BOONDOCKS 

 
According to the Oxford dictionary, Boondocks is defined to be a rough, remote, or isolated
country which originated from the Filipino word “Bundok” which has an English translation of
mountain and was accepted and developed in the 1940s. This poem talks about the history of the
Philippines in the rough times of war in the era of American Colonization. The title itself would
suggest that the word is related to the Filipino language, especially that the writer is also a
Filipino.

“the Philippines has the fourth-largest population of English speakers in the world” Since the
Philippines was colonized by the Americans in the year 1898 - 1946 after the colonization of
Spaniards, the Filipino people were forced to learn and adapt to the new language. The
Americans have taught the Filipino people the whole system of education and until now, this
foreign language is considered to be very important for us and is somehow preferred more than
our language.

“To show our appreciation for your gift of language, we’d like to offer you one word of our
own, bundók, which means “mountain.” Since the Philippines was conquered by America, we
have developed a colonial mentality where the Filipino people tend to praise our colonizers. At
first, this poem talks about the relation of each language to the race. However, when this line
came up, the poem gradually transitioned to a human condition which is the colonial mentality.
The mood of this line becomes dramatic as if the American people and the language that they
gave to us are higher than what we have when in fact each language from each country should
just be equal. It also seems like the writer is treating the Americans as a god when he stated the
word “gift of language” and it seems like it is too much for praising the colonizers. However, this
phrase shows that the writer has a great inferiority complex from the Americans and that despite
the colonization that they did to us, he still wanted the colonizers to consider us as their friends.

“It may not slide as smoothly of your tongue as the French Montagne,” The writer does not only
want the Americans to acknowledge the borrowing of language due to the cultural influence from
each of the country. The writer also wanted the Americans to consider us as a friend or a fellow
despite the inferiority complex that we have developed from the years of colonization. The part
where the writer was hoping that these people would also acknowledge the Filipino people as a
whole and not just a term was when he said that, “but we hope nonetheless your lexicon can
accommodate this term”.
“Which has been blessed by the goddess who scatters ginger along Makiling’s slopes.” Makiling
is the name of a famous mountain in the Philippines and it is used to pertain as a general term to
the mountains that the American and Filipino people went through to fight when the Japanese
invasion went through. Despite the colonization that happened, the writer still sees the Americans
as fellow and he believes that there is a close bond. The writer wanted to please the American by
appealing to the emotions of the receiver of the message especially to the part where he
reminisced the memories from history when he said “Keep it is a souvenir of the times we fought
side by side” and “when the Japanese hunted us down in the Cordilleras” which is considered to
be a rough time.

However, it is unknown if the Americans consider the war with the Filipino people which made
it look like the author is asking for the Americans to not forget the Filipinos and the bond that we
made from the battles when he mentioned the line “and let your poets repeat it when they recount
those still-unnamed battles”. Most of the battles that we know with the Americans are named and
are a part of our history, however, it seems like only our side gave importance to it and rarely of
them since other battles were forgotten and are not written in our history. As the poem goes on, a
hint of irony can be seen on the part where the writer glorifies these people, yet there are no signs
of these people even remember us or glorify us too.

“Remember to say the word out loud, for luck, before you leave our shores, your frigates full of
timber, siblings, gold.” The attitude of the poem slowly turned into an offering and a poem full of
hope that the receivers would accept and remember us as if they are superior human beings to us.
Yet, in the end, the Americans left us after all of the warfare bringing our possession such as our
wealth and even the Filipino people who abandoned the identity of being a Filipino who wanted
to be a foreigner because we believed that being an American and being in America is better than
our identity.