“Filipino Identity” – Jade Phoenix Martinez

My reflections on growing up as a first-generation Filipino-American

one
I wish I could recite this poem in Tagalog.
Instead,
I can only speak the language of my ancestors
with metaphors written in the colonizers’ English –
how Tagalog always felt like a bright neon staying
on my camouflage tongue,
how I equated its accent on English words akin to a
stench of odor needing to be covered up.

two
I've never been quite sure
if the origins of my inability to speak my parents' native language
is the result of me never bothering to learn
or the result of my parents never bothering to
teach me.

three
Don't misunderstand me
I'm not completely oblivious. I know a
couple phrases like ‘mahal kita’ or ‘Salamat po’
or ‘___ bakla.’
I can understand conversations around me
“____________
_____________
_____________”
these phrases are like the abandoned fruits
falling to the ground across the acres
of uncolonized land
I managed to pick up
along the way.

four
I can still taste my Lola’s sinigang
the sweet and sour sabaw(?)
like nectar still lingering on my lips,
or her nilagang(?)
the best medicine for when I'm feeling sick.
She taught me how to cook her chicken adobo,
her lumpiang shanghai,
her pancit,
her turon.
One thing I do know about Filipinos
you can force your language upon us
and we will learn it,
you can try to steal our resources and labor
and we will still work hard,
but don't you dare come for our food

five
By the time I graduated college
from a mostly white conservative University,
got myself a full-time job with benefits,
had a kid with a prettiest blonde hair blue-eyed girl I could find
all while hoping to make my parents proud,
I labeled myself with the term “white-washed”
like it was a badge of honor.

I considered this my arrival at the doorstep of assimilation.

I made it to the destination that my parents mapped out for me –
a first-class, direct, one-way ticket
to the American dream.
I would tell people I was a coconut:
hard brown hairy skin on the outside,
but soft yummy gooey whiteness on the inside.

six
These are things I am not proud of,
things I have been too afraid to write into a poem
or say on a stage,
fearing I would lose the sight of my roots if I were to
acknowledge how we are seeds that have
been uprooted,
transported from native soil
across an ocean
planted into pastures that our parents were promised would be greener,
for us to grow in this land, where the trees
that are considered most beautiful
look nothing like us.
Well the fruit of the field considered most
desirable never seems to fall from our
branches.

seven
My Lolo used to say anak,
always be proud of who you are.
I miss my Lolo every day and I’ve learned to take
so much pride in who I am,
but I wondered
would he be proud of me still
if he saw who I have become,
or if the word bakla
would roll off his tongue in slander
the same way it does from my parents,
from my titos and my titas, from my kuyas and my ates
all our relations
preceded by gender.

eight
Since Tagalog has no words for pronouns,
instead when referring to someone in conversation
Tagalog uses a gender-neutral sha for
each person regardless of their gender identity.
So when native Tagalog speakers translate their thought
into English “he” or “she” gender pronouns
you can assume won't automatically equate;
because of this language phenomenon
I've been referred to as she
ever since I was born.

nine
Maybe someday
I'll translate this poem into Tagalog.
Maybe someday
my family will get my gender pronouns correct.
Maybe I'll see my Lolo again in another life
and he will tell me how proud he is
of who I am.

ten
Most likely,
I'll never know.
Most likely
this poem will never be translated,
much less recited in Tagalog.
Most likely,
my family will never understand
the kind of tree I have become,
all the reasons why the soil they planted me in
has shaped the grown me
in such a queer way.
They might never
understand these things
these things
but I know this much
I will always be proud of who I am,
the origins of my seeds in the land from which I have grown,
even if the trees we have become
in these fields
might never be acknowledged as the most beautiful
or maybe we already have been
and after time
after time
they always
call someone else's name before ours
whenever we are announced the winners.

Eleven
did you know the coconut is the most deadly fruit?
it can kill someone simply by falling from the tree and striking
the colonizer in the head