No Me Quitte Pas

A familiar song from my childhood, it is one of those melodramatic songs carried through the generation by a host of Filipino voices.  I don’t remember who sang it originally, or when; or how much the accompanying memory matters.  But I was suddenly thinking of post-WW2 blues, the time of my father when the world was reconstructing dreams from rubble.  A shattered world seemed young again. There was much to look forward to, a gentle walk from the ruins and the ashes of war.  Since my father left, I know less and less people from that era.  The oldest is a 91 year old friend from Montclair, with whom I have kept in touch over the years through penned letters and cards.  From her, I recreate a world that is lost now, one full of trust and self sacrifice.  There is much decency to that period, and to the people who created the greatest generation.  Their world, exposed to the volatility of human life, was thick with values and respect.  In their place are generations of lackadaisical people.   A few search for meaning.  Many just live.  Just.

The Umbrellas of Cherbourg

I always thought I was born in the wrong era, too much poetry for a world of greed and ego.  I listen to the same music my mother grew up in, a strange appreciation for Connie Francies, Frank Sinatra and their kins.  I love, love too much, and often end up stabbed on the back.  All my favorite movies have love plot lines of cataclismic tragedy (Think: The Way We Were).  When I see a movie like The Umbrellas of Cherbourg, I smell of hope for innocence, a prayer for this generation to love so gently again.  Yet, people give up too soon.  There is an air of distrust everywhere.  Self-preservation makes us lie, betray, risk our own self-worth.  Now, there is much talk about the economy spiraling downward again.  Confidence, on which the market depends, is lost in the rising fear.  More and more people in my life are losing their jobs.  Those without for years are still without jobs.  Communities are seeing mind shattering impact.  Without hope, there is no sense to love.

When I go back to work tomorrow, I will flow through time with the wakefulness of a machine.   People around me will speak of the economic situation with very little understanding of what’s about to come down.  I don’t know what their dreams are made of.  Whatever they are, they won’t be the same as my father’s or my mother’s or my 91 year old friend from Montclair.  What makes it truly sad in this age of housewives reality TV series is that there is such an absence of true passion in life.  The world is bereft of color.   We live now because tomorrow we will have to die.   We work because tomorrow is another day.  Just another day.

No me quitte pas.  If you go away, you just walk away.  It is dark where we are heading.  I think of my father’s restlessness in his youth when at nineteen, he was plunged in the darkness of war.  There was no preparation, no time to think.  These days, we have too many choices, too much time in our hands.  And yet, wrong choices are always made.  Greed and ego always rule.

Perhaps we are moving into another time similar to what my father had gone through in his youth.   I don’t know what it was like then, but from reading war texts, it feels so exactly the same:  falling economies, widespread hate, rise of fascismm, unemployment, and restlessness.  The rest of what follows will hopefully not be the same as what my father went through.  I hope this time we fix the roads before we fall in.

Related Posts: Tumult in the Global Markets Continues NytImes;  Dow Jones Worst Day; Second Recession Could be Worst; Riots in UK.
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My relationship with books began early, sealed by fate as soon as my father brought home an entire book shelf of encyclopedias instead of the much requested new T.V. Growing up without TV, an experience that easily made me an outsider in childhood conversations, opened another experience that most kids I know never had–the secret world of the imagination.

The Published Dream

For me, for many of us, the imagined world of reading is connected to the tactile experience of turning a page, of looking at the page number at the bottom, and sometimes folding the corner as a reminder of where to return at a later reading. When I wrote my first book at fifteen, I had every intention of mimicking the experience of a bound book by writing in the blank pages of a book binding project I did in school and by carefully centering the title in the middle of the first page.

Publishing a first novel was a process in the imagination: how the cover looks, the name on the spine, the people to thank inside, and in the thick of it, the words that once occupied the heart and mind and the dream. The dream was a package deal as well, and even when I wrote my first novel on my laptop, I knew exactly the first things I would do as soon as it came to fruition, from pulling it out of a shelf in a bookstore to signing the first or second page in my first reading. I even knew the color of ink I would use to sign all my books–green. I also had a stamp made to direct the readers to my website.

Then, suddenly, one day a month ago, my first book was released on Nook and Kindle. Twelve years after it was released in print edition.

The Kindle Experience

I, just like most people around me now, am what they would call a “digital immigrant,” one not born to the rather lightning speed changes in computer technology. In 1994, when I started writing my first novel, the public Internet we can’t live without now was at its infancy. I was part of a generation that was carried through the creation and invention of Amazon, Google, Facebook, and the disappearance of cassettes, Walkmans, and Floppy Disks.

I was excited to buy my Kindle. I thought of it as part of my growing up process as a digital immigrant, a new language to learn (sort of). Eventually I knew, I would surrender to E-books and E-reading; and now would be perfect time to do it, because my first novel is officially in the loop.

And so I put my Kindle on my lap while I comfortably sat on a chair. I lifted my legs and rested my feet on the edge of the chair and leaned back, letting my Kindle slide and rest between my stomach and my thighs. I thought the experience would be similar to reading from the screen of my laptop or desktop, a necessary but stressful experience for my beautifully aging eyes.  Yet, before I knew it I had been reading for over two hours, still held captive by the text and the imagination, nary a wink.

The first book I downloaded was War of the Worlds, a sci-fi classic I had always wanted to read and whose movie versions where convoluted and polemical. I thought it would be the first perfect reading given the situation’s proclivity to the magic of science. My hands didn’t look for the edges of paper that they were so accustomed to turn. My eyes didn’t turn away from the screen where the text was as clear as it would be on paper. My mind knew exactly what it had to do next once I reached the bottom of the screen. And when my finger pressed the button on both sides to go to the next screen, I knew I could press another one to return.

The missing reading gadgets were replaced–my highlighter, my pen, my bookmarks. On my Kindle, I could highlight and annotate. I could bookmark a page so I could return to it later. Most of all, I could entertain my mercurial self by switching from one genre to another. So many books in one place, all of them feeling the same way, except in the heart and mind where the text of the imagination sits.

The Page, The Page Numbers, The Word Count

One morning, during my reading trips on the subway, I noticed that the page number has disappeared.   I used to memorize the last page I was on so that I didn’t have to fold the paper edge or risk the quiet slipping of a bookmark from the book.  At the bottom of my Kindle screen is a bar with a percentage marking of how much of the book I have read.  I am now into 75% of War of the Worlds, just about when the protagonist has left the entrapped house where he witnessed first hand through a peep hole the quotidian goings-on of the Martians.  

As a writer, I am conscious of page numbers and word counts.   A 200-page manuscript can pass as a novel.   Anything below or above becomes a matter of negotiation.  In the e-book world, at least with my Kindle, none of that seems to matter.    The emphasis is drawn back to the text and the imaginary world it creates.   It returns us to the basics of reading, and to the solemn reasons why writers write in the first place.   There are no decorative fonts, there are no status symbols in paper stock and glossy covers.  There are no politics in the blurbs and endless recommendations.

For once, the book is naked and raw.  

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Readings This Week

Sunday Salon: Sunday, April 10th, 7pm, Manhattan

Ah, Spring! Though the weather begs to differ, spring has arrived and we’re celebrating the season of new life and, drum roll please… new books! Come join us in welcoming four outstanding writers and special musical guests to the Salon stage. At Jimmys 43, 7pm.

Directions and more info: http://www.sundaysalon.com/nyc-april-10-2011.htm

Brooklyn Reading Works: Thursday, April 14th, 8pm, Brooklyn
Thursday April 14, 8:00 pm
The Old Stone House, Park Slope
336 3rd Street (5th Avenue)
Brooklyn, NY 11215
718.768.3195

Directions and more info: http://brooklynreadingworks.com/

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That same week, I sat down with two colleagues over a meal of sashimi and somehow found our conversation hovering over E-reading. One of the two had a Kindle and the other a Nook. I was embarrassed to admit that when it came to e-books, I was still very much an E-virgin (by choice, mind you). I lug a huge paper book in my huge wheeled bag daily, and in fact, enjoy taking it out to read on the subway. I love staring at it on my chair when I’m not reading it. I love finding it on the edge of my bed, quietly inviting me to dive back in. I love the fact that I can’t read it without carrying a yellow highlighter and a green pen, because I habitually mark every book I read.

Every day now, I see people on the train with E-readers. It is becoming an accessory worth flaunting in public. First, there was the nano, and now that everyone has an I-pod, here comes Nook and Kindle, and all their lesser stepsisters. I am beginning to reconsider my decision not to get one, especially after I found out that my first novel has gone E-book.

Oh, And No I-Phone

I also don’t own an I-phone. I have been tempted many times to upgrade, but the thought of adding more pounds to my already crowded outerwear is precluding me the I-pleasure. I have a cellphone that is as old as the cellphone universe. I rarely use it, because I am simply not a phone person. And I have limited chats that reach its limit before the end of the billing month. I find the moment before reaching my text limit exciting. I know how peculiar that. But I actually start organizing in my little head who is worth sending texts to when I’m reaching my limit.  Someone asked me once why I don’t have unlimited texting and whether it’s worth the headache of running out of text  messages every month.   Truth is, because of email, I normally don’t have heavy text months.  

Don’t count me out of the E-world. I don’t see anything wrong with my scenario. I am online 24/7, well almost, with four computers and wireless access every where I go. As I type this, two laptops are facing me. I have a netbook clutched in a bag somewhere should I decide to run to bed and do some work there. I consider myself quite a techie. I spent a good four years teaching computer technology to Adult learners in poor communities, translating technology to all cultural mores–try to intellectualize that. I guess it’s this kind of overconsumption that had me considering the down times, those ephemeral moments when I don’t have technology access at all.

Take the cell phone. What would I start doing when I get an I-phone? Be on Facebook 24/7, even while I’m at the gym, so it would say “mobile” on the post? Would I walk around texting and forget that there are other humans on the sidewalk? Will I take pride in being REALLY e-connected (because I suppose that those few minutes while I’m between wireless access means I’m not fully-wired)?  Will I get I-phone-envy and take mine out just because?

Well, granted, I have a terrible sense of direction and may need to always have access to GPS.  Well, maybe not.

The Needs of The Writerly Types

Well, here it is. I am typing this blog on my laptop. I think I mentioned that already. Last year, I bought a netbook that was much lighter than this laptop and definitely much easier to travel with. I asked myself, what I would need it for?. I thought, well, I need to get a lightweight type of writing instrument that I could hide in any bag. The Netbook, though with smaller keyboard, was the answer. But I must admit that when I type on it, sometimes the Netbook is too slow for my rapid fingers such that I end up retyping sentences. Good for a writer. Not always.

And so there are the other devices. I thought if there were such a thing as an E-reader that has some word processing capability, then it would be perfect for me. The Ipad is very pretty, very costly, but yes, a good fashion statement for the upwardly mobile. But I can’t write in the darn thing. They say, if it has word processing, then it will take the function of a laptop and that’s not what it’s for.  I ask, and what’s wrong with that?

My First Child Goes E-book

To add to my world of e-cosmic coincidences in the past couple of weeks, I found that that my first novel of 12 loving years was about to debut on Nook and Kindle in a few days, that is, February 28, 2011. Naturally, I got my two colleagues of my sashimi lunch team to fill their e-readers with The Umbrella Country e-book edition, although they had read it before. And, having no qualms about random and infrequent self-promotion, I immediately posted it on my Facebook page. The novel is twelve years old, a young teen, and Big Daddy here needs to keep pushing this teen into manhood.

Last week, my co-worker showed me my book on her Nook. How weird was that? I wrote this book on a laptop. I remember a magazine reporter who came to my home and asked me if he could take a picture of my desk with piles of manuscripts. I told him that I didn’t have such a thing, and showed him computer floppy disks instead. That was a surprise to him. I was easily a part of a generation of writers who were quickly and proudly transitioning from typewriter to word processors, in my case, a laptop. Strangely enough, those disks are no longer useful to me, because I don’t have a computer that could take them.  Floppy disks, what again?  Now, the choices are varied. In fact, I had gone back to carrying very small notebooks in which I can write, “notes.”  And next to it, my flash cards.

My life and my work have both been immersed in technology for almost 20 years now.   I even pursued my graduate studies in it.  My comfort level in computers and the Internet is quite high.   For people like me who think fast, get bored easily, and have a low threshold for the prosaic, the E-world presents a cornucopia of opportunities.   I get information at my fingertips, and quickly switch topics on a whim, and the Internet, my BFF,  is still there.

On the other hand, there is the moment of technological absence, a rarity but it exists.   When I go to the gym, or when I’m in Jersey with my family, I make an effort to stay away from technology to be enclosed in a real, human space with old school interactions.   It reminds me that in many ways, I’ could still  be old school.   But it’s become harder and harder to be this way.  When I meet friends for dinner, I find myself dining with their I-phones.   People have no boundaries between their I-phones and real time lives, such that suddenly going online mid-conversation is not as rude as it might seem anymore.  And yes, in the corner of my pixeled mind, I’m wondering whether it’s time to upgrade and get an I-phone.   I can always put it in my bag instead of my pocket, next to a possible new purchase of a Kindle or Nook.   So what happens now to books on my shelf I haven’t read?  Does that mean I have to repurchase them as e-books.    I know I’m complicating myself.   Just get with the program. You’re right.

Related Reading:

Buy The Umbrella Country on Nook and on Kindle! 

Marc Prensky’s Digital Natives, Digital Immigrants

Motorola Xoom may just be what the doctor ordered

Xoom vs. Ipad: Now the real tablet war begins

Barnes and Noble Nook
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The Bends in the Road

Since I started traveling when I was eighteen, I have taught myself to take the paths where the road bends and twists,  the non-touristic areas, or so to speak, the road less traveled, where I believe the real people are. Earlier in my traveling years, I ran into these bends because I took the wrong bus and ended up somewhere off my magical travel map, but have found in them the kind of stories my peripatetic soul desires. In Rio de Janeiro, when I was twenty, I ended up in a street that would eventually inspire my first novel. The images I found–the dark alleys, the big windows, the hang-around-do-nothing men, the street kids–are as vivid in my mind and heart as the first encounter. Also, as recent as three years ago, my most important memory of the street of Rio de Janeiro were street vendors up and about so early in the morning as the competition got stiff while the hours lingered. There was this older man selling a floor cleaning product while he demonstrated dirty vs. clean by using his product on a few household parts (floor wood, tile, etc. ). He did that with so much candor, it made me wonder if he ever tired of showing the passersby (many simply overwhelmed by the human traffic) the before and after.  Culture watching is what I enjoy most in traveling, and I do that with a direct glance, not from the corner of my eyes, as most tourists would, especially when the delight over false realities start to wane, and the homeless in the corner become visible again.   In my point of view, the homeless is always there.   I see people before I see the glitter.

And so I skirted the Hollywood glitter all together, and left with not one picture for Facebook of me in front of the notorious sign on a mountaintop. Instead, I spent much time walking Broadway, this seedy strip reminiscent of pre-gentrified Manhattan Times Square. Interestingly, I was consumed by sheer excitement. Every day, I ate at the Central Market and the Mexican dives on Broadway, contemplating on the demographic shift that is about to hit this country in a few years. I watch people get lost in their work, many very young Mexicans who obviously should be in school. I was strangely feeling that they, unlike their counterparts on the East Coast who are the children of immigrants, don’t have any sense of entitlement to work and life. There is a deep sense of belonging in the world of work, even in menial jobs, bereft completely of attitude that come from a sense of privilege that one is better than one’s job. In New York City, nastiness and lack of courtesy seem to be a job description. I keep wondering about this bottom-of-the-pyramid jobs that nobody wants, and that every Tea Party bagger claims be taken from the regular Joes. Why do we see the same brown faces behind those counters? What do they know about the seemingly 20th century American ethic that is now lost in many of us?

The State of the American Dream

On the Metro, announcements are made in two languages, which many conservative Americans who subscribe to the America=English tradition will frown upon. During my stay, I heard (and probably spoke) more Spanish than English, most likely a testament to location than anything else (although, it is also possible that it is the norm of the city). Certainly, it is portentous of what is about to hit this country—a majority Latino population whose first language at home is not English, a community of people who possess a rather different take on the American Dream.

For someone like me—who majored in Latin American Studies, a Spanish speaker, and an educator in the Latino community—the latinization of America is simply exciting. I honestly feel more at home in this community than in my own, much of which is due to my choice of work and my own proclivity to humble lifestyles. I also went to San Francisco recently and was bombarded with old Filipino ways, where pomp is the song and dance. For many of us Filipinos who immigrate to the U.S., the American Dream is as simple as the idea of “growing big,” be they in houses, number of SUVs, or the number of parties thrown in year. Because of our instant advantage over other immigrants in English, we don’t really struggle as much in America and have done quite well mainstreaming on America’s superhighway. True, a lot of it is from hard work. True as well, there is nothing wrong with having three bedrooms per head or four plasma TVs, but we now know in this climate of foreclosures that the number of rooms in one house will not a happy person make.  Four plasma TVs will not give anyone a different view of racialized America.

Similarly, compared to other immigrant literary communities, there are many first generation immigrant Filipino writers like myself who manage to publish books in the U.S. Unfortunately, most Filipinos I know, including my relatives, are not impressed with my literary credentials, although they are all convinced that Harvard was a good move. We do love brands, and Harvard is one, albeit better if a law or medical degree. This may also be the reason why there are almost no Filipinos in my social justice work. You can’t wear or flaunt activism. The Cesar Chavez types were long gone in history. Sorry, Bulosan, what struggle? Sadly, it is this very sense of struggle that is absent in the lives of many young Filipino-Americans, as if their sense of comfort is a biological twin. It is a question that I ask myself when I hear of children of immigrants , these second generation Americans, who were given everything, except a sense of purpose in life: when and how did we lose the dream? 

I found the struggle and the dream in the faces of Mexicans in LA, the target of the emerging American fascism. While the rest of us, many immigrants as well, watch with disengagement in one of four plasma TVs, the horrors of legislative bills against this demographic, they continue to do what they need to survive, work, work despite everything, work at all cost.

There is a lot of work to be done in the Latino community, to make sure they don’t become complacent drones in the future. The next generations need to understand that work is a privilege, not the benefit of an American passport. However, the educational system is failing many of these kids. They have the lowest college involvement and the highest in the high school drop-out rate. Latinos are here to stay, and most Americans don’t know what problems are going to face them in the near future if these issues are not dealt with now. While in the hotels, I had conversations with the women who cleaned the rooms. I asked them about their education, if they are learning English at all. They said, No, and were confused by my question. I wanted to find out whether these big hotels are investing in them, the entry-level workforce, in their education. They are all caught in dead-end jobs, many grow old pushing a cart full of dirty linen. One of them, Maria was an older woman, the other, Reina, was much younger, both will probably carve the same working paths in their lives, one which didn’t involved assimilation into the America culture via English. For both, the American Dream lies in their English-speaking children, if they make it at all. These are the very children who have now begun shaping new cultural paradigms in the U.S. In fact, New York City has been experiencing a Mexican baby boom. In many ways, for which I am thankful, the Mexican work ethnic impresses me so. If you ever get to travel in the wee hours on the New York subway, you will notice what type of New Yorkers are the first to get out to work, or the last to go home; more often than not, they are the Mexicans.

Tenemos Alegria

My last breakfast at the Grand Central Market brought me the pleasure of hearing these words from an old man who was showing some appreciation of the busboys: “Tenemos Alegria.” It was such a simple moment to punctuate this state of happiness I have been feeling during my past two weeks of cultural exploration and rumination. For the past year, I have been wondering about my work trajectory. I went to Harvard to start an organization, and have not fully created one. Since I came back to Manhattan, I have lost parts of myself, as I slowly get sucked into the world of mundane privilege once again. I have always been one to dismiss safety nets, yet I have allowed mine to grow even bigger in the past year. I have even considered “safe” jobs that bring in a lot of money. Fortunately, the one that I got which begins soon is neither safe nor income-heavy. I am back in the nexus of Adult Literacy, Immigration, and Social Justice. It will be an opportunity to also begin working on my new initiative, We Speak America. The latino community in LA gave me the much needed mileage and inspiration, a sense that one can still commit to American service and be appreciated.

How luxurious indeed to catch a glimpse of the American future. There is no denying that the latinization of America will breed fascists. We see them everywhere now, the likes of Jan Brewer and Glenn Beck who pander to the American fear of a brown take-over will only gather strengths in the years to come. But there will be power in numbers. And there is no stopping The United States of Latin America. America, authentically brown, will reemerge in its true form.

Related Readings: A Mexican Baby Boom in New York Shows the Strength of a New Immigrant Group, Latinos will be part of new U.S. “majority” sooner than predicted, Latino Children: A Majority Are U.S.-Born Offspring of Immigrants, Most U.S. Hispanic Kids Have Immigrant Parents

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On Monday, I decided to do my laundry early in the evening.   I usually do it late at night, around 9pm, so I don’t have to run into the residents of the building.  To do laundry, I had to go through the front door (one doorman) and the elevator (another doorman) to be taken to the basement.    During the day, the laundry room is full of brown people, all maids of the white people who live in my building.   After a few times of being asked by the brown maids where I worked, I decided to stop going there during the day.   I live in an all-white-resident building on the Upper East Side of Manhattan.  As the only brown person in my building, I have been mistaken for a delivery boy by newly-hired white doormen (they’re all white), and have not been let into the building until the another doorman confirmed that I lived here.   Once they found out that I actually lived here and had no pizza to deliver, they became extremely gracious, as they should be.   The laundry room is next to the exit of the parking garage.    At 5:45pm, I was happily stocking the washer with my clothes, when a woman, who so resembled Gov. Jan Brewer of Arizona, suddenly appeared at the door and condescendingly confronted me with, “WHAT APARTMENT ARE YOU IN?”    Shocked, I actually answered her, and she left.  Just like that. 

Thanks to my netbook and wifi, I had access to my Facebook account and managed to post the incident as it happened.   I usually stay in the laundry room until I finish, and spend my time doing some work on my netbook while I wait.   I really should thank countless of you who responded to my public outcry with very supportive statements.   I would find out within that hour that the hapless Jan Brewer of the Upper East Side was actually in a “position of power.”    The doorman who witnessed the incident was just as angry and was more than happy to give me the real name of this woman.   I was thinking, if such were the types to sit at the decision-making table in places like this, it comes as no surprise that there were no doormen-of-color in this building.  

I was very furious that evening.   I still remember her inimical gaze, the kind that rips into your soul.  It was also the second time it happened to me in my building.  I regret not having insulted her back, but what would that accomplish? I realized the reason why I decided to do my laundry late at night was because I really didn’t want to encounter another racial incident and ruin my day.   I have developed coping mechanisms to survive this filthy rich white neighborhood I have lived in for over ten years.    People wonder how I got here or what I’m doing here.   I am obviously not one of these people.   I tell them simply, I have relatives around the block.   Yes, there are Filipinos on the Upper East Side.   Yes, I am one of them.  In fact, I spend so much time walking around here, I am probably a landmark, like the rusty lamp post in the corner. 

Racial Profiling

Let’s talk about racial profiling.   If I were a blond man doing my laundry on Monday, the Jan Brewer of the Upper East Side would think twice before violating me with such a highly-charged question.  She would think twice, thrice, or may not even ask.  She might even ask the doorman who I was first.   She might even think I was cute.   Or I might even take my shirt off for her and flex.   She might even stutter while she asked me.   Or she might just walk past me and assume I was a friend of one of the residents of my building, while muttering to herself, whoa, who was that? Whoa!   Yet no, since I was brown, just like the women who cleaned their houses during the day, she just had to stop and find out where I WORKED.   Yes, she didn’t think I lived here.   She thought I worked here.   She wanted to know my affiliation in the building by the apartment number I gave her.  And now that she knew that I worked for Apartment # _, DANGER was lifted off her shoulder.   Danger meaning, Me.

And such is the nature of racial profiling.

When Mexicans in Arizona are stopped by the police, who according to the real Jan Brewer of Arizona should be given the power to harrass, interrogate, and then arrest, only one assumption is made about them:  these dangerous people don’t belong there.   Because the Jan Brewer’s minions have already been blessed to propagate  “if you’re brown, you must be illegal,”  racial profiling has now been, to put it simply, institutionalized and systematized.   And if you’re indeed one of the Mexicans who live there (remember, you NEED to look like a Mexican migrant), you need to save yourself the trouble and get out.

Diversity is in the Heart

I love America.   I love the diversity of this country.   I came from quite a homogeneous culture, with slight regional differences.  But we basically resemble each other and ate the same food.    I have lived in New York most of my life now, so any hint of homogeneity has faded in my brain (and tongue).  I thrive in highly diverse environments.   I choose it for work.   I get restless when I work in an all black situation, or all white, or even, like in my last job, all-Filipino (teachers).   When I was in San Francisco recently, I experienced culture shock because I only saw Filipinos for five days.   It is so cliche to call New York the microcosm of the world, but it truly is.   It is such a mesh of culture, that the melting pot has been taken to another level, just like this Mexican restaurant where I was the other night that was run by a family of Palestinians.  Where do you find that?

Today, on the train in Manhattan, I gave directions in Spanish to some tourists who wanted to go to Wall Street.   They probably assumed I was Latino.    Being asked in Spanish by lost Latinos in New York is part of my quotidian existence.    I love the idea that as a Filipino immigrant, I can assume many roles.    Where else can this happen?  In Arizona, I would have to carry an ID every single day, because I would certainly get stopped for looking like a Mexican migrant worker.   I wonder what the police would think if I flashed them my Harvard student ID. 

Jan Brewer is Everywhere

Jan, Jan, Jan.   How holy do you think art thou?   I don’t know what goes through the brains of these people who think they are better than others because of their color.    In the time of Obama, the Jan Brewers of America seem to be coming out of their holes, and making their “holiness” a public spectacle.   In Obama’s blackness, they find a reason to turn their bigotry into a public platform, after all, they “voted” for a black man.   The down economy is their excuse to make accusations against the brown universe, and “post-racial” America is their forum to speak out.  For the Jan Brewers, this is not about race.  It can’t be.  Not with a black president.   In one of my job interviews, the non-profit Jan Brewer just couldn’t resist asking me, Where are you from? while his male counterpart ripped my resume apart and punctuated the ripping with, When did you leave Argentina?  nary a blink (Yes, I studied there, but I am not from there, you racist idiot).   They were both very comfortable with highly directed (and illegal) ethnic questions that had no bearing with the job.  For these types, I make sure I wrote “Filipino” as one of the languages I speak on my resume.   I am not sure Che Guevarra’s relatives spoke that language.    Indeed, I, a brown immigrant man, have many coping mechanisms and am well-equipped to deal with these circumstances, or so I thought.   Unfortunately, the Jan Brewers are quickly multiplying, with new strategies in the blame game.

The Jan Brewers are nervous.   They are afraid the brown people are taking over the country.  They are afraid that Spanish will become the lingua franca.   And all of us will be watching Univision and not CNN, and eat rice and beans.   They are afraid that sitcoms like Friends, Seinfeld, or Sex and the City, all set in New York, will have brown lead characters in it.  And all the hospital shows will have Filipino and Jamaican Nurses.   Ah, they don’t exist.  After all, New York City has no brown people.   None (except in my building.)

America’s face is changing.   Jan Brewer is very afraid.   Because she is very afraid, she needs to make sure that racial profiling becomes the law of the land, so we can send all the Mexicans back where they belong.   (Yes, Texas.)  

As the country diversifies and as racism permeates the brown universe, Jan Brewer will take on new identities.  In the future, the Jan Brewers will no longer be white and blond.  She will be black, latino, or worse, Filipino.  That’s how viruses spread.   We have already seen them, but that is for another blog entry.

Related Reading: Alto Arizona,  Alto Arizona Art Campaign, Wordstrike: Writers Against SB 1070,  New York Times Coverage of SB 1070, Videos of protest against SB1070 from Puente, New with Nezua (interesting mock ICE checkpoint), Vivir Latino Coverage, Racism Review Archive on Mexican Americans,

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So the tiny Filipino girl with the vocal chords of ten overweight singing black women is joining GLEE.

Did that sentence bother you a little bit?  No?  Just a little?  Maybe?

It probably raised a hair or two on your arm more than you care to admit.   It’s a kind of racy statement to make.  Emphasis on racy.

Indeed, Charice, the Filipino girl discovered and lionized by Oprah, is joining the next season of GLEE.   And so, to tickle the minds of my facebook friends, I posted:

i’m curious what kind of stereotype is waiting for charice in GLEE–u know after the singing overweight black girl, the flamboyant homo, the lusty latina, the bull dyke coach..what’s left? kung fu no-speak-english asian? chop chop!

The Land of Equal Opportunity?

At first glance, GLEE seems like the dreamboat of the marginalized peoples of good ole USofA.    The cast is as colorful as Carrie’s shoe closet in Sex and the City, and certainly makes Carrie’s foursome  and whitesome a cast of old Puritannica.   I personally have not seen so much diversity out of the closet in one show.   The black girl and the gay guy are best friends.   There’s a Jewish girl and a white jock.   There is this Latina in superminis.    Most of all, they all sing happiness and sorrow on every single episode.   They bring back the 80s for those of us in Madonna nostalgia mode.   What’s there not to like?

Well, let’s take a closer look. 

The young actor who plays the swishy-swishy gay boy said on a TV interview one morning that he always had his legs crossed in GLEE.    Need we ask why?  He didn’t have to say this in public for me to know that his role is a cookie-cutter mold of every flamboyant, effeminate, gay boy in high school.   To accentuate an already obvious stereotype, listen to him speak.   Well, these types of gay boys do exist, and we should honor them.  Indeed!  In fact, during gay pride parades, we honor our drag queens.   It is simply unfortunate that the American media honor them too much and make them the symbol of gay pride.   In America’s tunnel vision, they see what they want to see: stereotypes. 

The gay boy stereotype will also not be so much of a problem, until the other stereotypes come marching in:   now we also have a black girl who is overweight and who sings,  a dumb white jock, a latina girl whose face screams of lust and sex, a “neurotic Jew” (thanks Jeff Y. for this–I didn’t know how to describe her), a butch lesbian coach, and so on.

The Antecedents

Long and long before GLEE, there was the minstrel show.

The Black and White Minstrel Show won the 1961 Golden Rose Of Montreux. The variety series could almost always guarantee an audience of at least 16 million, but frequently managed to top 18 million viewers. At a time when the variety show was a popular television genre for the whole family, The Black And White Minstrel Show established itself as one of the world’s greatest musical programmes on television.  more here.

As we already know, these “minstrels” are not real black folks, but white performers on black face who entertains by creating caricatures of black people in America.   It took a long time for Americans to realize there was something wrong with these shows, that these characters they had conjured in their narrow minds were the byproducts of hate and fear of the other.    It is this deep source of fear where stereotypes come into being.   Their lack of interest, fear of, and need to dominate over black people had created such monstrous public performances that pandered to the same visceral emotions of people who paid and gathered to watch them. 

Performances could be hypnotic; sometimes we leave the theatre afloat in good hormones, we momentarily forget our deep convictions.    The people behind theatre recognize the effect a “good show” can have on their audience.   Political theatre, which we see for months during election year, is based on the premise of messages shrouded with glitter.   The invigorated audience could easily fail to see beyond the superficiality of lights and sounds, because our hearts are so convinced of the fairy tales.   We tell people how wonderful this show is, because we truly don’t see ourselves in the shoes of the characters whose very stereotypical portrayal of people don’t necessarily hurt us, albeit such generalizations impact so many in less than stellar ways.

Maybe to bring back the minstrels is a bit too heavy-handed.   Yet, modern day racism is very subtle.   People no longer have to put on a black face to tell you that they don’t like you.   Those days are gone.   And because the subtlety is perhaps more powerful, we ought to give it much more thought, and therefore, concern.  Let’s not be too quick to be entertained.  In these days of quick bytes and short attention spans, the media can get away with almost anything. 

Defying Stereotypes 101

We generalize about people whenever our imagination and initiative fail us.    Our lazy bones tell us that people hold certain immutable characteristics because that is just the way life is.   Asians can’t drive.   Blacks are listless.   Latinos are well, just ask Arizonans.    And of course there is the lack of geographical knowledge; go to the Philippines and you know Asians do fly on the streets. 

And Charice, the Filipina girl will soon join the cast.   What awaits this young girl is anybody’s guess.  But how about a stereotype-defying role?   There is a rumor that she is playing a foreign exchange student.  How about a student from, say, Germany?   How about her parents are stationed in the military base there?   How about she’s a daughter of a famous Chinese actress, and as dumb as the dumbest Asian you’d love to meet (for a change)?  How about she’s not even Asian?   Her name is really Candace O’Brien.   

How about remove the epidermis of how we view people of color in the United States, and do a little work of uncovering the many complex layers of personalities and characters (normal ones!) that live and thrive in our worlds, and find some REAL characters who don’t tickle the stereotypical fantasies of John Smith? Stereotypes are stereotypes; unlike wine, they don’t improve with time.

I congratulate GLEE for attempting diversity en masse. But hey, in 2010, aren’t we beyond Kung Fu Asians, queeny gay boys, and tormented Jews? Can we finally see America?

Related Reading:  Black Face Mistrelsy, NPR the Legacy of Black Face, Charice Joins Glee,

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Fast forward fifty years, this country is still teeming with factories and factory workers.   They are no longer the same people that precipitated the industrial revolution.  Many of them are immigrants, legal or otherwise, from other countries who have no choice but to work in these “sweatshops” because of their lack of language skills and work experience.

When we first came to this country, my mother also worked in a factory, a carpet factory, an experience that would prove to be short-lived as my warrior-mother had no tolerance for oppressive cultures.   She eventually found a way out.   However, many women, for various reasons, don’t ever get out of these work situations.   The whole debate about immigration also touches on the kind of jobs that immigrants take and allegedly native-born Americans don’t want.   Many of my students over the years also work in such factories.   It seems that in America today, if you are an unskilled immigrant and lacks language proficiency, factory work will be part of your American rite of passage.

The Sweatshop Teacher

For almost ten years of my working life, I spent my Sundays in Brooklyn Chinatown, teaching Survival English to sweatshop workers. I was invited to teach by a co-worker and good friend who also once worked in the sweatshops. At the time, I had only organized in immigrant communities and did not really have any experience teaching.   But I thought I’d give it a shot. 

Through my human rights work, I was familiar with the oppressive environments that poor people experienced in the otherwise very wealthy city of New York.  Human Rights organizing, after all, was my full time job, one which extended outside my paid hours.   It was the nineties, and activism was at its height in New York City, a possible byproduct of the Reagan years.   For me, it was a decade of self-expression and exploration, as I was searching for a place in the world, and was finding my new America to be full of contradictions.   It was also around the same time when I met a very close and small network of writer friends who were very concerned about the position of Asian American literature in the larger American literary space.    So to speak, my plate was full, but still, I woke up early on Sundays to travel by the N train to Sunset Park, Brooklyn, which on weekends, was a test on patience.

Brooklyn Chinatown is the younger sister of the notorious Manhattan Chinatown by lightyears.  At the time, the Chinatown in Brooklyn seemed like one big secret; nobody knew it was there except the Chinese community that lived around it.   The teachers and students would gather in a public high school.    I didn’t attend a U.S. high school, much less a public one; suffice to say, it was an eye-opener for me.    All my students were Chinese, mostly mothers.   Sometimes they would come with their children, especially on registration day.    As it turned out, the children were the cultural translators, a big responsibility for young people. 

Our goal was to equip these sweatshop workers with enough work-related English so that they could advocate for themselves in their sweatshops.    Although I began this blog with an image of the American factory during World War 2, I invite you to reconsider that romantic image and replace it with more harrowing ones, for such was the reality of sweatshop life in New York City.    No Rosie the Riveter in Chinatown.  The hours were often very long.   They got paid by piece, as opposed to by hour.  That means if their job was to put holes on buttons, they got paid per button.  In fact, if you asked them what kind of job they had, they would tell you very specific parts of a piece of clothing: the hem, the buttons, the sleeves, etc.    Nevertheless, my classroom was always full of students.  They got early on Sunday even if they had worked the day before and went to class to learn English.

It was my introduction to a career that I have held since:  Adult Literacy Education (ALE).    English was urgent.  What they learned in class on Sunday proved to be useful for Monday.   Sometimes, they would bring forms to class, government forms, so that we could look at them and study the words.   They asked me questions about the forms that their own children couldn’t translate.   I was deeply moved by what these children have to do for their sweatshop mothers.   I couldn’t understand how anyone that age could translate a legal document, but I knew there was no other choice.

The Children of the Sweatshop Workers

There were many things that their limited English proficiency couldn’t not bridge.    These were the ones I was most curious about.  I wanted to know exactly what happened at home, or during the week that I didn’t see them.   Who were taking care of the kids, how were they doing in school?  Although I grew up in a rather similar situation in Manila, my family always had a host of extended family members who were always there.   I never really felt alone.   And I also attended a private Catholic school that made sure I wasn’t alone.    For these children of Chinatown, it would have been a totally different experience.

Sometimes my students wouldn’t show up in class.   When they came the Sunday after, they would tell me where they had been:  “Go to Con-necticah,” or “Go to Mas-sachuseh.”   They would take the Chinatown buses to these places, and they would do this on a regular basis.   At the time, my naivete made me wonder why anyone would travel that far to play Mahjong. 

At the end of the year, the program would have a holiday party for everyone.   It was a highly elaborate gathering of Chinese foodfest and performances that included the whole family, especially the children.   Some of them were college age and would come wearing their respective school sweatshirts.   It finally dawned on me why the mothers were going to Connecticut and Massachusetts.   They were visiting their kids at MIT, Harvard, and Yale.    It would have been so easy to just tell me “My kid goes to Harvard” like any proud parent would, but perhaps they didn’t completely grasp the value of such a brand. 

The American Dream

A week ago, I had a pleasure of introducing a writer I have known for ten years at the Asian American Writers Workshop.   She came back to New York City from Amsterdam for a book tour of her mega-first novel, Girl in Translation.   I met her when I published her work in my anthology, The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings About New York City, a book that marked the 100 year presence of Asians in NYC.    What I didn’t know about Jean Kwok, the author, was that her mother was a sweatshop worker and she herself spent many years in one.   Of course, that Jean went to Harvard was no longer a big surprise, or the fact that she has written a book about the experience.

When Jean presented her wonderful book to a youngish audience at the workshop, my disparate worlds of activism, teaching, and literature merged into a full circle.    My friends and I organized the Asian American Writers Workshop around the same time that I was teaching at the sweatshops.  To hear Jean’s side of the story brought me back many years.  Finally, here was a book that I would have loved to have read with my students in Chinatown.   I remember using the text for Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone, because it was the only Chinese American book that dealt with authentic Chinese American experience that didn’t happen in a beauty parlor (e.g. The Joy Luck Club).   But even Bone was not reflective enough of the Chinatown experience.  

When Jean Kwok signed my copy of her novel, Girl in Translation, she unknowingly gave me the key to a world that for so many years I had longed to know more about.    Those were determining years of my young life, when I, an immigrant myself,  came face to face with a world that literally changed the direction of my working life. The dreams of those Chinatown mothers became mine.

Related Reading:  Jean Kwok’s book, Brooklyn Chinatown, The Asian American Writers Workshop, Rosie the Riveter, Women in War Jobs – Rosie the Riveter (Ad Council), Museum of Chinese in America (MOCA), Angry Asian Man Blog,

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The Philippines has a shorter educational system than the U.S., so many of us finish high school relatively young. In my class alone, the youngest was fifteen. Most of us had never worked, and wouldn’t have to think about it until college, or after college, if there was work, that is. In my case, I had to leave the country. And life, the new American life, would change just about everything.

After many jobhunting tryouts (one of which was with my own mother, at MacDonalds), I found a job on Wall Street, now the center of a global recession blame game. The woman who interviewed me, Martha, was the Manager, who told me months later that I reminder her of her son. In short, I charmed her, this white woman who thought I looked like her son. If you were an FOB (fresh off the boat), you wouldn’t pay too much attention to such flattery. First of all, you would be paycheck-focused. Nothing else mattered, not what Martha said, nor what her son looked like. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t be working for Martha, but for her boss, a golden aged virago with a voice that could rattle a dormant earthquake fault. Let’s call her Cruella de Ville, 80s version, this way I wouldn’t have to describe her, because in fact, she looked very much like that cartoon, minus the dogs and the black and white color theme (or you can also age Merryl Streep’s character in The Devil Wears Prada and get a good image of this woman).

We had our own building on Wall Street. It was a seven-story building with a garden on the rooftop that was being kept by Cruella’s scantily-clad young gardeners (yup, I noticed). My desk was at the center of the floor, directly overlooking Cruella’s big oriental-inspired office, and was surrounded by glass windowed clerical offices.  My morning task was to open Cruella’s mail, sort them, and hand her the ones with checks. I was being trained by two women, one black and one white. I would find out later, in my complete naivete about ethnicity, that this “white woman” was Colombian. I only knew of Colombia from watching Miss Universe for years. I had no idea how they really looked like. But our Miss Colombia never admitted to being Colombian. In fact, her last name was Garcia, which she spuriously pronounced as “Gar-sha.” It was the eighties, and her Garsha hair was as high as a hairsprayed mane could get. She grew up on Long Island, the land of self-denial, if you get the drift. The other woman was black, a very dark skinned one at that. She was pregnant and was about to be promoted to the first floor. In that building, the first floor was the penthouse. That was where all the white men were. That was where the “computers” were. Those were the last years of electric typewriters, but we still had them. In fact, on my floor, there was a whole room of typists, and across from them, proofreaders. I, a self-taught 70 wpm Executive Assistant, sat at a desk in the middle of it all.

My first few weeks were calm. I was given a tour of the whole building from the ground up. I was, after all, the assistant of the Vice President, an itinerant gofer on leather shoes. The first floor was reserved for executive positions, mostly white men, and their colored minions (one of whom was the newly promoted black woman). That floor was always closed. Always. Like some big secret ritual was happening there . The third floor was the lunch room, with a small wall-attached TV that played daily soap operas. All the women would go to lunch at exactly the time when their favorite soap was on. They would eat their ethnic food and completely immerse themselves in the lives of the characters on the 17 inch TV.  They would have conversations about them as if they were cousins or neighbors.  The fourth floor was Accounting, home to a Filipino family. I was on the Fifth with Cruella and her clerks. The Sixth was an underrenovated floor that housed three people, two of whom were overweight. There was one restroom on that floor. One lazy afternoon, after Cruella kept calling that floor and nobody would answer, she sent me upstairs to investigate. I found the two obese white employees coming out of a tryst, the restroom, at the same time (the male, zipping his fly), with one message for me, Don’t say anything to anyone. I never did, until now.

Compared to the towering architecture around us, we were a miniature. But it was always mesmerizing to watch the rest of Wall Street from our cafeteria window. I had not know then how different we were from the rest of Wall Street. I had no concept of immigration, race, or ethnicity. I had no idea that all the ethnics coming out of the train would all end up in my building.

And this made this Wall Street firm most interesting, at least in retrospect; most of the employees were immigrants. The countries: Philippines, India, Guyana, Bermuda, Trinidad and Tobago, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Nigeria, and the Republic of the Bronx. For them, I was just one of them. For me, it was all strange; and I was in it for the experience. I had nothing to compare it with. I had no idea what the next day would bring. And of course, there was always the clueless Long Island hairspray girl named Garsha.

Garsha’s dream was to work on the first floor. She would come to work wearing a tightfitting dress that accentuated her breasts and her butt. She was about to get married and replace her Garsha last name with an Italian one, which profoundly excited her. Her hair would reach the ceiling. She was a goodlooking woman unwittingly diminished by her ethnic self-denial. She would do anything to get through the day, including hiding checks in the drawers that she couldn’t finish processing. Those checks were commercial paper and Treasury Bills checks. For the life of me, I had no idea what they were for. All I knew they were supposed to be handed to Cruella. What did I know? It was my first job. I didn’t even know Almond Joy was a chocolate bar. I would find that out after another secretary asked me to get her one, and my pride precluded me from inquiring deeper. I came back with my cup of coffee and a question: What is Almond Joy? Of course, after being called “stupid,” I had my first exposure to the world of obesity and American snacks. 

Garsha would soon find herself in big trouble. Cruella knew the ins and outs of the building, of desks, and of every nook and cranny of her office and everyone else’s around her. One day, she threw a fit upon discovering Garsha’s secret treasures: weeks-old Treasury Bills and Commercial Paper (I suspect that she went through people’s desks when everybody was gone).  I had never seen a white woman so angry in my life. I had never known facial wrinkles could get more, er, wrinkled.    She called Garsha and me to the office and started screaming at both of us. The veins, oh the turgid veins on her dear neck.  I thought they would explode on my new Bloomingdale’s outfit. Garsha parried the accusations by kicking my leg, trying to keep my mouth shut. So I did (I was already humanitarian). Yet, there was one person who knew the truth: Martha. Remember Martha? She was the one who thought I looked like her son.

Oh the solicitous Martha, with a Spanish last name, I remember now. In a closed meeting, the woman defended me and ransacked the poor career out of Garsha. But you see, during the time, I was already applying to go to college. Not that I didn’t care, but since I didn’t have any other work experience to compare it with, I was going with the flow, a constant flow of screaming, irascible, and high blood pressure-bound Cruella. I don’t remember what happened to Garsha after that, but I do know that soon after, I had my own assistant.

Every now and then, we would get a visit from the newly-promoted secretary from the first floor. She spat when she talked. You would rather not look at her. She and her husband went to the Carribean for a vacation, and she flaunted her tan afterwards. The typists had a ball on her, because according to them, she was too dark to even think she could get a tan (these were black people making fun of her). It was my first year in America, and my first exposure to race. I didn’t even know when to laugh, or why I should laugh at these jokes. All I cared about was what I wore to work.

I thought about this today, because a friend from that era has recently emailed me. She found me on the Internet. She is Filipino, too, and perhaps the first one I have met in this country. She is a victim of the recession, which we know now had its roots on Wall Street.  Because of the Filipino family who worked in accounting, we outnumbered the other ethnics in that company. I often wondered why.   When Martha’s son visited, she introduced him to me. It was only then that I realized that her Spanish last name was Filipin0. Her son didn’t look like her at all, and most likely took after her estranged Filipino husband. And no, for the grace of god, he didn’t look like me either.

Wall Street taught me many things about life in this country. I think now that it must have profoundly affected me that I had continued to work with immigrants since. What I learned from being there a year was not about Commercial Paper or Treasury Bills or CDs or Investments, but the daily struggles of the people who make the system work. Unfortunately, many of them recruited into this system were not being made aware of the internal mechanics of such system. Months after I left, I found out from my informant that the Securities and Exchange Commission had come in and shut down the firm. Stories flew about the company not having enough assets and how the president was physically dragged out of the building. Who would have known? They were all perfunctory paper shufflers, more worried about spell checks and typing errors than obviating the arrival of the Feds over liquid assets.  Most of all, they were all immigrants.  I wonder about the hiring now, whether it was purposeful.  Was there an assumption about immigrant workers, their loyalty, their naivete, or their ability to feign indifference inorder to keep a much needed cash flow?   The ones who might have known the real goings-on were behind closed door on the first floor.  We didn’t even know their names; we hardly saw them.   But at the time, it was all behind me.  I was about to embark on a new world–college–and nothing else mattered but what was ahead.  There was much to look forward to in my teenage years, including among other things, getting a whole collection of this new hot artist named Madonna.

Related Reading:  Don’t Cry for Wall Street, Awake, Wall Street, With SEC charges, Goldman Sachs’s reputation is tarnished, You’re Welcome, Wall Street, Wall Street: Is It Good to Apologize for Greed?, No More Deceit: Strictly Regulate Wall Street, Financial Reform at a Crossroads,

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As an immigrant, I’m very chary of labels.  I have assimilated up to a certain point.   I don’t agree that becoming American means erasing one’s ethnic identity.  Unlike the previous generations of Euro-immigrants, I ‘m brown as burnt rice.  I’m lactose-intolerant, non-cheese eater. There’s no mistaking my Asian origins.   Right now, the number of people who look like me are still largely insignificant.  But in the future, about 40+ years, as mentioned in the article, the face of America will look like this:

By 2056, when someone born today will be 66 years old, the “average” U.S. resident, as defined by Census statistics, will trace his or her descent to Africa, Asia, the Hispanic world, the Pacific Islands, Arabia — almost anywhere but white Europe. (More here from Time Magazine).

Changes are said to begin this year.   According to the Associated Press, “minority” babies will outnumber “majority” babies in 2010 (read here).   In simple speak, children-of-color will outnumber white children this year.  What Time Magazine didn’t predict are the socio-cultural and economic changes sweeping the country right now:  the recent collapse of Wall Street, a recession worse than the Great Depression, and the election of America’s first President-of-color.   That’s enough to shake the grounds of Puritan America.  How will the current economic downturn impact the demographic changes in the future?

Truth Is

Good times always find a way of masking true innate feelings.  Economic prosperity turns a country with deep intercultural issues into a superficial festival of nations.  What’s there to be angry about?  We are all eating.  Shopping.   Then one day, the bottom lid falls out.   

The truth always shows its face when things are very, very wrong.    30 million people are unemployed.   People are losing their homes.  Xenophobia is reborn, and hate is its language.  People of similar origins band together.  Media gives way to propagandists.   All of this hate–mostly directed at people who are “different”– finds its way in good ole time American organizing.  And the Tea Party , overwhelmingly white male conservative, marches  through Washington (see picture).

What we are seeing in the U.S.  is the proliferation of blame in American language.   President Obama’s skin color has made his attempt for a united government impossible as his assumed alliances become a rallying cry for conservatives.   He has been called a “socialist” and a “Muslim,” words given negative connotations as America searches for blame.  With 40 million Americans living in poverty, there is every reason to be angry.   There are 5 million baby boomers who are currently unemployed.  The competition for jobs is stiff.   At this level, we sometimes forget our neighbors.  We especially forget our neighbors who don’t look like us.

Eurocentrism

The Nazis rose to power during a major economic crisis in Germany, the darkest time in recorded history.  However, given a mountain of evidence, some German communities are still in denial about concentration camps in their own towns.   Sadly, they all have benefitted from Hitler’s psychosis.   Because of short term memory, Europe once again is switching on its denial mode as it becomes a right-wing, anti-immigrant continent  (story here from NPR).  Never mind its long history of colonization of the brown world.  Never mind the death of millions of Jews.   Never mind that World War 2 was only 60 years ago.  The search for blame and hate rages on, taking on a new form:

Targeting Muslims is a common denominator that now unifies a great proportion of European political elites and media. The reasons are numerous and obvious. Some European countries are at war (which they have chosen) in various Muslim countries; desperate and failed politicians are in need for constant distractions from their own failures and mishaps; associating Islam with terrorism is more than an acceptable intellectual diatribe, a topic of discussion that has occupied more radio and television airtime than any other; also, pushing Muslims around seems to have few political repercussions – unlike the subjugation of targeting of other groups with political or economic clout.  (more here).

Eerily, what is happening in Europe parallels the rising levels of intolerance in the U.S.   Americans should know better.  The European continent does not have the immigration history of this country.   America is built on the backs of immigrants.   Also, Europe will probably not see the level of demographic changes that will sweep the U.S. in the next decades.   Yet, xenophobia is the staple of colonial histories.  America, after all, still traces much of its ancestry to Europe.   We have truly just begun dealing publicly with issues of race and equality.   What does this mean for the future?  Will changes in American demography mean a positive shift in the act of tolerance?  Or is xenophobia so deeply rooted in American culture that people-of-color will simply give it a new spin.

Case in point: Over easter lunch, my mother and I went to a Vietnamese restaurant in Jersey City (very POC, mind you).  A group of teenage Latinos walked in and took the table behind us.   A few were looking for “chicken wings,” and “beef and broccolli” from the menu.   After making very loud, ignorant, and biased comments about the names of food on the menu, they walked out.  

Blacks in America

While I probably won’t be around to witness the reversal of minority/majority in America, I will be here long enough to see it gradually happen.   Already, the election of the first black president has made many people resort to old anti-black sentiments as a way of public expression.   What once was private dinner conversation is now out in the open.  Interestingly enough, in my job interviews, I have been asked about my ethnic background, as if it has any bearing with the job.   As a former Human Rights Commission employee, I know that it is a red flag for discriminatory practices.    I must admit feeling extremely uncomfortable after being asked the “Where are you from?” question, but I went ahead with the interview feigning a smile.   Of course, as expected, I never heard from those people again.   What’s there to do if you’re a person of color looking for job in this economy?  Identity-erasure? Is the strategy of this unemployed black man necessary?

But after graduating from business school last year and not having much success garnering interviews, he decided to retool his résumé, scrubbing it of any details that might tip off his skin color. His membership, for instance, in the African-American business students association? Deleted. (More here from the NYTimes)

I don’t think so.  Should it surprise us that the unemployment rate among blacks is twice as much as whites? 

The Spirit Level

If the trend of intolerance continues in America, are we heading toward a system of Apartheid, where the majority is forcibly led by an oppressive  minority group?  Right now, the U.S.  has more inequality of income than any country in the world.  It also has more people (mostly Black men) in its penal system than any other country in the world.  

A new book, The Spirit Level: Why More Equal Societies Almost Always Do Better, offers a ray of hope.   First it tell us about us, as mentioned in a review of the book in The Guardian:

America is one of the world’s richest nations, with among the highest figures for income per person, but has the lowest longevity of the developed nations, and a level of violence – murder, in particular – that is off the scale. Of all crimes, those involving violence are most closely related to high levels of inequality – within a country, within states and even within cities. For some, mainly young, men with no economic or educational route to achieving the high status and earnings required for full citizenship, the experience of daily life at the bottom of a steep social hierarchy is enraging. (More here from The Guardian).

Then, it goes on to analyze why the more equal a society, the healthier it is.  And in contrast, the more unequal, the more problems it has.   

Lessons for the Future

This downturn economy is teaching us much about ourselves, our level of tolerance, our history of racism.   It is not only a lesson for the white majority with a long tradition of imperialism and racism, but also for people of color who submit to such racist traditions.   As America diversifies, the face of the oppressor changes as well.   We all have bias in our blood. We all have a long tradition of protecting our own tribes.   But we are also more aware and more educated than our ancestors.   We understand diversity more.  We know what democracy can bring each of us.  

As these babies of 2010 grow up, what can we teach them about America of old and new?   How do we pass on the message that the fundamental richness of this country is its ability to live in harmony despite the differences that could potentially divide?

Related Reading:  In Job Hunt, College Degree Can’t Close Racial Gap, The Rage Is Not About Health Care, Whose Country Is It?, Institutional Racism in Employment and Unemployment, Again, The Spirit Level, Poll: Tea Party overwhelmingly white, male and conservative, In the Face of Racism, Distress Depends on One’s Coping Method.

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For Starters, Calling Hollywood Savages

Hollywood has a long history of what I would call the “savage genre.” Of this, King Kong is most famous. For decades, natives of other countries (and planets) were angry, grass-skirted, bone-ornamented, barefooted tribes who just had to be whipped into modern consciousness. Goodbye, tree worshippers. Hello, western capitalism.  And then, they were put on public display, in cages. 

Gone are the days of Hollywood’s manifest destiny. What we see in movies now is Hollywood with guilt.   From Pocahontas to Dances With Wolves to Avatar, the “savages” seem to be winning over the colonizers.   After decades of being portrayed as brainless, chaotic cannibals deserving of a tent at the World Fair, we slowly find out that these savages actually have some form of organization and an unfathomable connection to nature.  We also find out that they’re welcoming and nonviolent, that they’d be happy to break bread with a lost colonist and call him “Dances with Wolves.”   They’re also more than willing to share all their secrets to a “dream walker” named, ah, Jake, who goes unconscious once unplugged.   Nary a sense of suspicion of these infiltrators-turned- indigenous, the natives were more than happy to share their secrets (after all, being secret-friendly is the savage way), all their secrets at that, I mean, all. Their God Eywa even communicates with the impostor, in the tradition of Eywa-knows-best (Was she sharing her secrets too?).   Then one day, the natives get attacked.  Suddenly, everything is Hollywood-familiar: we see the same old savages of the King Kong days, a bunch of tribes fleeing from a burning tree with asses on fire.

They Can’t Save Their Gluteus Maxes

And so the story continues.  We find out that our dear savages can’t save their asses.   Infiltrator-turned-indigenous had to find a way to save them, because he had fallen in love with the leader’s daughter, our extraterrestrial Pocahontas who couldn’t find a good mate in her tribe, she had to go for someone that had to be plugged into an electric outlet. 

What are we learning from the highest grossing movie of all time?  

I am not sure what Writer and Director Cameron was thinking.  I can only assume that he was exonerating himself from the sins of his fathers.   He might have wanted a “more accurate” portrayal of native peoples.   He might want to show a planet with subconscious connections between land and people.   Also, he might have wanted to exagerrate the invading Americans by painting their characters with Blackwater ideologues of recent Iraq War memory.  However, his hero complex just couldn’t imagine the possibility of Pandora natives defending themselves.  Cameron’s message is clear, given all the exotic touches and beauty of native life and their complex ecology, they are too dumb to know that they are about to be invaded and have their asses set on fire.  

They need a hero.  Let’s see: Christopher Columbus, John Smith, Ferdinand Magellan, Fernando Cortes, um, ah, Jake.

Learn from Lapu-Lapu

In the Philippines, we have Lapu-Lapu.   He’s a warrior, after whom a fish was named.   He should have been the national hero of the country, because he would have given Filipinos a value to behold.  Every native country or planet needs a Lapu-Lapu.   If you don’t know who that is, well, he beheaded Ferdinand Magellan.  He belongs to a select group of warriors who stood up for themselves and their people.    Yet, his narrative is not known to many.  In his place, Magellan rises as the heroic figure.   Nobody ever mentions Magellan was beheaded; his true heroism was circumnavigating the world, as evidenced by the endeless references to his name.  True to point, while Magellan is the name of a strait, of countless avenues, and of proud Spanish last names, Lapu-Lapu’s claim to fame is a tasty fish in local Philippine markets (see picture). Is this what happens when you defend your turf? And oh, I don’t know of one Filipino named Lapu-Lapu. Guess who the late dictator Marcos was named after?

The World According to Avatar James Cameron

In his world of profiteering and invasions, there is always a price to pay.   The price is the betrayal by one’s own.   In Avatar, Jake had an epiphany and had to choose between a life on a wheelchair and a joyride on a pterodactyl.    He turned on his own people and saved the world of the natives. 

According to Cameron, natives can’t save themselves.   They are peace loving blue people whose heads are so deep in the roots of the land, they couldn’t process why there were foreign creatures on their planet.   They have a god named Eywa who had to call on animals to save Pandora, because it’s own humanoid inhabitants were too high on peace and kumbaya.  

According to Cameron, if there was no such a thing as betrayal, the blue people of Pandora would all have been deep-fried brown Lapu Lapu fish.  For people like myself, who have come from countries that have yet to recover from the deep roots of colonization,  it is message worth reinvestigating.   Beyond the glamor of new technology, the narrative content demonstrates the need of dominating cultures to regurgitate their power through this global Hollywood medium.  The movie itself, just like a BigMac, is mesmerizingly satiating, until one day we are all too fat with propaganda, we can no longer get up.

Related Reading: Dances With Aliens: James Cameron’s Avatar Movie and White “Saviors” (Updated), Avatar and Whiteness, A whole lot of Avatar and whiteness,
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