Reflections of Tagalogue: Remembering Lola Encar

By Nicole Maxali, guest contributor About one year ago, I moved from the San Francisco Bay Area to New York City in order to pursue my passion of acting, writing and producing.  In my first month of living in NYC, I had a stark realization: the Pilipino community on the East Coast is very spread out.  It’s not like in the Bay Area, where you can run into a Pilipino at every corner or every fifteen minutes.

So, it was refreshing to meet Leslie Espinosa - the creator of Tagalogue - through a mutual friend in October 2012.  She invited me to check out her show Tagalogue which was a collection of Fil-Am stories by Pilipino artists.  I came out to support and was instantly drawn in by the eclectic collection of voices, stories and artists.  I told Leslie that I would love to be part of Tagalogue the following year.

Fast forward to September 2013:  I received an email from UniPro that an open audition is happening for Tagalogue Volume 3.  This year’s theme was “Celebrating our Ancestors."  The stars not only aligned for me to audition, but it also allowed me to perform and share a piece that is very close to my heart.  The piece I performed was a snippet of my full length one woman show, “Forgetting the Details."

“Forgetting the Details” pays tribute to my lola, Encar.  During the mid 1950s, Lola Encar was part of a surge of Manangs finally able to come over and join their husbands in America. My lola was always the most stylish, as she always stood out from the rest. Growing up at Lola’s house, I remember her having seven closets full of clothes, shoes, jackets, purses, jewelry and accessories! I once found a closet full of shoes she had kept from the 70’s and 80’s. I still wear them to this day. Women are always commenting, “Oh, I love your shoes!” Lola Encar also taught me the importance of hard work, education, sticking by your family, how to be resourceful and to have faith in yourself and God. It’s because of her I am the strong woman I am today. I am so thankful for her influence and love.

“Forgetting the Details” also began as a way to cope with my lola's struggle with Alzheimer’s. Incorporating true-life stories, things she’s said over the years while raising me as a little Fil-Am kid in San Francisco, and giving my view on the situations while also adding some much comedic relief to a struggling time.  But as I continued to write, to take solo classes, and share twenty-minute snippets of the show with audiences, I soon realized that my art was beginning to be a form of healing not only for me but for those that were going through similar situations. All types of people began approaching me after my shows, sharing their stories of a mom, grandma or uncle with Alzheimer’s. Some would even share their own frustrations being a caretaker. Other young Fil-Ams were coming up to me, saying how inspiring it was to see a character that reminded them of their own family or grandmother.

So to be able to perform a snippet of my show with the Tagalogue cast/crew was such an honor and blessing.  I am so thankful for the opportunity to do what I do.  Here is a link of family pictures taken from my one woman show, “Forgetting the Details." -- Nicole Maxali is a New New Yorker. Native to San Francisco, she began performing at Bindlestiff Studio, the only Filipino-American Theater in the nation. In 2008, Nicole Maxali wrote and performed her very first solo show under the tutelage of W. Kamau Bell (FX’s Totally Biased). Under the direction of Paul Stein at Comedy Central Theater, Nicole developed her original twenty minute piece titled “I Heart Lola” into her full length show, "Forgetting the Details". Described by legendary comic Dave Chappelle as "funny, heartwarming and funny again", Nicole Maxali’s 75 minute solo performance piece explores the familial and cultural-related challenges a young adult faces when losing a loved one to Alzheimer’s. She has performed her solo show at the famous Joe's Pub at The Public Theater in New York City, The FIND Conference at Harvard University and the Minnesota Fringe Festival. You can also see Nicole on the big screen as a surgical nurse in the independent film, Fruitvale Station, produced by Forest Whitaker & directed by Ryan Coogler.

Experiencing the Asian Hierarchy Firsthand in a Korean Hagwon

A Korean Hagwon, in my experience, is a private English school for Korean students. My Hagwon, which I’ll refrain from naming, runs as an English pre-school and kindergarten in the morning where three to six year old students had English lessons from 9am to 3pm.

I spent the earlier part of this year teaching at a Hagwon. As a Fil-Am stepping into this radically different culture, I was eager to learn and be inspired from this new career path. I can honestly say I learned and was very inspired, but not at all in the frame I was expecting. I left after only four months.

Have you heard of the Asian Hierarchy? It was explained to me as a sort of racist Asian caste system where light-skinned Asians from growing Asian economies were ranked amongst the top and darker-skinned Asians were at the bottom. It was discussed in passing when I was in college among other Asian-Americans, and I laughed off. I sort of forgot about it until I landed in Korea and was confronted with it on my first day of school.

The night before, I was greeted by other foreign teachers who worked at the school. They were from all parts of the United States, as well as Canada. After helping me into my hotel room, one of them bluntly said to me:

“You don’t look like Jessica Alba.”

Confused, I responded:

“Yeah, Sorry….What?”

“The supervisors at the school said you look just like Jessica Alba.”

“Oh… yeah. I don’t look like Jessica Alba.”

“It’s funny how the supervisors view Caucasian faces. They didn’t even mention you were Asian.”

The next day my appearance was again addressed by a Filipina from Southern California. She pulled me aside and asked me:

”What are you?”

I am no stranger to this question so I knew exactly what she was talking about. I went to my auto-generated response of “I’m half-Filipino, part Mexican and White.”

“Yeah, I thought so. We have another Filipino at the school!”

She excitedly high-fived me. I smiled at having found an ally on my first day of school, until she added:

“Don’t tell the school, the parents don’t necessarily want Filipino teachers.”

She went on to explain to me that Filipinos in South Korea were ranked lower socially. Because of poverty and the cost of education in the Philippines, many Filipino immigrants in Korea turned to one of two professions: child care (nannying) or prostitution. Because of this, Filipino women were seen as second-class and unfit to teach the uber-rich students at my Hagwon. I immediately recalled the concept of Asian Hierarchy, but was horrified at seeing it in action. For fear of getting fired and just wanting them to like me, I kept my ethnicity under wraps. I knew this was not a safe space for me when one of my fellow white teachers from the United States threatened to tell my student’s parents that I was Filipino in order to get me fired. Korea was a hotbed for competitiveness and sometimes came out in really ugly ways. A week later, I booked my plane ticket back to California.

Culture vs. Identity

After leaving Korea, I’ve had time to reflect on this experience and while other things contributed to my leaving early, I couldn’t let this rest. My small taste at discrimination had me running home to my mommy. To me, it wasn’t worth it to risk my self-worth, sanity and pride by subjecting myself to a constant fear of being fired. It also wasn’t worth it to hide my family, heritage and in essence who I am. This was not my first encounter with a bully who chose my ethnicity as his or her weapon. But it was the first time that this bully had society on her side. A couple months later, I’ve been able to reflect and break down how this system of racial oppression still exists in South Korea, and Asia as a whole.

It’s easy to walk away from a bad experience in a foreign country and blame it on the culture for their backward uncivilized people and just embrace a Go America! Rah! Rah! Rah! attitude.  Not only is that lazy, but it’s largely incorrect and leaves room for bigotry. It has been used to rationalize imperialism and genocide in all parts of the world. So like a good liberal arts graduate, I put my experience in a global and historical perspective.

Korea in Historical Context

In the 1950s, The United States was engaged in the Cold War. We hear a lot about how this impacted the people at home, but the only images from abroad are of children in crossfire with their clothes burning off. This did contribute to the unsuccessful wars in Vietnam and Korea, but what’s rarely depicted are the lasting effects of the war today.

After leaving Korea divided into two countries, the United States declared the war a win, but not without setting up various military bases in around in South Korea. The U.S military presence is still very prevalent in Seoul, with the United States Army Garrison Yongsan military base located in Itaewon, which is at the heart of the city. Not far up the road, you’ll see Hooker Hill with large window displays of Filipino and Korean women. Not long after U.S wartime presence in Seoul, you began seeing a widespread adaptation of Western culture. Adaptation and idolization to the point where today, Korean men and women alike get eye reconstruction, nose jobs, and skin bleaching to appear more white.

As the Korean economy sought to reconstruct, they searched for models for their education system, for they embody the fact that a good education leads to higher economic productivity and advancement. This is when the United States had already begun putting more pressure on scholastic aptitude tests and initially studies showed that they were a good motivation for growth (today that is not the case.) This influenced Koreas education model greatly, which resulted in increased school day length, more lessons, and a huge push for English aptitude financed by the Korean government. As a result, there was an increase in U.S presence in the form of U.S teachers and recent college grads -- they seek to obtain that magical living abroad experience, but with little background in education or Korean culture, and I was one of them.

As a result, the idealized American face is what has been sought after and thus gave birth to the Asian Hierarchy. Filipinos rank low on this because of our naturally dark skin, lack of a pointy nose, and seeming low economic rank. Capitalist and Western cultures have created a belief that appearance indicates status, therefore, appearing more wealthy or more white, in this sense, makes you more valuable. And in order to be more valuable, one has to be less valuable than you. This value system has created a hyper-competitive race to what Korean culture sees as perfection, therefore explaining why plastic surgery is quite common, as well as stress-related suicides. We see this trend occurring in other developed Asian countries as well, such as Singapore, Taiwan and Japan.

No, it is not right that I had to hide my identity in order to keep a job, nor that I was chased away because my ancestors are brown. However, I am glad that I had the privilege and agency to leave. My experience is only the tip of the iceberg; it is one of many, similar to those of other Filipinos living in South Korea. It isn’t just an isolated occurrence in another part of the world, but rather, a construct that has inadvertently been created and adapted from U.S. culture. It is an occurrence that I hope other Fil-Ams and Pilipinos can learn from.

Photo credit: Zimbo

Let Me Guess, Nursing?: Addressing the Pilipino Stereotype through the Eyes of an English Major

"Let me guess. Nursing?"

Whether from the lips of family friends or relatives, I have heard this question and every variation of it. I bear the question with no scorn. My face does not flare up in offense, my voice does not become needles ready to deflate their hopes. In fact, with playful amusement, I expect the question. But, I can’t say they exactly expect my answer.

“Actually, I’m an English major.”

A few listeners accept it, embracing the potential of this unfamiliar path. The vast majority, though, cannot understand. Some try to hide their confusion. Others are not so delicate. The wide eyes brimmed with concern, the smirks laced with disapproval and – my personal favorite – the blunt, slightly outraged “But, WHY?”s. There are moments when conversations like these make me upset, but on most occasions I know where they are coming from.

I am twenty years old. I’m in college, working towards a degree to secure myself a future. These descriptions can be applied to anyone. They don’t indicate a pressure to enter any specific profession, that is, until I add one detail: I'm Pilipino. And immediately, the hues of the words change and my destiny becomes predetermined. My mother is a nurse manager, my father a hospital lab technologist. Both have dedicated their careers to medicine. And most of my titas and titos? Many of my older cousins? A majority of my Pilipino friends? They have chosen the same path. I know what expectations my race affords me, the footsteps each of my family members longs for me to follow in. So when I reveal that I am not pursuing medicine, I cannot blame the on-lookers and eavesdroppers for their puzzled glances.

Pilipino Nurses in the United States

If my experience as a Pilipina English major is not proof enough that most Pilipinos become nurses, I pose to you a challenge. Walk into any hospital, emergency room or medical lab and tell me that a handful or two of the staff is not from the Philippines or of Pilipino descent. It will be a challenge, I can almost assure you. But why is this? Why do Pilipinos seem to dominate the world of medicine in America? This trend is nothing new, actually. It dates back to 1903, when the Pensionado Act sent Pilipino nurses to the U.S. as government-funded scholars to remedy the deficit of healthcare professionals in the States. Four decades later, the Exchange Visitors Program of 1948 welcomed another wave of nurses from the Philippines. And only 17 years later, the liberalization of U.S. immigration laws allowed nurses to travel from the motherland to the States on tourist visas and adjust their status upon arrival. For the Pilipino, then, nursing has been more than just a noteworthy profession but a chance to come to the United States, to start anew while providing for their families back home.

The Road Less Traveled By

Because of this history, nursing, for many Pilipinos, is synonymous with the sweet aromas of opportunity, familial prosperity and a passion to help others. So, it is no wonder why lab coats hang from our laundry lines and stethoscopes hide in our parents’ closets. Nursing is a road that a century’s worth of Pilipino men and women have walked and whose descendants continue to walk today. So where does that leave me? Where does that leave others like me whose ragged edges do not fit into the precut spaces of this “become a nurse” plan?

It is a common misconception among older Pilipinos to think that success can only be achieved in the medical field, while most other pursuits lack security. They don’t realize that an English degree is the leading degree in communications, business and international affairs. They tend to ignore that most liberal arts degree-holders possess skills in critical thinking, creativity, problem solving, and written and oral communication, abilities employers hunger for. Not to mention, those who have made strides in the Pilipino community using a pen and not a syringe - names such as Luis Francia, author of Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago, Jose Vargas, journalist, filmmaker and founder of Define America, and Sarah Gambito, a published poet and winner of the Barnes & Nobles Writer for Writer Award. The options are endless, yet many traditional Pilipinos forget this. Therefore, it is the mission of Pilipino non-nurses to rebut the sneers and smirks of this skeptical older generation. Not with snide remarks or rolling eyes, but with passion and triumph. And as the amount of Pilipinos pursuing other interests grow, our predecessors will learn that we do not have be in a hospital to know the meaning of success, that “the road less traveled by” is one worthy of exploration and respect.

"I shall be telling this with a sigh Somewhere ages and ages hence: Two road diverged in a wood and I- I took the road less traveled by And that has made all the difference"

The Road Not Taken, Robert Frost

Photo Credit: Yahoo Philippines News

In Typhoon Yolanda's aftermath, Fil-Ams respond

It's been all over the news and posts made by friends our social networks have made it hard for us to ignore: one of the world's strongest storms to ever make landfall in recorded history just hammered the Philippines, a nation who has had its fair share of annual typhoons. And with such a distinct reputation, Typhoon Yolanda brings with it the aftermath befitting of such a monster. Officials have raised the possibility of a death toll that could reach up to 10,000 in Leyte province alone that, if verified, would make it the worst natural disaster to strike the Philippines in terms of casualties.

But through such tragedies, we see resilience, compassion, and commitment. News outlets are taking note of the Fil-Am communities across the nation that are taking action to help out. Now comes the question that has since been asked on a greater scale than what we saw in the earthquake: How can I help?

The quickest way to provide relief is to donate. Here's a list of national fundraising campaigns that take donations online and how your donated dollars will be used.

American Red Cross ARC will be deploying staff and resources to work alongside Philippine Red Cross efforts as well as assisting with counterparts in Vietnam has also faced Yolanda.

AmeriCares Will be working with partner organizations in providing medical supp blies for the treatment of up to 20,000 victims.

ANCOP USA Funds donated will be used in coordination with ANCOP's Disaster Core Team and Couples for Christ chapters in providing relief.

Catholic Relief Services CRS will be deploying tarpaulins as temporary shelters and will be coordinating with local non-profits in the allocation of additional aid material.

GK USA (Gawad Kalinga) Will go towards the latest the Walang Iwanan campaign which will be in coordination with local Gawad Kalinga chapters towards providing supplies to 200,000 families in the hard-hit areas.

Habitat for Humanity Donations will go towards HfH's Disaster Response teams in implementing a response to those that have lost homes during the typhoon.

National Alliance for Filipino Concerns NAFCON's Bayanihan Disaster Relief and Rehabilitation Campaign will utilize funds to provide aid items and services will be needed the most.

Philippine Red Cross PRC has deployed staff and volunteers to the region and will need donations to help augment the relief goods prepositioned in Cebu prior to landfall.

UNICEF USA Will go towards immediately providing clean water, vaccinations, and nutrition within the hard-hit areas.

University of Santo Tomas Medical Alumni Association Donations here will be earmarked for medical missions that will be deployed to the hard-hit areas.

World Food Program USA The US arm of the UN agency that will work alongside UNICEF and local groups in providing a response to the immediate nutritional needs of the victims.

World Vision Aims to assist up to 1.2 individuals within the typhoon track and will be mobilizing 500 staff in providing food and shelter.

But what if I don't have extra money to donate?

You can help most of the above non-profits by using Goodsearch! It's a Yahoo! powered search engine that donates 1 cent of every search to the non-profit of your choice. There's also Goodshop where a small percentage of your purchase made through the shopping portal will go to the same preferred non-profit.

Thanks to Lennox Chaiveera stannisbaratheon for providing links to non-profits providing relief efforts!

Photo credit: The Guardian

Filipino Pride: Casting Aside an Identity Crisis Amidst a Super Typhoon

Posted with permission from abejARTES:blog. By Jessica Abejar, guest contributor

When news of Super Typhoon Haiyan (Yolanda) hit the Philippines this past weekend, I was completely devastated. But instead of being wrapped up in the sadness at the fact that the strongest storm in recorded history just hit the place my parents once called home, I was faced with my own crisis, a crisis that in retrospect seems completely trivial, insensitive, and utterly selfish. I wanted to share my sadness and send my prayers via Facebook, but I hesitated, wondering if I was Filipino enough to do so.

Oh boy ... here we go again.

I thought I was done with this. I thought I was done justifying my sense of Filipino pride to, well, other Filipinos. And most importantly, I thought I was done with showcasing that on Facebook!

These crises have happened before. The chance to what felt like trying to one-up one another in showing the most pride for our country. But whenever I had my chances, I would coward in shame. I never felt Filipino enough. Then I would start wondering why I never had pride in a province (I guess because my parents are from Manila) or why I don't know the language (I do call my parents "Nanay" and "Tatay") or why I'm not so into joining Filipino organizations as I should be (but I volunteer as a youth coordinator at a Filipino chapel). Then I would fiercely defend these thoughts (just as I did) with claims of knowing all these traditional dances (and owning some fabulous costumes), eating Filipino food (Nanay's is the best!), and dancing in the Philippine Independence Day Parade (TWICE! The first time was before I even had any identity crisis!).

Just as I say in my poem "I Am, ver2.1," why should that even be a question? Why would I even think of something like that amidst sheer disaster? Whether or not I am "proud enough" of being Filipino, whether or not I am even "Filipino enough," can I not share in the sadness of what is happening to thousands of innocent lives? Can I not be concerned for family and friends living there? Can I not feel for my father and the heartache he has as he watches news of the destruction of the town in Leyte where my grandparents had grown up in? Can I not pray for them?

The thing is I can. And I should. Because I am human, but also because I am Filipino. A comment left on a CNN update has been making the rounds of the Internet, which to me perfectly describes why I am so proud of being Filipino:

Time to get to the know the hardy Filipino people...unbelievably resilient, long suffering, good natured, uber friendly, loyal, ingenius, and a bunch of survivors.

At the end of the day the Filipinos will just shake off the dirt from their clothes and thongs and go about their business...and SMILE. They do not complain much, they will bear as long as they can.

Maybe this is why they were given the "privilege" of bearing the burden of the strongest typhoon ever recorded.

The indomitable human spirit at its finest.

- comment by "dudesk001" left on this CNN.com article

I love the rich history of our most wonderful characteristics, of how Filipinos became who they became, amidst destruction, turmoil, and corruption. I love how that spirit runs through my veins and that I can take these with me wherever I go, whatever place I call home. I love how it perfectly balances out with my New York personality. And I love taking pride in all of this. To be a descendent of these people. To inherit their strength, their faith, their humility, and their kindness. That I am so very proud of.

So maybe there is no need for me to let an identity crisis stop me from posting a Facebook status of my concern ... besides there are other ways to show I care. God knows- I share in your pain, kababayan. The Philippines and its beautiful people will always have a place in my heart.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-J6dnUX9uaw&feature=youtu.be

Currently, I am working on putting together a benefit show to raise funds for relief efforts. Please check back here for more info or e-mail me at abejartes@gmail.com. In the meantime, HuffPost has gathered a list of organizations who are quickly mobilizing and deploying disaster relief efforts here. And of course, please continue to pray for our families, friends, and kababayan.

Photo credit: Washington Post/NOAA