii became a state in 1959, my great-grandfather decided to bring the Alvarado family back to Mali where they had purchased the plantation style home near the bottom of the Wicona Street next to the cool waters of the Wicapau River. Together, they raised a family and hosted parties where generations of Alvarados grew up the floral couches, roses, black singers, sewing machine, Cristiano's undefeated chessboard and one of their many dogs. Thank you. Okay, a quick question. How many people did Filipino folk dance? Raise your hand. Janet, of course. Okay, we're gonna get right into it. Dancing my Filipino roots. When I was growing up, I was just another kid. We didn't think of race and culture. In East Oakland, there were so many different cultures that not one stood out over another. In our elementary school, there were only eight Filipinos. Out of more than 400 kids. But we never felt like minorities. We were all Americans. But then the Bayanian Dance Company came to town. Never before had we seen such beauty and joy celebrating being Filipino. From the dramatic dances of the mountain tribes, we then moved to the climatic dance, the silk clad southern princess in Singil. Then the gentile courtships and swirling full skirts of the Spanish era followed, ending with the rural dances of skill from the provinces. We were mesmerized by the live music, live music of the nose flute, the ganksa, the kulintan, and the rondalia. A whole unknown world that was our own had opened wide for the first time. Every Saturday morning, while my classmates sat glued to the TV watching cartoons, we piled into the station wagon and crossed the Bay Bridge to folk dance classes at the San Francisco Filipino Community Hall on California Street. Practice started in mid-morning and continued until mid-afternoon. For the first time, we were surrounded by lots of other Filipino kids. It was uncomfortable to be the new kids, the outsiders from across the Bay. But we jumped in to learn the walls. Arms only, one, two, three, one, two, three. Arms up, chin up, back straight, one, two, three. Mrs. Bautista instructed her voice rising high above us. Now, now, now, legs only. One, lift three, left lift three, right lift three. Now together, we moved from side to side, awkwardly trying to coordinate arms and legs without bumping into each other. And when we broke for lunch, the other mothers were clustered at the sunlit end of the hall. Come here, honey, when mother called to us. And we walked over shyly and stood in the filtered sunlight. They looked at us curiously. What is your name? Linda, I replied. What is your last name, honey? Her Filipino accent clearly landing on honey. Mejino, Linda Mejino. I, you are an off-race children, off-race children. She said with a lilt as she peered at me and my older sister, you look so much like him. It was as if one of my dad's old girlfriends suddenly came across him after more than 15 years. Turned out she knew my father. From his days at SF State. But that was before he transferred to UC Berkeley and met my mother. I never found out if she dated dad, but mom got the once over for sure from the ladies. They invited her over into their conversations and from that moment on, we were part of the troupe. Every Saturday, the moms transported us and fed us and when it was time for performances, they made the costumes, dressed us and prepared us for the stage. Do you remember that? The girls would line up, have our hair pulled up into a tight bun, may be augmented by a hairpiece. Remember the pastiche and lacquered with aquanet hairspray. Close your eyes, close your eyes, hold your breath. They would warn us just before the cloud of hairspray engulfed us. Another mother carefully drew on our eyeliner and thickly applied the mascara but the big girls put on false eyelashes and falsies. Well another put on lipstick, rubbed it into our blush as our cheeks and topped us off with a dusting of powder. We had big performances at the Masonic Hall on Knob Hill in San Francisco for the opening of the Filipino center of the San Francisco Main Library and in the July 4th parade. We danced at celebrations of the Laity Association and other regional organizations and even performed for the patients at Laguna Honda Hospital as well as the Manongs at the International Hotel. So it was with great curiosity that we answered the call from Ness Aquino for a series of performances at his on Broadway theater. We shared the bill with Tony Toledo, a handsome man in his day who could still make our mom swoon. The theater was situated in the tiny two block district where strip bars had hawkers and the large neon sign of famous stripper Carol Dota greeted you at the corner. Though little Italy and Chinatown were only one block away it wasn't where you would bring your family for entertainment. At our first onsite dress rehearsal we piled out of the cars and carried costumes and props past the go-go girl dancing in the lighted cage and ignored the surprised looks of the hawkers. Moms made sure we marched straight to the dressing rooms to get dressed. Hearing the strains of a man singing tiny bubbles in the wine several moms ran to the stage to see Mr. Toledo himself returning with silly, silly grins on their faces. And as he exited stage right they visibly straightened perky boobs at the attention as he smiled his way out the door. And at one point during the rural suite we pretended to cheer on the cock fight. To our surprise two monongs stepped forward with two unarmed fighting cocks as we yelled sa-pu-la, sa-pu-ti, red one, white one. Feathers flew as the two cocks attacked each other and it was so unexpected and exciting. But alas, the prospect of having this controversial sport on stage with children was too much for American sensibilities and the two feathered dancers never returned. Thank you.