Saturday, August 2, 2008
Thursday, July 3, 2008
"its like seattle"
when we got to baguio and felt the cool chill in the air, dezy said "its like seattle."
waaaay different than the heat we felt in manila the past couple of days, figuratively and literally.
we're headed up to kalinga in 10 minutes. made sure everyone's packs only carry the necessary things since we'll hike for another hour or so when we get there. our vibe is strong even if we're missin one of our kasamas. or all of them.
we'll learn ya somethin when we get back.
love,
v
waaaay different than the heat we felt in manila the past couple of days, figuratively and literally.
we're headed up to kalinga in 10 minutes. made sure everyone's packs only carry the necessary things since we'll hike for another hour or so when we get there. our vibe is strong even if we're missin one of our kasamas. or all of them.
we'll learn ya somethin when we get back.
love,
v
Monday, June 23, 2008
migrant work
today's my last day in hong kong. i've been here for almost a week. most of which was spent in deep consternation, movement building, and learning.and today is my first day really getting to sit and write/process what has happened here in the past couple of days.
first.
ya'll know i struggle most with my own thoughts and ideas of home. i suppose it's the dialectic that many immigrants or displaced people face. but in a stroke of revolutionary genius, it was really at this international meeting of the world's organizers, political movers and shakers and hard-working, dedicated peeps that i felt like home.
where every morning, walking out of the bungalo and seeing a kasama, whatev nationality they e, warranted a good morning.where each workshop, analysis of class and capitalism necessarily included an anti-imperialist perspective.where at each coffee break, an opportunity to learn about a struggle halfway across the world could and would ensue.where each person you sat next to had a history of resistance unsaid and at the same time open like a book.
second.the plague and plunder of imperialism has got us FUCKED UP.HOWEVER, it is powerful to see so many people across the GLOBE (sonnnn) taking stock of imperialism's faults and offenses then claim rights and demand change.
whoever said that unity across time and geography couldn't be done should come to the fourth international assembly.
third.
hong kong's migrant organizing is illllllllllllll.
sundays are days off for domestics here. and twice displaced, once from their motherlands and again from their residence/workplaces that they don't really belong to, they occupy the city's public spaces.
the word "occupy" has several latent meanings when i use it here. occupy as in the sheer masses of them that are visible in every nook and cranny of the city looks like a strategic occupation. occupy as in their visibility on this one day out of the week is in stark contrast with the emptiness and eerie sparcity of people on the Hong Kong streets daily.
then the other occupy is the one that may interest you as it did me, the most.
occupy as in, every mat across the Bank of Hong Kong space or in Chater Garden or Bus 13 or the footbridge towards Worldwide has some occupying presence of organizaion.
i'm talkin peoples belong to a mass organization, speaking most closely to their own affinities, region, city, gender, etc. then these organization with mass membership come together in alliances that represent particular needs of migrant workers or regional formations. then these alliances (i know, and i ain't even done yet) make up confederations of migrant concerns. then each confederation (yup, there's more than one) then comprise the migrant mass movement here that eventually does work on the international level. a perfect example is the international migrant alliance's founding congress days before ILPS.
*deep breath* the breakdown of this character really showed in our mat to mat, area to area integration. we got to sit with domestic workers that work 6 days a week and STILL find time to organize on their ONE day off. their stories of exploitation horrific but their analysis sharp.
i learned that to sit and listen is an imperative organizing tool. there's a lot of potential in migrant organizing. i learned this.
last.i'll be on a plane back to the phils in a couple of hours and i'm already feeling fantastic about what i've learned.
i'm excited to be with my GABRIELA sisters and learn some mo'. i feel good, in my bones good.
i will be a proponent for migrant exposures though, that's fsho.
first.
ya'll know i struggle most with my own thoughts and ideas of home. i suppose it's the dialectic that many immigrants or displaced people face. but in a stroke of revolutionary genius, it was really at this international meeting of the world's organizers, political movers and shakers and hard-working, dedicated peeps that i felt like home.
where every morning, walking out of the bungalo and seeing a kasama, whatev nationality they e, warranted a good morning.where each workshop, analysis of class and capitalism necessarily included an anti-imperialist perspective.where at each coffee break, an opportunity to learn about a struggle halfway across the world could and would ensue.where each person you sat next to had a history of resistance unsaid and at the same time open like a book.
second.the plague and plunder of imperialism has got us FUCKED UP.HOWEVER, it is powerful to see so many people across the GLOBE (sonnnn) taking stock of imperialism's faults and offenses then claim rights and demand change.
whoever said that unity across time and geography couldn't be done should come to the fourth international assembly.
third.
hong kong's migrant organizing is illllllllllllll.
sundays are days off for domestics here. and twice displaced, once from their motherlands and again from their residence/workplaces that they don't really belong to, they occupy the city's public spaces.
the word "occupy" has several latent meanings when i use it here. occupy as in the sheer masses of them that are visible in every nook and cranny of the city looks like a strategic occupation. occupy as in their visibility on this one day out of the week is in stark contrast with the emptiness and eerie sparcity of people on the Hong Kong streets daily.
then the other occupy is the one that may interest you as it did me, the most.
occupy as in, every mat across the Bank of Hong Kong space or in Chater Garden or Bus 13 or the footbridge towards Worldwide has some occupying presence of organizaion.
i'm talkin peoples belong to a mass organization, speaking most closely to their own affinities, region, city, gender, etc. then these organization with mass membership come together in alliances that represent particular needs of migrant workers or regional formations. then these alliances (i know, and i ain't even done yet) make up confederations of migrant concerns. then each confederation (yup, there's more than one) then comprise the migrant mass movement here that eventually does work on the international level. a perfect example is the international migrant alliance's founding congress days before ILPS.
*deep breath* the breakdown of this character really showed in our mat to mat, area to area integration. we got to sit with domestic workers that work 6 days a week and STILL find time to organize on their ONE day off. their stories of exploitation horrific but their analysis sharp.
i learned that to sit and listen is an imperative organizing tool. there's a lot of potential in migrant organizing. i learned this.
last.i'll be on a plane back to the phils in a couple of hours and i'm already feeling fantastic about what i've learned.
i'm excited to be with my GABRIELA sisters and learn some mo'. i feel good, in my bones good.
i will be a proponent for migrant exposures though, that's fsho.
Saturday, June 21, 2008
35 Payna St.
val wasn't playin' about that sticky hustle shit.
it felt real good to see claudia and dezzy (both from PINAY sa Seattle) at the airport today. i was welcomed to the philippines with a type 1 storm, but that didn't stop us from gallavanting a little.
claudia's mom's house is remarkably close to 35 payna st....the house of my childhood. we got lost a little while we were walking around looking for it, but after a quick tricycle ride, we were there. the street is remarkably the same, yet very different. the houses look so much smaller to me now....but then again, i was much smaller back then :). 35 payna still has a green gate, and gold numbers. the wall is still the same mint green that we painted it, but the tall coconut tree that used to guard our house is no longer there. the corner store is no longer owned by amor, but by someone named emiliano. the street was pretty empty. the "squatters" near my house that my parents sheltered me away from didn't seem as scary as it used to. i'm as tall as the gates that i used to climb.
it's been 15 years since i said goodbye to that house, and it was almost surreal to be standing in front of it today. i shared stories with claudia and dez. we looked at a map and i pointed out my school, my church, my neighborhood. i was pointing out my life.
it feels good to be home.
it felt real good to see claudia and dezzy (both from PINAY sa Seattle) at the airport today. i was welcomed to the philippines with a type 1 storm, but that didn't stop us from gallavanting a little.
claudia's mom's house is remarkably close to 35 payna st....the house of my childhood. we got lost a little while we were walking around looking for it, but after a quick tricycle ride, we were there. the street is remarkably the same, yet very different. the houses look so much smaller to me now....but then again, i was much smaller back then :). 35 payna still has a green gate, and gold numbers. the wall is still the same mint green that we painted it, but the tall coconut tree that used to guard our house is no longer there. the corner store is no longer owned by amor, but by someone named emiliano. the street was pretty empty. the "squatters" near my house that my parents sheltered me away from didn't seem as scary as it used to. i'm as tall as the gates that i used to climb.
it's been 15 years since i said goodbye to that house, and it was almost surreal to be standing in front of it today. i shared stories with claudia and dez. we looked at a map and i pointed out my school, my church, my neighborhood. i was pointing out my life.
it feels good to be home.
Monday, June 16, 2008
Sunday, June 15, 2008
leaving on a jet plane
a little cliche, but it's true. i'm really leaving on a jet plane in 4 days. a philippine airlines jet plane to be exact!
this will be my 2nd time going back to the philippines in 15 years, but it's only been 2 years since my first trip home. i'm excited.scared.happy.nervous and everything else in between. i wanna soak up this experience as much as i can.
i want to laugh with my cousins until i have no breath.
i want the july rain to drench me completely.
i want the sounds of the jeepneys, the playing street children, and the screaming vendors to echo in my ears.
i want the cool pampanga breeze to kiss my cheeks.
i want to fill my lungs with the scent of freshly cooked fish.
i want to be home.
--
anticipating my trip back really heightens the reality that i had to leave in the first place. that in march of 1992, i became one of the 3,500 filipinos that leave the country daily in search of a better life...a better life that the philippines couldn't provide for my family. 15 years later, i am returning to learn the basic realities that my 9 year old self couldn't fully comprehend. i will listen to stories from women that represent the basic masses of my country. i want to learn their struggles intimately to understand why others like me must live away from the land that birthed us.
i am an immigrant here in the united states, but somewhere over the pacific ocean, i will become a "balikbayan" -- a term literally meaning to return (balik) to the nation (bayan). i wonder, if my green passport bore a stamp for every immigrant struggle that my family endured, would my cousins still want to live abroad?
--
i have the pleasure of sharing this amazing trip with a wonderful group of women, and that in itself helps to ground me as i prepare to leave. i'm excited to build and process with them, sing karaoke, take a tricycle, share a meal.
memories in the making, folks. that's what i'm looking forward to! and so, to close my first entry, i share with you the theme song from the last exposure trip i was on:
this will be my 2nd time going back to the philippines in 15 years, but it's only been 2 years since my first trip home. i'm excited.scared.happy.nervous and everything else in between. i wanna soak up this experience as much as i can.
i want to laugh with my cousins until i have no breath.
i want the july rain to drench me completely.
i want the sounds of the jeepneys, the playing street children, and the screaming vendors to echo in my ears.
i want the cool pampanga breeze to kiss my cheeks.
i want to fill my lungs with the scent of freshly cooked fish.
i want to be home.
--
anticipating my trip back really heightens the reality that i had to leave in the first place. that in march of 1992, i became one of the 3,500 filipinos that leave the country daily in search of a better life...a better life that the philippines couldn't provide for my family. 15 years later, i am returning to learn the basic realities that my 9 year old self couldn't fully comprehend. i will listen to stories from women that represent the basic masses of my country. i want to learn their struggles intimately to understand why others like me must live away from the land that birthed us.
i am an immigrant here in the united states, but somewhere over the pacific ocean, i will become a "balikbayan" -- a term literally meaning to return (balik) to the nation (bayan). i wonder, if my green passport bore a stamp for every immigrant struggle that my family endured, would my cousins still want to live abroad?
--
i have the pleasure of sharing this amazing trip with a wonderful group of women, and that in itself helps to ground me as i prepare to leave. i'm excited to build and process with them, sing karaoke, take a tricycle, share a meal.
memories in the making, folks. that's what i'm looking forward to! and so, to close my first entry, i share with you the theme song from the last exposure trip i was on:
signing out,
elaine.
elaine.
Tuesday, June 10, 2008
stick to the hustle
three things about being in the philippines:
1. sticky
2. hustle
3. stickly hustle
sticky:
the weather here is wonderfully humid. if you just learn to be still and not complain about sweating. if you just embrace the fact that you cannot escape the sweat beads. if you just love the swivel of the fan, not yearn for everytime it faces your direction, instead think about how much more cooler it's making the room with every swing...you'll love it too.
the humidity and warmth = sweat. and its lovely. your skin is moist to the touch, sticky almost. everyone you hug. you sit next to on the jeep. you bump into. you shake hands with...has the delightful stickiness too. of course, it sounds disgusting and moronic. but it's those simple sticky moments you remember you're not just anywhere in the US. it reminds you that you're in the philippines, in your skin, alive. alive in the middle of another part of the world. living. breathing.
hustle:
today as i walked (by myself by the way!) from the MRT station, coming from school, towards Robinson's Galleria to catch an FX back to Pasig, there was a commotion ahead of me. the gated walking path narrow and spilling over with people wouldn't allow me to peer over to see what the hullaballoo was all about. our ant-like parade line slowed down as the sounds of the highway inches from our unsuspecting bodies screamed in a harmonious cacophany. i kept walking to the intersection, a clearing finally out of the sluggish crowd of after-work people. so many bodies running left and right. the vendors. candy vendors. isaw vendors. fishball vendors. boys. older women. pregnant women. the vendors. were running. running away. a siren in the distance. ano nangyayari? shouted a girl from a jeep. what's happening? BILIS, TAKBO! hurry up! run! footsteps of boots approach. a blue van behind about 4 cars back honks its horn. tatangalin kayo! they're gonna remove you! TAKBO! RUN! a splash of metal on concrete erupts. a little boy with a wooden cardboard filled with cigarettes and candy just spilled his whole day of work. his whole day of work. people scream O AYAN NA! HERE THEY COME! different people come to the boy's rescue, including me, picking up whatever coins end up by my feet. i pick up some of the coins and run to him as he crouches to the ground collecting his earnings. some do the same. others pick up the coins and put it in their own pockets. he shoves the cardboard carton to a pregnant lady so he can gather the rest of his coins. others are still screaming AYAN NA! HERE THEY COME!
since the boy wasn't seen by the police, not having the carton allows him to blend into the crowd just like another passerby getting lucky with the spill of coins all over.
the police confiscate another boy's carton. the boy's sister runs from outta nowhere and straight up jackie joyner kerseys it up onto the blue pick up truckbed. sa kapatid ko yan! that's my brother's! she grabs the box. the police grabs her. she wriggles out of the policeman's lock. jumps down from the truckbed and yells back, wala kayong respeto sa aming trabaho. ya'll ain't got no respect for our work.
the funny thing is in those couple of seconds. nothing stopped at a stand still. the bus drivers still honked their horns. the bus driver navigators still yelled for people to hop on the bus. the hundreds of people kept walking. the tricycles still kicked their motorcycles into low gear. the vendors picked up their mobile stores and kept going. the police kept confiscating.
everyone is hustling. everyone. no one not hustling.
sticky hustle:
sticky hustle not because the humidity makes your skin sticky to the touch. sticky hustle cuz if you look away, even for a moment, you're stuck. cornered. in the middle of a rock and a hard place. you gotta be quick.
these three maybe not my favorites. maybe they are just the realities that i'm coming to grips with.
a daughter on her second return. eyes much more open now.
1. sticky
2. hustle
3. stickly hustle
sticky:
the weather here is wonderfully humid. if you just learn to be still and not complain about sweating. if you just embrace the fact that you cannot escape the sweat beads. if you just love the swivel of the fan, not yearn for everytime it faces your direction, instead think about how much more cooler it's making the room with every swing...you'll love it too.
the humidity and warmth = sweat. and its lovely. your skin is moist to the touch, sticky almost. everyone you hug. you sit next to on the jeep. you bump into. you shake hands with...has the delightful stickiness too. of course, it sounds disgusting and moronic. but it's those simple sticky moments you remember you're not just anywhere in the US. it reminds you that you're in the philippines, in your skin, alive. alive in the middle of another part of the world. living. breathing.
hustle:
today as i walked (by myself by the way!) from the MRT station, coming from school, towards Robinson's Galleria to catch an FX back to Pasig, there was a commotion ahead of me. the gated walking path narrow and spilling over with people wouldn't allow me to peer over to see what the hullaballoo was all about. our ant-like parade line slowed down as the sounds of the highway inches from our unsuspecting bodies screamed in a harmonious cacophany. i kept walking to the intersection, a clearing finally out of the sluggish crowd of after-work people. so many bodies running left and right. the vendors. candy vendors. isaw vendors. fishball vendors. boys. older women. pregnant women. the vendors. were running. running away. a siren in the distance. ano nangyayari? shouted a girl from a jeep. what's happening? BILIS, TAKBO! hurry up! run! footsteps of boots approach. a blue van behind about 4 cars back honks its horn. tatangalin kayo! they're gonna remove you! TAKBO! RUN! a splash of metal on concrete erupts. a little boy with a wooden cardboard filled with cigarettes and candy just spilled his whole day of work. his whole day of work. people scream O AYAN NA! HERE THEY COME! different people come to the boy's rescue, including me, picking up whatever coins end up by my feet. i pick up some of the coins and run to him as he crouches to the ground collecting his earnings. some do the same. others pick up the coins and put it in their own pockets. he shoves the cardboard carton to a pregnant lady so he can gather the rest of his coins. others are still screaming AYAN NA! HERE THEY COME!
since the boy wasn't seen by the police, not having the carton allows him to blend into the crowd just like another passerby getting lucky with the spill of coins all over.
the police confiscate another boy's carton. the boy's sister runs from outta nowhere and straight up jackie joyner kerseys it up onto the blue pick up truckbed. sa kapatid ko yan! that's my brother's! she grabs the box. the police grabs her. she wriggles out of the policeman's lock. jumps down from the truckbed and yells back, wala kayong respeto sa aming trabaho. ya'll ain't got no respect for our work.
the funny thing is in those couple of seconds. nothing stopped at a stand still. the bus drivers still honked their horns. the bus driver navigators still yelled for people to hop on the bus. the hundreds of people kept walking. the tricycles still kicked their motorcycles into low gear. the vendors picked up their mobile stores and kept going. the police kept confiscating.
everyone is hustling. everyone. no one not hustling.
sticky hustle:
sticky hustle not because the humidity makes your skin sticky to the touch. sticky hustle cuz if you look away, even for a moment, you're stuck. cornered. in the middle of a rock and a hard place. you gotta be quick.
these three maybe not my favorites. maybe they are just the realities that i'm coming to grips with.
a daughter on her second return. eyes much more open now.
Friday, June 6, 2008
maligayang pagdating
so really this is the first time, i've actually sat down and thought about my trip to the philippines with some type of reflection and reflexivity. and the funny thing is, i'm already here.
in the real time hustle and bustle of my life in the Big Apple, i was super uber still trying to do work, tie up loose ends, save files, get folks out prepped and ready for the summer (expo and stateside), etc. etc. right up until i almost missed my flight out of JFK on sunday morning. what followed was a blur of two--or was it three-days in the Bay Area despedida-ing, barbeQing, laughing, packing and still knotting up or putting on ice the gajillion things i try to stay on top of in my life.
the only real preparation i had for this trip was when i got bit up by 78,000 mosquitoes after the t-storm during the sandiwa conference, and R. took me to get some anti-itch cream and repellant. we walked hand in hand in the humidity from 69th all the way to 61st + 2 long blocks over, and while i held back the temptation to get on the floor like a flea-ridden dog and scratch the skin off my legs, he asked me ever so non-chalantly, "are you ready for the trip, my love?"
i could barely ek out the words, "i'm not sure," as another mosquito try to feed on my calf. both he and i knew, i wasn't ready. even just to muse about the summer. i wasn't about to sit there an dpretend that i knew nann about my trip and how i felt about.
he paused a second, smiled and gave me a reassuring hug. picked my hand back up and bought me some benadryl for my bites. he's gonna have my back, i know it. i just couldn't even get anything out.
7 weeks. it still seemed so far away even though the clock was ticking on my sunday morning flight. i would get on that plane the next day.
===
"iba talaga ang pilipinas."
my immigrant narrative is a tale of perpetual returns and departures.
i'm as conflicted about being as i was last year. yearning for my family but ecstatic that i'm out of the belly of the beast. wishing i could share all of this with R. but excited for the lessons we will have learned at the end of our annual sabbatical from each other. kicking myself in the culo for not bringing my FiRE sisters back with me but knowing that they are doing growing with each other on that side of the world. crossing my fingers that i learn something but knowing already that i'm changing already.
all of these, dialectics. internal and external. material and metaphysical. i, then, am situated. roots growing. concrete set. beaten path familiar. i'm here in my elsewhere. between homes and making a home in between.
===
the emotional train wreckage that followed me last year has been detailed, journaled, neatly folded up and stuck in my back pocket. i wouldn't say i wasn't feeling all my heart strings all through and while flying over the pacific, but i wasn't a sobbing mess when the airplane landed at NAIA.perhaps i didn't have a knee jerk reaction to coming back because i now know what to expect a little. and perhaps still, it hasn't hit me that i'm here. even now.
===
the humidity here is not so different from new york (minus the fucking batallion of insects that attacked me in Queens a couple of days ago). yes, you are right. i have yet to show off not a one philippine grown bug bite yet. do i think i'm fucking invincible right now. HELL TO THE M-FKN YEA. and i was steady outside in the pollution and smoke yestereday too! booyah.
===
today, i'll tralala off to QC hug a couple of good friends and be back in time for galunggong at dinner time. (hopefully) imma do like mel gibson and braveheart the public transpo system in metro-manila in about an hour from now. wish me luck comrades.
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