Years From Now

When they speak of the great Honolulu black-out, I can say I was there. The table lamp blinked three times; the television went off and on three times and in half a heart beat, I’d pulled the power cord off my laptop, isolating it from any electrical surge. Then the panic came: I was in trouble; I’d short-circuited the whole apartment. Oh, no! A quick look outside where only half the corridor lights were on. Oh, no, I shorted the whole building. A glance out the lanai (porch). Oh, no, I shorted out the whole city, what the hell did I do? Such is the nature of hubris.

And because I’d seen, a few weeks back, A Quantum of Solace, I was assailed with images of a land-sea-air assault on the island of Oahu because the president-elect was somewhere therein. Was that lightning I saw or an EMP bomb knocking everything out? I thought of the P-e-OTUS house ringed by kamaina Marines with fixed bayonets and fully cocked assault rifles, ready to defend everything and everyone, their ears practically sprouting antennae, eyes bulging at the sudden dark.

Were this the case, help for insignificant me would take a long time. I was stuck on the 25th floor, with no water and no way to cook food. My hyperventilating mind was already calculating how many bed sheets tied end-to-end it would take to reach the ground floor when the resident/owner of the apartment showed up, along with the resident/owner of the apartment next door. There was an emergency generator, it seemed, and one elevator was working. Thus were my hopes of doing a Die Hard escape from a high rise thwarted! Hmmp!

Actually, it has been an easy two weeks in Hawaii where I forgot my birthday and, had it not been for a Sports Authority gift card, I would’ve forgotten Christmas as well. Time just flows differently on an island; it seems to gather in shallow pools and eddy there, bringing forth random images, so that events transpire at the very instant of one’s remembering.

While lining up for kona coffee ($1.95 per 8-ounce Styrofoam cup) at the central kiosk of the food court of the Ala Moana Center, I suffered a mild fugue. Like palimpsest, the image of the food court at the Ali Mall in Quezon City, Philippines, seeped through the environs; surely, that must have been the ancestor of all food courts in the world. Then, the guy behind me said to his companion that the line was too long and they should go to Starbucks. I’d barely managed two sips of the burnt coffee at Starbucks the previous day. An outraged “haole!” nearly escaped my lips and instantly, the face of this Hawaiian guy rose in my mind, telling me that haole, used for Caucasians, actually meant salmon-bottom.

It had taken me weeks to work out why the “natives” would focus on that particular anatomical part. If you’re puzzled, link it with the missionary position that you’ll realize just what kind of past time must have occupied Captain Cook’s “marines.” Eh!

But not to cavil since I took my first half-way decent photo here in Hawaii, with my new used Nikon D-70. This one’s for my friend Agnes, who frightened me with a challenge to a photo exhibit the day I told her I got the Nikon. And since I took this one on Christmas Day, I gave it the title “Walking On Water.”

Tyranny of Small Things

Posting from Honolulu, Hawaii, where I am at the moment. I’d made my zigzag way here from the East Coast, while under siege by things so very small it seemed incredible they could make one’s life totally miserable.

My cell phone died; no one could say why – and in lieu of spending another $60 for a new phone, I decided to try some old chargers in the house. After two hours, I had gathered 13 chargers, five cell phones, three CD burners, one old laptop, one old desktop CPU, 4 gallon-pails of paint half-full, a quarter-full, a third full; a thousand nails, 500 screws; three sets of Allen screwdrivers.

I had to call someone to ask in a piteous voice: “why do I have a million bed sheets?” And a thousand towels, a sackful of unmatched socks, gloves and squashed hats; a carton of photos of people I can’t identify, another carton of me in places I can’t recall. Also six left flip-flops (the rights seemed to have walked off), three mop sticks without mops, 32 plant clay pots, vacuum accessories to a long gone vacuum cleaner. I fled and left the house in total disarray.

Somehow, these small things had managed to convince me they would come in handy some day, that I would have an urgent need for plastic nametags given at a hundred conferences whose historic significance escapes me now. Or for hundreds of rolled up posters, whose causes have long perished. What I couldn’t find were the really significant small things, like the poster signed by the Dalai Lama. Drat, it was a souvenir of a huge moment of ignorance when, not knowing he was, like the Pope, to be addressed as Your Holiness, I kept chattering at and calling him Mr. Lama.

Like invasion troops, small things move in and occupy space. They hitch a ride with guests, ostensibly for a visit and never leave. Here’s a plaque of miniaturized Moro weapons (who brought this here?), teddy bears of all sizes, ashtrays of crystal, glass, copper, porcelain… each time a friend quits, she brings her ashtrays to the last hold-out smoker (that’s me). Along with jars full of matches. What will I do with them?

My residence has been colonized – which is likely why I spend six weeks out of nine on the road, in evasive action. I’m trying not to get sucked into the atmosphere small things create – that crazy smallness and meanness. Last time I was home, two acquaintances suddenly started yelling at each other over a missing Corelle plate. When I said the plate only cost $2, one friend snapped: “No, it’s $5!” Worth a friendship, I supposed.

Later, I asked why she’d picked a fight with other, considering how much help she’d obtained from this one friend. Her reply: “Just because she’s helped me doesn’t mean she can ‘under’ me…” Said in half-Tagalog, this was difficult to translate. But it was a warning, I should get out before the small and mean get me.

As I pondered – rather weak and weary – whether to dispose of the occupation forces, they got me. I was suddenly made aware that a certain acquaintance was going around warning people about me because I was, in her words, “a creative writer.” Irritated, I told the message-bearer: “Spoken by a woman without accomplishments and even less talent.” For which I felt bad afterwards. Some small truths must never be articulated, because they can loom large in the summing up of lives.

Hence, I flee – crossing the continental US, and half of the Pacific Ocean, lugging with me many, many small things. The young man in the next seat says “you look sad; are you missing someone?” No, I tell him; traveling is no longer fun. He nods sagely, completely misunderstanding my meaning. Never mind; it’s a small thing and he smells nice.

It’s no longer physically fun. I have to lug an IPod, a laptop, a Nikon, a photo-lens, a smaller camera, digital tape recorder, a cell phone, a hotspot detector, and – good lord – all the batteries, chargers, connectors, USBs, earbuds, accessories, etc., that will keep them useful. I used to travel with simply a pen and a notebook, plus three books to amuse myself! Now, I pay the airline $15 to carry a tiny suitcase of my clothes while I carry everything else in a padded vertical laptop bag which took forever to find. It’s anchored by a strap around my right shoulder, its weight resting on my hip, ensuring that in my oldest old age, I will need a rotor cuff, hip and knee replacement.

The depressing thought must have been visible on my face. The young man in the next seat asks: “would you like to read a book?” Depends, I reply, I read very strange books. “I have a thousand,” he says and hands me an e-book reader. “Read whatever your heart desires.” Ay! A thousand books in such a small thing. A very small thing. -- #

16 Days of Activism

From the GABNet Secretary-General:

"Gabnet continues its commemoration of the 16 Days Against Gender Violence, as it turns its attention to the Political Repression in the Philippines and also pledges support for the Divorce Bill, introduced in Philippine Congress by the Gabriela Women's Party. Please access the Gabnet national blog here: http: //16daysofgabnet.tumblr.com//"

Sorry; I tried to link the last but had to stop because I was slowly going mad working on it for hours. A better techie will have to do it.

More Pictures

To supersize, click on any photo. Enjoy.

Protesting An Inglorious Presence in Los Angeles

Nov. 21, 2008; 6 p.m.; in front of LAX Sheraton, Los Angeles. Photo directly above is the advance party of GABNet; second photo at the peak of the gathering.

Caterwauling About Hillary Clinton

Bored to death over the hysteria about Hillary Clinton becoming Obama's Secretary of State. Semantical analysis will show it’s all driven by fear of a strong intelligent woman. Will she take orders? Whose foreign policy will it be – hers or Obama? Will she be working for him or for her own political interests? Blah, blah, blah. Pure macho panic. Seems to me that everyone should take a page off the Obama handbook: that a strong and intelligent woman is an asset, not a liability. She won’t be a yes-person but you can trust her to be the among the hardest working and competent persons in your command. Unlike wet noodle secretaries of state like Condi Rice. Or types like her. Not to be a Hillary partisan but the long primary battle between her and Obama underscored one really desirable trait which all women should learn: tenacity and no surrender.

Gloria's Karma

Three times she phoned President-elect Barack Obama to ask for a meeting. Ay, inglorious Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo, de facto president of the much-imposed upon alleged Republic of the Philippines, she who countenanced the killing of a thousand community organizers, including 93 women, must now beg for an audience with the community-organizer-in-chief.

Sweet karma.

A Final Tidbit

The final day of the United Astrology Conference in May featured a panel on the presidential elections. All seven panelists predicted that Barack Obama would win --because they said that Saturn would be in opposition to Uranus and that signified change. This Saturnian transit began on Election Day.

Weeks ago, I laid a bet on Obama winning by 190 electoral votes. I'm off by one vote, I think.

Interesting Tidbit

World polls on the election showed that three countries -- Georgia, Israel and the Philippines -- favored John McCain. The Economist had the Philippines down as going 70% for McCain. One can look at this as either the glass half-full or half-empty. After 40 years of persistent struggle against imperialism, 70% remains mired in colonial racist mentality. Or one can say that at least 30% are in some "liberated zone" mentally. Sorry, it's a country of "at leasts."

Notes on the Obama Victory

This will be my last post on the subject of the elections, swear to God.

The first few minutes when CNN showed McCain leading, I found myself saying s***t atthe speed of 34 times per second,STG!

All those images of African Americans weeping made me wonder how it would be when we finally, at last, and ultimately gain public recognition of the right of women to hold and exercise electoral political power. I hope it will be an Asian-American woman who will write finish to the garish symbol of Sarah Palin.

Love the idea of an intelligent First Family, for a change. John Cleese of Monty Python fame said that Americans, unlike the British, have little envy over wealth but heaven forbid if someone is more intelligent. Filipinos – some of them – have the same predilection: you can be richer but you can’t be smarter. Conversely, you can only be smarter if you’re richer.

Got a note about some Filipinos planning to return to the Philippines because the election of Obama, according to them, would mean “genocide of the unborn.” How very Catholic of them to worry about what’s not there and ignore what’s there; to agonize over potential suffering while ignoring the suffering of millions and millions of children living at barely subsistence level. Hey, knuckleheads, half a million abortions take place in the Philippines every year, illegal though that may be; and who knows how many gallons of the herbal abortifacients sold at the Quiapo Church steps are guzzled down every day??? Silly knuckleheads.

Loved the sight of a crowd in front of the White House celebrating. But Bush might be too dense to appreciate the depth of the people’s contempt.

Impressed by Chris Matthews comment on Barack Obama first public response to his grandmother’s death. Matthews said, “attention has been paid” referencing a line from Arthur Miller’s Death of a Salesman, a virtual liturgy about unknown men and women living lives of quiet desperation under capitalism.

Somewhat surprised that the Republican bulwark was the white working class. And equally surprised that Obama’s was the educated sector.

Can’t believe that California wanted to ban same-sex marriage while legalizing prostitution.

Tempted to do a Rev. Wright g-d on the INS where I spent six hours waiting, endured one hour and forty minutes listening to talk about a younger girlfriend, kept a poker face through one ethnic joke and one xenophobic joke, only to be told I’d have to wait another two years to take the oath. And if you know me, you’d know I take citizenship VERY seriously. I started this process almost four years ago when I sensed that the next presidential elections would be a historic one and wanted to begin a new phase of my life in a historic manner. Please, Rev. Wright, add a few g-d's on my behalf.

Terribly irritated to discover that being “upgraded” to digital cable by my cable company meant I lost the SciFi channel, the National Geographic channel, TNT, Spike and FX and gained a million channels on tennis, running, basketball, football, etc., none of which interests me. They could’ve at least given me a Yoga channel, the jerks! How about a campaign for gobs and gobs of regulations on cable companies?

Congratulations to Barack Obama and Joseph Biden. And to the Democratic Party. I will miss the campaigns. But does this mean an end to discussions on socialism? - #

Election Day

No hot/cold water today, which led me to conclude that my building’s run by jerks so self-centered they can’t even see the historic nature of this day.

Jerks, jerks, jerks!

This building’s a mix of senior citizens and young families, who will want to go vote, as well as hold innumerable election night parties in various apartments. I’m tempted to whip out a placard and march up and down the corridors of all six floors, just to scandalize this smug clique of property managers and coop boards.

Since returning from Canada, I’ve been up 19 hours per day, keeping track of the elections, unable to do anything else, OMG, I just fell into the maelstrom! Though not one to be “charismatized” by anyone, I dropped a tear or two at the news of Obama’s grandmother passing away, suddenly remembering the young man who used to play basketball at the Ponahou School grounds when I lived about two blocks from there and walked home in the afternoons from the University of Hawaii.

I listened to an entire Palin spiel, amazed at Cafferty asking what would happen if Hillary Clinton and Sarah Palin had an election confrontationin 2012. Aside from noting how men love cat-fights or the idea thereof, I’d concluded, months ago, that Palin was being dressed up for the next election, a probable “new” leadership for the conservatives, using her femaleness as a cover-up for the ideological positions.


Here we go. Watch out, women. The first thing conservatives and fundamentalists go for is women’s rights, women’s power and women’s public space. Take note, take note.

BTW, Cornell West was cited as saying that sexism is even more endemic than racism.

Watch out, watch out, watch out, women. Don't be ducks in the water.

Bauhaus House

I tried to load this picture in the post below but somehow couldn't. So here's Fagie's tremendous residence. The Canadian government should declare it a landmark, really.

Bear with me; I just got this new Nikon D70 (actually second-hand) and became so entranced with it, I shot over a hundred photos in one day -- and learned I'm not very good at this (yet).

Through the Plains and Back

The cold came on my last day in Winnipeg, riding blustery winds, reminding me that all my socks were mismatched pairs, and so Fagie and I hied off to a mall on the way to airport. It seemed a logical thing to do at the time, despite my exhaustion, as my nights were plagued with bad dreams, ever since I learned that certain elements were saying that organizing women and women’s centers was akin to setting up cults or a cult. All the work of women should be, according to the new inquisitors, erased – burahin, burado, bura, bura, bura – the viciousness of the word like a whiff of smoke and ashes, engendering memories of witches burning, millions of women tortured, Sisa driven insane and Maria Clara chased to a nunnery’s rooftop by a lust-driven Padre Salvi. I was prepared to be lynched when I gave a talk on the patriarchal surge which I characterized as partly occasioned by the epidemic of selling women as trade goods all over the world…

One reads about how the women have been deprived of historical signification but it’s something else when one watches it in the 21st century.

I flew to Winnipeg barely 24 hours after flying home from Davenport, Iowa, where the Ambrose Women for Social Justice had held its annual conference, this time focused on trafficking. Attendance was over what the women had expected, the discussions lively and interesting. People were interested in doing more even beyond the conference. My central thesis was that trafficking does not take place in a vacuum; that it rests solidly on feudal-patriarchal foundations that view women as disposable, replaceable and interchangeable, a view that capital uses to transform women into trade goods and cheap labor, for the maximization of profits that is a pillar principle of imperialist globalization.

That is not too difficult to understand, is it?

And therefore, to eradicate such afflictions, one must dig deep to uproot patriarchal and feudal values and perspectives, as well as oppose and struggle against imperialism… That’s not too difficult to understand either, is it?

In any case, I almost missed going to Winnipeg, Canada, because I had it in my mind that, having reached New York from Iowa on a Wednesday, I would have Thursday free to decompress and prepare, but sometime in the evening, I get a call from Canada and this very sweet voice tells me that she’d pick me up at the airport on the morrow. OMG! I checked my ticket and sure enough, I was due to leave the following day. My little luggage ($15 to check it in at American Airlines) had gone astray, with all my good clothes in it… I spent two hours rummaging for another suitcase and serviceable clothing. I wish the RNC had taken a buck or two off Sarah Palin’s clothing allowance to get me a new pair of jeans.

Of course, the plane from Winnipeg to Minnesota was delayed and I had only 15 minutes to make it from one gate to the other, to catch the last plane to New York, running and praying I didn’t destroy the painting Grassroots Women had given me; I made it at last boarding call but my second suitcase didn’t. Oich vech!

But Fagie’s home was really gorgeous, of the Bauhaus architecture, which meant glass windows all around, so the four seasons moved light and shadow through the house. It’s as close to living in the open as one can get without the inconvenience.

At home, I find the TV full of Barack Obama, who seems to have a thousand rallies going on, on top of doing a million interviews. He’s really tanned, red brown, probably from all the outdoors campaigning, what we call in Tagalog kayumangging kaligatan, a most prized complexion. I never did find out what kaligatan meant, never having heard it linked with another noun, but I presume it means pristine, pure, deep… The intensity of this campaign is delineated by the creep of gray through his hair, more now than two years ago. Appearing with Bill Clinton at a midnight rally, Obama appeared nervous, made two mistakes in his speech (A top McCain aide admitted that if we continue to talk about the election… should’ve been “the economy”) and looked really exhausted.

These elections are becoming ever so amusing, what with all the talk about socialism, re-distribution of wealth, Marxist, communist, terrorist, etc., – subjects rarely addressed in US politics. Jon Stewart asks whether, should Obama win, it meant the electorate approved of socialism? Hmmmm.

I hear “women’s rights” enunciated in speech after speech, on par with all other rights, and I wonder whether it will take another thousand years before we of Philippine ancestry will hear a man of our people say that with due sincerity. I glance at Obama, note the dark circles under his eyes, and say “there’s a chasm between intent and implementation, always!”

At the Winnipeg talk, an immigrant (not sure, could’ve been on student visa) from Africa stands to excoriate us for critiquing Sarah Palin. Women shouldn’t speak ill of women is his thesis. Then he launches an excoriation of Barack. Fortunately, others set him straight and tell him that he’s contradicting himself. I have to step on my tongue figuratively to keep from saying “a black man can critique a black man but an Asian woman should not subject a white woman to analysis; let’s be mindful of how colonialism has defined for us what’s due one sector of the population versus what’s due another.”

And how were your last two weeks?

On The Debates III

I kind of miss the “terrorist” fist bump that Michele and Barack used to exchange. At the last debate, with the final statement made and the wives climbed the stage, I half-expected it, so delighted was the look that Michele and Barack gave one another, a pleased innocence difficult to come by in this age of cynicism and angst.

POTUSes of the last 20 years (one generation, my goodness!) have not been likeable. Bill Clinton came close but wrecked it with that Monica Lewinsky stupidity. George W. and Cheney made one feel like spitting.

Barack and Michele are simply likeable – intelligent, without obvious trauma, even-tempered in their passion, of even keel, and with that air of not quite believing their own success but delighted by it. Joe Biden has the same quality, though less self-contained.

Those of us on the Left should probably learn this lesson; too many of our leadership being just NOT likeable as persons. Respect is fine as respect goes; faith in the leadership is fine as faith goes, but at some basic level, it’s better to be both respected and liked.

I used to take as an article of belief Bertolt Brecht’s poetic line: those who would bring kindness into this world cannot themselves be kind. It was a harsh dictum. And I think, wrong.

Something striking from an Obama speech, paraphrasing: before you can make history, you must make a difference. -- ##

On The Debates II

About a dozen students and I watched the last presidential debate here at the guest apartment I’m using at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champagne. Some had been perturbed by my thesis that McCain is the Republican candidate because the party considers this election a throw-away one, and they intended to use and are using the election to launch an allegedly new generation of right-wing politicians like Sarah Palin into national prominence.

I came to this conclusion at the end of the Republican primary because McCain, whose specialty is national security, did not seem apropos for the times. It was of telling significance to me that Palin knew only one Supreme Court case -- Roe V. Wade – indicating that what stuck the most in the right wing crow was the expansion and deepening of women’s emancipation.

Still I was shocked to see McCain raise his hands and place under virtual quotation marks the phrase “women’s health.”

For a guy whose (partial) medical records run to 1,000 pages, this cavalier dismissal of legitimate concern for womankind, 90% of whom have neither access nor the means to medical care.

The National Center for Health Statistics says that US maternal deaths at childbirth has been rising steadily; it’s now 13 per 100,000 live births; it was 12 per 100,000 in 2003 – the first time maternal death rose above 10 since 1977.

In NY, women are dying at the rate of 2.5 times the national average.

Women, we had better work to eradicate "contentless" feminism because we're sure to meet Palin or her doppelganger somewhere, sometime, down the road. -- ##

Cries of Terrorist!

Wasn’t that something – seeing/hearing McCain supporters screaming THE WORD at the mention of a U.S. presidential candidate? OMG!

Which was why GabNet immediately took to the streets in protest when the US came out with its terrorist list that included Filipinos and Filipino organizations, sans proof, sans due process, sans verification...

Go around the world attaching labels to those who don't agree with you and the practice comes back to bite you in the behind. Now it's become part of what's supposed to be the bedrock of Western democracy -- elections.

The McCain camp has an incipient national hysteria brewing, stoked undoubtedly by the economic meltdown. Some parents are reportedly freaking out over some dolls – yes, the toy variety – allegedly mumbling pro-satanic and/or Islamic opinions.

So be careful out there, everyone. But do take the time to at least say something against this racism and xenophobia.

On The Debates

After the first debate between Barack Obama and John McCain, I’d worried that Barack was suffering from that familiar avoidance of confrontation with white people hammered into people of color by centuries of racism. We all know this subconscious awareness that the system is weighted against us, that whiteness can, by simply being, crush us into nothingness.

The second debate put that to rest. And if only for the fact that Barack voted to appropriate money for an overhead projector for a planetarium used by 8th graders, I’d gladly endorse him. A man who understands the wonderful impact of standing under a sky visible with planets, stars, galaxies and nebulae must have great empathy – something rare among those who deal with and in power.

John McCain’s “that one” comment confirmed my suspicion that he found it outrageous and enraging to have a young mixed blood challenge his right to power and title. Uppity, indeed! It must have lodged like a boulder in his bowels; he looked so constipated the whole evening.

As for Sarah Palin, she’s become a political potty-mouth. I should feel sorry for the woman but I ain’t.

The Language of Ourselves

The inglorious president of the Philippines wants to change the current medium of instruction from Pilipino (based on Tagalog, the common language) to either English or local languages or both, so as to make Filipinos more competitive in the international market. If that's the rationale, then English would be likely restored as the medium of instruction, the mention of local languages a sop to lull suspicions.

Such reasoning boggles the mind. Consider that a million Filipinos leave annually to work in some 168 countries; consider that the country has 20% of the world’s call centers market and will have 50-60% of it in a few years’ time; consider that Dumaguete, Davao and Naga – hitherto rural areas – are now major call centers for the world medical transcription industry… how much more competitive do Filipinos have to be? To the extent where the whole archipelago devolves into a handful of disparate tribes unable to speak to one another except through the prism of a colonial tongue? It’s enough to make one gag.

In my New York neighborhood, a 20-block run takes you to Argentina, Chile, Columbia, India, Pakistan, Philippines; 30 blocks and you’re in Africa, Jamaica and other places whose names escape even a geography fan. It is so diversely ethnic here that it occasionally brings surfeit, like eating six black apricots one after another, mesmerized by the oxymoronic name. Over a hundred languages are spoken here and one meets Filipinos from every region of the archipelago, chance encounters blooming into friendship at the spurt of “ay, Pilipino ka, kumusta ka, saan ang lakad, kumain ka na ba?” This is where MJ, who comes from GenSan, speaks Ilongo to Tess from Davao, and both speak Tagalog to me.

A decade ago, only three Filipino households were in the neighborhood – myself, a friend at the next block and another ten blocks away. But eventually, others moved in, led by some self-described “stalkers” of mine, in a rush for the then relatively cheap apartments in pre-war buildings originally constructed on wheat fields to entice workers to Queens, catapulting the then-lone Pinoy real-estate agent to the million-dollar-sales club. Our tribes increased but remained invisible, because our “ghetto” was blocks away, streets peppered by Filipino restaurants, banks, courier/balikbayan agencies, beauty salons advertising the cryptic puting kilikili, singit guaranteed (white armpits and -- I have to invent a phrase here -- crotch-folds guaranteed). Sometimes a presence is announced – Maximo Bartel is here – which I took to be an ethnic version of Kilroy Was Here until a friend enlightened me that this was a hair stylist, this a make-up artist, that a singer. Pardon my ignorance. Gossip, of course, flows from corner to corner, unstoppable and without fact-check, in our common language.

I once offered to temporarily care for the child of someone who was ill and desperate. Two days later, a friend I hadn’t seen in four months came knocking, wanting to see “the child you adopted,” sending me into hysterics of “Did Not, Did Not, Did Not!” as anything about children often do. Two days, my goodness, for this bit of news to reach ten blocks; no wonder any tale from me was greeted with “ay, bahaw na iyan, may bago na!” (that’s stale, there’s something new!).

Point is that there’s a vast current of communication flowing through this neighborhood, welding us together into a people, no matter what region or tribe we came from. Because we tend to use perishable materials for our culture – bamboo scrolls, textile, beads and the like – and those of permanence like paintings and sculpture are reserved for those who can afford, language is what binds us together and our Putonghua (Chinese for common language or Mandarin) is Tagalog. I’ve spent hours of talk-story time with men and women from any of the 7,100 islands, occasionally with lapses of silence as we mentally translate from one language to another, working out meaning. My first language is Tagalog but I can do a little of Bisaya and a little of Ilongo and can curse heartily in five languages.

Point is practicing ethno-linguistic chauvinism in this area is impractical, because we have become a melting pot unto ourselves. In areas where ethno-linguistic chauvinism is practiced and defended, the Filipino population tends to decrease. Likely because a common language is needed to forge a community, to identify common interests, dreams and goals, and develop a common plan of action.

Even the second-gens, raised monolingual by misguided parents, listen with envy to the “bubbling water” cadenza of our conversation. How do you manage? I was asked once, and it was someone from Sulu – a place as unfamiliar to me as Alaska – who replied: “We use Tagalog.”

Making the leap from “my language” to “our language” is part of the process of nationhood; of achieving a sense of the collective entity we call our nationality. This "leap" to a larger self is absolutely necessary for the struggle for better work and living conditions, and against exploitation, discrimination and sexism. Organizing is ten times more difficult if one does not have a common language with those being organized.

For women, the issue of a common language is critical. Because of their intimate nature, certain topics can only be discussed effectively in a language reflective of one’s stream of consciousness. Instructions in safe sex or domestic violence or sexual preference are triply difficult in English, whose nuances are often alien to that of the archipelago’s social context. Blank stares are often the response to anything I say in English regarding such subjects but if I say, “walang k- ang asawa mong bugbugin ka, lalo pa pakain mo siya…” (Your husband has no right to beat you up, especially since you pay for what he eats)... the reaction is instant. Those who can read the Tagalog version will appreciate the difference.

That Tagalog has become the common language is a historical accident, true. But there it is and it binds us into an exiled nation, rather than an accumulation of tribes, and it seems to have lent itself to easy learning, being of the same stock as the rest of the islands’ 170 languages. The Philippines is not the only country with a multiplicity of languages; there’s Indonesia which has more and Malaysia as well. They thrive on Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia. China’s one billion population manages with Putonghua (Mandarin), despite 6-12 regional languages, each with tens of millions of speakers. And here we are, trying to devolve the Philippines into incoherence and to force the national conversation into a colonial paradigm. It is both stupid and tragic. -- ##

Stop The Traffick Concert

San Diego CA rocked to the Stop the Traffick Concert as the Southern California chapters of GabNet started this year's Purple Rose Campaign against the Trafficking of Women and Children, especially from the Philippines. Kuttin Kandi, Mystic, Bambu and others whipped up the crowd into a poetic, musical and dancing protest against the Woman Trade. Started over a decade ago by GabNet, the Purple Rose Campaign has been expanded to include labor trafficking.

Events, talks, etc.

I will be at the University of Illinois, Urbana, for a week, next month. Also giving a talk at the St. Ambrose Conference on trafficking. Hereunder are details. After St. Ambrose, I will be in Manitoba, Canada, to give a talk on globalization and the patriarchal surge.

Global & Local Perspectives on Human Trafficking
Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2008
All events are held in the Rogalski Center on the
St. Ambrose University campus
Presented by the Ambrose Women for Social Justice

1:45 p.m. Panel Presentation
Attorney Samir Goswami, founder of the Prostitution Alternatives Round Table for the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, and director of policy and outreach at Justice Project Against Sexual Harm

Mark Rodgers, dsw, lcsw, bcd, dean of the Graduate School of Social Work, Dominican University, Chicago

Yogesh Shah, md, associate dean for Global Health, College of Osteopathic Medicine, and associate profes­sor, Department of Geriatrics, Des Moines University; and assistant clinical coordinator, Iowa Foundation of Medical Care

3:30 p.m. & 5:30 p.m.
FILM Cargo: Innocence Lost
This compelling documentary by award-winning director and writer Michael Cory Davis unveils the dark under­world of sex trafficking through interviews with some of America’s top officials on the subject, victims’ advocates and victims themselves. “Cargo” looks at the full scope of the crime of sex trafficking—from where and why it’s happening, and what’s being done to stop it.

7:30 p.m.
KEYNOTE LECTURE
Trafficking as Re-feudalization of Women
Filipina writer, human rights activist and feminist Ninotchka Rosca addresses the ways in which the international trafficking of women in both labor and
sex markets profoundly threatens the gains
made by the global women’s movement.

INFORMATION (including Nursing CEUs)
Katy Strzepek, 563/333-6113
StrzepekKatyA@sau.edu