My shirt has this distinct smell, it’s one of my shirts I just got back from the laundry place, I’d like to think of it as a fragrance….a fragrance that is something distinctly Filipino (ha! or just the fabric softener they used).
I met up with Karleen last night before she headed out to the Cordilleras with the Philippine Studies Program 2006 batch. She seems to be really enjoying it, I told her to start a blog with PADD to talk about her first ever in the Philippines experience. I’m sooo happy she was able to join the program, because it beats the first couple of weeks of just staying at her relatives house in Makati and watching television all day. She commutes from Makati every day riding the jeepney then the MRT then another jeepney to campus. At least now that she’s out of the house, she’ll have the experiences to hopefully shape a path to finding herself…but I don’t really know if that’s what she’s here for, but you know she’s at least out doing something.
As for myself, I haven’t really quite had the chance to reflect on this question, this question of finding myself. I’ve been caught up with getting to know the ins and outs of oversight committees, the plethora of committees in Congress for that matter, being able to keep my cool when I’m being transferred from person to person on the phone. Like I said in an earlier post, I don’t think I’ll ever catch up within the 2 months I’m here. It’s like I’m this infant trying to learn how to walk while everyone around me struts as if it were second nature. Everyone has been helpful at the office even those in Congress I went to go see yesterday. One woman even took the time to give me a tour of the place and showed me around, she even treated me out to a merienda. To think back on yesterday, I had three free meals. Everyone I’ve talked to so far has been really curious about the reasons for why I’m here in the Philippines. And I don’t really know the answer myself. It’s like I go to interview them or talk to someone over the phone saying that I’m with PCIJ (I feel so awkward when I say, “Hi this is Carmel Laurino from PCIJ”, ---yeah I wish I was as cool as PCIJ I keep thinking to myself) and they notice how I have an American accent and so they end up interviewing me. It’s funny because they don’t really comprehend this idea of a Filipina American coming to the Philippines in hopes of finding herself. I just tell them it’s this thing that some of us go through and then refer them to Bonus’s book =)
I guess this would be my first thoughts and reflections on finding myself. For right now I’m really stuck on this what is my role in the Philippines question. And in order to formulate my answer for myself, I’m actually going t be interviewing Fil Ams that are here doing that program, those here from Anakbayan and LFS. I’m also going to be interviewing Filipinos from all walks of life asking them what their thoughts are on the roles of Filipino Americans. Maybe with this, someone will say something brilliant and I’ll just quote them in the future =) But, I think I’m slowly figuring it out on my own, but this blog has become way too long….to be continued na lamang.
4 comments:
That'll be an interesting process. I like that you emphasize that it's "something we have to go through", as if it's a kind of pubescence. I suppose that, in some instances, it is.
I really like the idea of interviewing both Filipinos and Filipino-Americans from all walks of life - to try and determine some of the mythologies each group has about one another (and to try to see how each group tries to make sense out of one another despite racial/economic/cultural differences). The project is incredibly ambitious but would be profound. There'd have to be an articulated thesis or argument or theory that would focus all the material you'd collect. Perhaps you should separate each block of material under a different thematic.
Issues to concern yourself with:
- overseas labor migration (what is it? what does it do? what about the "international chain of love"?)
- mixed race (and the tangential relationships of power that are exposed: militarisation, commodification of Philippine bodies, etc.)
- desire (who desire what, or whom?)
- the ways the Philippines is imagined (the homogenization of Philippine diasporic communities vs. the rich, diverse Philippine cultures themselves)
just some things
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