Little Manila, Taipei, Taiwan

I was on the MRT in Taipei on my way to a rock concert when I overheard a few words in Tagalog. Since I’ve arrived in Taiwan, I’ve been swathed in Chinese conversation. Being a long way from home, the familiar accents piqued my homesickness. I slowly worked up the courage to approach these three Pilipino women and as soon as I greeted them, the women started beaming. They introduced themselves, and after a bit of small talk, I asked them: “Do you miss the Philippines?” One of the women bit her lip, looked up at the ceiling on the train and murmured a quiet yes before she quickly changed the topic.

“Do you go to church?” she asked me.

Normally, it would seem a bit brash to hear such a question from a stranger, but it was one of the most Pilipino things I had heard in awhile! I nodded vehemently and said that I would try to go to the one in Little Manila. The women smiled and gave me directions. Soon I was at my stop, so I told the women that I’d see them at church as I scurried out of the MRT.

My first excursion to Little Manila was my first time traveling around Taipei alone. Within an hour, I was overwhelmed by the rain; my phone’s GPS was going haywire. As I was just about to give up, I saw a sign that was unmistakably Pilipino, and in that moment, I swear my heart dropped.

Little Manila is true to its name. With four stores and a church scattered on the corner of two streets, Little Manila was under- and overwhelming at the same time. Having been away from anything remotely Pilipino, I was craving some comfort food. I inched into an empty restaurant and spotted an elderly woman pop out from the kitchen at the back of the restaurant. As I ordered tocino and rice, I kept staring at her with teary eyes, wondering if she was real. She noticed my obvious homesickness and smiled. She chatted with me as I ate, and we discussed our respective homes, our families, the Philippines, etc.

As I was leaving, she told me to come back on Sunday.

“I’m now your lola,” she said, and I beamed back at her, trying not to look like an idiot.

Unfortunately, I didn’t end up seeing those Pilipinas from the MRT when I went to church, but I hope to cross paths with them again soon. According to the Manila Economic and Cultural Office, there are over 90,000 Pilipinos working in Taiwan; they are the third largest minority group in Taiwan. Most Pilipinos, like the ones I met on the MRT, work in factories. With so many overseas Pilipino workers in Taiwan, you would think there would be a larger Little Manila. The impression that I received from the neighborhood was that the Pilipino residents were trying to make do with what they had. The women in the MRT and the lola in the restaurant both spoke about the Philippines with great nostalgia, a little sigh of longing in their voice.

Perhaps the women feel the same as me. As tiny as Little Manila was, it’s big enough to fit the small, homesick hole in my heart.

What It Feels Like When the Most Important Chef in the Country Looks and Sounds Like Your Mother

My workshop partner and I count the number of tables that fill the gala hall.

“Sixteen by eight,” he says.

I look around and sigh a little. Of one hundred twenty-eight tables at the East Coast Asian American Student Union’s annual post-conference dinner, a grand total of one table accommodates the Pilipino delegation to the conference. It’s a full house tonight, with Asian American student organizations coming in droves from up and down the coast to attend workshops and listen to empowering speakers in the heart of DC.

The difference in numbers between us Pilipino delegates and most other Asian student association is staggering, but what we lack in numbers, we make sure to make up for in volume and spirit.

ECAASU is a time for Asian student organizations from every hue of our collective student population to mix, mingle, and crystallize the notion that was born in the 1970s: that Pan-Asianism and education lead to empowerment. The folks at UniPro lend a hand to the discussion of effective communication skills and charity, and I make my debut as large-scale conference speaker. For the Fil-Am student, ECAASU can be a chance at interacting with high-profile community leaders, while tasting the fruits of their own labor.

And it is in that milieu that we young, emerging Pilipino leaders find ourselves invited to a closing banquet, to eat with newly-made friends and foster blossoming partnerships. We’re underdressed and a little restless, like the younger delegates we came here to inspire (someone makes a joke about this being Prom 2.0). We’re getting ready for some Grand Hyatt-quality banquet food. We’d all be lying if we said we weren’t primarily here for the food.

Speakers come and go from the mic. Introductions are made. Students receive awards. The featured speaker is next. She approaches the microphone. She’s shorter than I expect her to be. She looks so very different in person, compared to the photos of her in magazines and online.

She looks and sounds like my mother.

This Pilipina woman is Cristeta Comerford, the first female and first Asian American executive chef at the White House; she was selected by Laura Bush and cooks for the Obama family today. “Shatterer of ceilings,” my workshop partner goes on to post to Facebook. Everyone is listening. She is educated, bright, and talented. Everything that you expect in a featured speaker. Except she looks and sounds like my mother.

Featured speakers aren’t supposed to do that. They’re supposed to be taller or whiter or blacker or skinnier. With tasteful salt-and-pepper hair. In either a power suit or a full-fledged banquet gown. They’re supposed to be CEOs of hedge fund banks or whatever. Politicians. Company executives. Actors who do a lot of philanthropy. People with doctorates and fellowships. If they represent America, they’re supposed to have scrubbed away any accent that would give away they allegiance to a motherland. But Cris Comerford embodies none of that. Her training is in food, and that training spans continents, and her accent is garnished with the coconut, vinegar, and jasmine of a country very far away. If I stand next to her, she would go no higher than my chin.

And yet she commands the room. She closes the conference and offers us its lessons on a presidential plate. She jokingly apologizes that she isn’t the one who cooked dinner for us tonight, and everyone in the room genuinely sighs in disappointment. Two thousand of Asian America’s upcoming leaders, most of them probably exhausted from the day’s events. She is our focus, as she shares with us her spirit, and gives body and thickness to the Pilipino notion of kapwa – she allows us to see ourselves in her, as she sees herself in all of us.

Our table stops paying attention to our plates, our phones and each other, and I can tell that every pair of eyes is fixated on her, standing behind a podium seven tables away, because all of us children of Pinay women are thinking the same thing.

After the speech, I have the pleasure of shaking her hand. They are worked, calloused, and tell the story of a woman fashioning meals fit for literal kings in the most important house in the world. We crowd around her and call her Tita Cris because we are all feeling famous and confident, putting her hands in ours. A handshake with Barack, the man who eats the meals, can wait another day. These hands, the hands of the woman who creates them, feel just like my mother’s.

Photo credit: Kristina Rodulfo

No More Apples, Just Respect

My boyfriend is one of the lucky ones. His life passions just so happen to align with one of the most venerated professions you could ever have: being a doctor. His parents beam at his accomplishment of getting into one of the top medical schools in the country and becoming the first doctor in their family. Genuinely fascinated by his chosen path, everyone he speaks with barrages him with questions about what he’s currently studying and wants to specialize in, to which he replies with beguiling stories about gut-wrenching surgeries and his exploits with cadavers.

I, however, am not as lucky in this respect. What I want to be is a teacher and the general reaction to my career choice is usually quite the opposite. Here’s how the scene goes:

Stranger at party: “Are you also going to medical school?” Me: “Oh, no. I’m planning to start grad school next year." Stranger: “What do you want to go to grad school for?” Me: “Education. I want to teach.” Stranger: (utterly unimpressed) “Oh…”

[End of small talk]

We’ve all heard the saying “Those who can’t do, teach.”  In the United States teaching is grossly undervalued as a second-rate career, as many people liken teachers to over glorified babysitters that get summer vacations off. What many people don’t realize that this conception has a profound effect on America that becomes fairly obvious if you think about it -- devaluing teachers means you are devaluing education itself.

Doesn’t that sound absurd? In a country that is obsessed with standardized tests and Ivy League universities, and where some parents pay $20,000 tuitions for fiercely competitive preschools, Americans know that an excellent education is as vital as food and water in order to become successful. One would think that more respect would be paid to the people who were actually facilitating said education.

Because of its current mediocre status, the majority of talented college graduates pass up teaching for more socially gratifying careers in medicine, law or business, all of which bring potentially lofty paychecks -- along with the prestige and esteem they represent. Teacher and author Ilana Garon reports that only 23% of teachers in the United States come from the top third tier of their graduating classes. In contrast:

“... the world's top-performing education systems – South Korea, Finland, Singapore – have this in common: 100% of teachers come from the top third of the college graduates, which (along with good working conditions, ample training and professional development, and higher salaries) promotes a culture wherein the teaching profession is viewed as selective and prestigious.”

America’s international rankings in education are severely lagging behind these teacher-driven countries, coming in 30^th in math, 23^rd in science, and 20^th in reading out of 65 of the world’s most developed countries.

Even though multitudes of factors (such as funding and policy) are involved in running an effective education system, researchers are finding that nothing tops the impact of an excellent teacher in terms of student achievement. While investigating studies on teacher effects, Malcolm Gladwell discovers that students are “better off in a ‘bad’ school with an excellent teacher than an excellent school with a bad teacher.” The bottom line is, if the United States wants to maintain its position as a globally competitive power, then the societal attitude towards teachers needs to change.

Things are slowly moving in the right direction, however, as education reformers are making grander efforts to find individuals who have the potential to be great teachers, and alter the public perception of the profession. It’s now trendy for graduates (such as myself) to go into teaching fellowships straight out of college. Teach for America’s skyrocketing popularity has made its application process even more competitive than law school. Following up their award-winning documentary, the makers of “Waiting for Superman” recently released a new film entitled “Teach,” which showcases the stories of dedicated teachers on a mission to make a difference.

As a Fil-Am, I haven’t heard much enthusiasm from family members about my interest in education. Instead, they also prefer talking about my boyfriend’s glamorous medical career and insist that I “Lock that up!” Of course, I can understand how for many Pilipino immigrants who uprooted their lives seeking greater opportunity for their children, pursuing anything less than a doctor or equivalently-esteemed career might seem like squandering the American dream.

The true American dream, however, is about equality. So is education. My mission as a teacher is to ensure that every child, no matter their background, has the skills and confidence to uplift themselves out of whatever might plague them (whether its poverty, ignorance, or boredom) and fulfill their potential. Just like any doctor, we teachers hope to change lives. Can’t we just get a little bit more respect?

Photo Credit: www.sodahead.com

Introducing LEGACY: an Organization Forging a New Generation of Youth Leaders

It is often said the world is made up of two types of people: leaders and followers. Determined to be the former, I've involved myself in community organizing throughout my undergraduate career, particularly within the Pilipino community. Like many youth leaders new to the game, I encountered frustrating issues like a loss of motivation from fellow team members, minimal interest or knowledge of cultural history, disorganized planning, and lack of collaboration. The worst part? These problems persisted because of the quick turnaround time for student leaders. Once a team learned from their mistakes, the incoming team would end up committing the same mistakes only months later. Then, student leaders would graduate, take on greater community leadership roles, and pass along those practices to form a cycle of inefficiency. There was no solution, that's just the way it was. Until now. LEGACY – Leadership, Education, Guidance, and Critical thinking for the Youth – is a new organization tackling these issues at their core. LEGACY aims to build a collective of action-driven people to raise new standards for community leaders through mentorship and development programs.

The organization is the brainchild of Kristina Joyas, who in October 2013 tapped Marc Densing, Christine Sicwaten, and myself to form a founding team. Joyas's experience includes the National Organizing Committee for AF3IRM, as well as serving as UniPro's own founding Vice President and former Director of Staff Development. The rest of us are currently rooted in the college sphere. Densing serves as the National Chairperson for F.I.N.D. Inc. Sicwaten (also a UniPro staff member) is on the Executive Board of F.I.N.D. District Three and was the former president of Stony Brook's PUSO. Lastly, I'm currently serving as president of NYU's International Filipino Association. We combined our forces, identified red flags, and shared our passion for leadership to build the foundation of LEGACY, officially launching this year.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D2dqIqGD1X8

In the wake of LEGACY's launch, we'd like to announce upcoming initiatives including:

• "Leave Your Legacy" Series – This lecture series invites prominent and seasoned senior community organizers to impart their invaluable knowledge and experiences, TED talks-style.

• Project LEAD (Leadership Education and Development) – This is a summer-intensive project for rising leaders. It features weekly workshops which fostering necessary hard skills to encourage success among members of a group or organization.

• LEGACY Fellowship – This fellowship invites a small cohort of aspiring leaders to participate in an individualized 10-month-long mentorship, building a foundation of Pilipino cultural education and continual leadership development.

• National youth conferences – LEGACY will be facilitating leadership workshops at major youth leader conferences. Earlier this month, we attended the Southern California Pilipino American Student Association (SCPASA) Summit 2014, and will be heading to the East Coast Asian American Students Union Conference (ECAASU), Kapihan at Cornell University, and other upcoming events for the year across the nation.

Now more than ever, LEGACY is needed to create a collective of leaders up for the challenge of matching the Fil-Am community's growing scope and expanding needs. LEGACY's big picture envisions national coalition and goals to build a model to be used in other communities outside Pilipinos. For now, however, we are calling you to action. If you know someone itching to be a leader, someone already doing community work, or someone who has the potential and just might not know it yet – point them in LEGACY's direction.

Learn more at http://createourlegacy.org. Plus, find us on twitter: @CreateOurLEGACY

Filipino Arts Renaissance: Jana Lynne Umipig

Jana Lynne Umipig does not need words to tell stories. The actress, writer, and creator of The Journey of a Brown Girl, an experimental theater production, extends her vocabulary to her limbs. “Physical theater takes in mind, body, and spirit,” she says.

“You’re taught how to connect your physical self to everything else.”

The Journey of a Brown Girl puts a spotlight on women’s issues through the experience, culture, struggle, and history of Filipino women. There is no linear story, rather, it is told in vignettes built from personal accounts and interviews similar in style to The Vagina Monologues by Eve Ensler, one of Umipig’s favorite writers. The piece originated in 2010 as a Umipig’s one woman show and capstone project while studying educational theater at New York University. Eventually, it became adapted for performance by a collective of Filipina performers. Journey is now in rehearsals for a rewritten version debuting at The Actor’s Fund Arts Center in downtown Brooklyn March 2014. The scenes are electric and the characters are unapologetically in-your-face. Umipig may not be an actress for this production but her vision and voice resonate.

“Right now, I will tell you this is not a play, this is a movement. I will say it over and over again, The Journey of a Brown Girl is a movement––a movement to tap into our greatest creators as Pinay women and what that really means,” she says.

Journey's five characters are named Earth, Fire, Wind, Light, and Water. Umipig’s writings were inspired by interviews with prominent Filipino women she admired. They ranged from Rocky Rivera, a rapper, to Alleluiua Panis, founder of non-profit Filipino tribal arts organization Kularts, to Allyson Tintiangco-Cubale, who spearheaded San Francisco’s Filipino education programs. Perla Daly, the founder of Pinay.com, inspired a monologue by the character called Fire.

Daly created the website as retaliation to discovering that “Filipina.com,” along with other similar domains, were mail-order bride sites, explicit pornography sources, and pages of women looking for “foreign pen pals, friends, and husbands.” In the production, a woman sits in front of a projector, while screenshots of web pages displaying exploited, sexualized Filipina women are scrolled through:

“I felt miserable at how these sites used ‘Filipina’ within their domains. These sites are disturbing for the following reasons–they exploit Filipina beauty and femininity for online profit; they idealize Filipina commoditization, commercialism and chauvinism; they further exploit women who are already economically and socially disadvantaged; and many market under aged womyn.”

While images of objectified Filipina women continue projecting, Fire’s mouth gets covered with a cloth. She struggles to remove it from her mouth and once it is forced off, she screams.

Umipig, a Honolulu native who also grew up in Stockton, California, says she was born an artist but never dabbled in theater until high school. A chance conversation with a teacher inspired her to audition for a Shakespeare class that led her to competitions doing scenes out of Shakespeare. She eventually enrolled in a conservatory at Cal State Fullerton for singing, dancing, and acting, but found the rigid structure limiting.

The beginnings of Journey started in Umipig’s new college UC Irvine, where she joined Kababayan, the Filipino student organization on campus. As a cultural coordinator, she was in charge of producing music and dance showcases and staging plays by Filipino writers. She would become president of the 1000-member club, but before that studied abroad in Italy for two months in Accademia dell’Arte to practice physical theater.

Like any other aspiring artist she soon landed in New York City. Around this time, Typhoon Ondoy devastated the Philippines. Umipig searched for a Filipino community to help with relief efforts and joined Damayan Migrant Workers Association, a grassroots organization of Filipino migrant workers. She joined Damayan at the start of her research for Journey.  The most crucial players in the realization of Journey, however, were women she met at the Center for Babaylan Studies in San Francisco, an organization that seeks to preserve traditional Filipino indigenous and spiritual traditions. Umipig discovered the notion of kapwa, or the innate recognition and connection Filipinos feel with one another. The Babaylan women acted like mentors.

“Letecia [Leyson] was my kindred spirit because she was a mover. When I was distraught she’d ask me: when was the last time you danced? Or sang? Or created? It was these conversations I was having that were not only creating this art piece, but they were creating me,” she reflects.

Umipig does not romanticize the “starving artist” cliché.

“At the end of the day we live in New York City; we have to make a livelihood for ourselves, and I believe that everyone should be able to do work that feeds them everywhere: artistry, passion… food,” she says.

“I will spend every last penny that I have to feed this work.”

Umipig works full-time as a youth arts educator at the non-profit El Puente in Brooklyn. She teaches theater classes for beginners and advanced students, as well as mentors young artists individually. Meanwhile, she has been relentless with her fundraising efforts. She launched a campaign on Indiegogo and raised $6,134. Everyday, she updates Journey’s Facebook page with personalized notes of gratitude for individual donors.

The goal for Journey is for it to travel as a living, breathing work interpreted by multiple communities outside of Filipinos.

“These are all big dreams that I see feasible. They will happen. My god, these nine women will change the world.”

Donate to The Journey of a Brown Girl here.

Photo Credit: Gecile Fojas, Sachi Villareal