JESSICA
GONZALEZ Reviews
Returning
a Borrowed Tongue: An Anthology of Filipino and Filipino American Poetry edited by Nick Carbo
(Coffee House Press, Minneapolis, 1996)
Returning a Borrowed
Tongue,
the critically-acclaimed and enormously important anthology of Filipino and
Filipino-American poetry edited by renowned poet and professor Nick Carbo, has
helped enrich Asian and Asian-American literature as we know it and continues
to be relevant as time passes. Our literary canon has gradually, especially
over the past decade, expanded to include more important ethnic poetry, and
this vast collection of pieces portrays various rich and colorful versions of
the Filipino and Filipino-American experience. In this review, I will navigate through and engage with
poetry by well-known, Filipino and Filipino-American poets such as Jessica
Hagedorn, N.V.M. Gonzalez, and R. Zamora Linmark, in addition to those poets
whose work is not as readily found.
In
the beginning pages of Returning a Borrowed Tongue, Filipino poet Gemino H.
Abad poses the Catholic corner stone of Filipino culture and its importance in
the country’s landscape. His poem, “Holy Order”, hints at the complex
existences of those that “follow strictly / the Rules of their Order / And keep
all the holy hours / By bell and candle and book”. He deems their vocation “unearthly”,
and ultimately resolves that “their meditations most strangely shape /
Our daily speech”. He muses on the intertwining of Catholicism with Filipino
culture and life, for good and for worse. Those faces of the church are never
seen; their holiness is at once an aspiration and a haunting mystery: “…their
scripture, if you listen, / Is what you glimpse but never hold”. This idea of
holiness seemingly close yet obscured and still mysterious lives and breathes
throughout the poem, painting an important part of Filipino life. The relationship
between Filipinos and Filipino-Americans and Catholicism is undoubtedly
complicated, important, and one that is unquestionably a marked part of
identity navigation as a Filipino and/or Filipino-American.
Delving
further into portraits of Filipino and Filipino-American life, poet Rofel G.
Brion depicts a conversation between a speaker and his significant other about
breastfeeding in a jeepney. The poem is interesting in that the speaker and his
wife appear to be speaking about life in the Philippines from a point of view
that regards Filipino society as less-than-accepting of certain, merciless
aspects of femininity. The speaker refers to his wife’s “thesis” that she “defends”,
arguing that “ordinary people in ordinary jeepneys / Remain cool and composed /
At the sight of bare breasts / As long as they are a mother’s / Wanting to feed
her child”. The idea of shame prostrates itself markedly in this poem. The
speaker engages in it delightfully and humorously, ultimately unable to decide “Whether
I wished I were / A stranger in that jeepney / Or the father of your child”.
His wish speaks more to the idea of shame, entertaining ideas of taboo and sexuality.
The poem is aptly titled “Love Song”, countering stereotypical yet ultimately
unrealistic views of love by offering an account of a relationship that may
contradict societal standards (e.g. children out of “wedlock”; the opposite of
the nuclear [and inherently Catholic] family). In just a few lines, Brion’s
portrait of this Filipino family says so much.
Editor
of this anthology and highly-esteemed poet Nick Carbo’s poem, “Little Brown
Brother”, meanwhile offers another portrait by shedding light on how Filipinos
are regarded stereotypically in America and in American media. The poem begins:
I’ve always wanted to
play the part
of
that puckish pubescent Filipino boy
in
those John Wayne Pacific-War movies,
Pepe,
Jose, or Juanito would be smiling
bare-chested
and eager to please
for
most of the steamy jungle scenes.
The
speaker laments the Filipino’s stereotypical position as a brown-skinned prop in the
grand old “John Wayne Pacific-war movies”. Never the hero, the Filipino actor
settles for the role as a smiling “Pepe” or “Jose” who ultimately waits for his
“reward”: a “big white hand on my head” and a “promise to let me clean / his
Tommy gun by the end of the night”. Carbo takes us through this narrative, one
that is unfortunately still present and relevant in much of today’s movies and
shows. Only relatively recently have a select few of Asian-American writers
been able to bring shows about their Asian-American experience to prominence.
And still, many of these shows have relied, albeit (perhaps) necessarily for
the sake of resonating with viewers on a grand scale, on stereotypes every now
and then. The final lines of “Little Brown Brother” echo strongly and
disturbingly: the Filipino character is depicted as hiding under the bed on
which the white protagonist and his “Betty Grable look-alike love” have sex.
While actors of color have the utmost talent and potential to act out stories
that would ultimately be far more interesting, much of white American media
insists on telling and re-telling tired stories of white heroism and supposed
American machismo. Filipino and other ethnic actors continue to settle for
oppressive and insulting parts, convinced that these are inevitable pathways to
possible success.
Jessica
Hagedorn confronts another version of the Filipino and Filipino-American experience
in her poem, “Vulva
Operetta” — by the speaker having a dream in which the word “vulva” is
synonymous with a “sweater”, she reimagines a world where ideas of gender are
more flexible and inclusive in the mainstream context. She portrays a Filipino
and Filipino-American experience that shows non-conservative, and thus more
realistic and diverse, assumptions of gender identity and fluidity. “We wear
these sweaters” the speaker declares, while “people say things like: ‘It’s hot,
I think I’ll take my vulva off’ / Or, ‘It’s cold. I think I’ll put my vulva on’”.
By reintroducing the vulva as something that anyone could assume, she further
bolsters the idea that femininity is something anyone could wear or try on, advocating
for a more creative and complex view of gender and gender identity. Issues of
queer gender identity may conflict with traditional ideals, but conversations
about them have become increasingly prominent, nuanced, and productive. The
growing visibility of the ethnic, queer population is entirely important and necessary,
and Hagedorn’s attention to this fact via this poem only further enriches this
already outstanding anthology.
A
poem in one of the final pages of the anthology by R. Zamora Linmark serves as
the perfect piece to include; “Day I: Portrait of the Artist, Small-kid Time” offers a
glimpse into a Filipino childhood painted with the good, the bad, and the
merciless. Even as small children, the speaker and his fifth-grade classmates
casually observe atrocities and are then called upon to write about them for
their poetry contest. The winning poet would receive a one-hundred dollar prize
(the students’ “eyes went bonkers”). The plethora of different (mostly
disturbing, and sometimes tragic) experiences the fifth-grade students write
about all contribute to the many portraits offered throughout Returning a
Borrowed Tongue. In the last stanza, the speaker’s poem draws on all of the
aforementioned experiences his classmates mention in their own poems; his piece
demonstrates the ills that are seen and miraculously survived by young children
everyday. Words and sentences that could otherwise stand alone as fragmentary
are strung together by a general, overcast feeling of a collective oppression
and helplessness: “hungry bees eating space, black dogs losing it first time … /
… Immigrants coming to Kalihi twinkling with their American crystal meth dream
fourth time … / … Uninvited priests with their rose tattooes, grinding fighting
/ cocks and preaching last words on a hundred dollar / altar sixth time”. The
speaker counts down, each line demonstrating multiple afflictions and merciless
truths. In this way, the “hundred dollar poem” comes full circle in its
depiction(s) of a collective daily Filipino existence, and ultimately, a
collective Filipino strength. The poem is powerful and demonstrative.
All
of these poems work together to create a fluid picture of a population that is
unfortunately, at times, invisible, but is also strong, relentless, resilient,
and resounding. Their voices are given an invaluable platform through the
publication of this anthology, bringing to light a reclamation of a language by
which they were once oppressed. This volume also continues to remain relevant
as the world progresses. As a first-generation, mixed Filipina-American, I
personally consider Returning
a Borrowed Tongue required
reading for Filipinos, Filipino-Americans, and (other hyphenated-)Americans
alike.
*****
Jessica
A. Gonzalez is an editorial assistant and freelance writer and translator based
in New Jersey and New York. She recently graduated from Rutgers University with
a BA in English and also writes poetry.
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