Caustic Thoughts

My sister is a doctorate student abroad. Her studies have already brought her around the world for free as an academic scholar and her performance so far has been nothing short of stellar. When new foreign acquaintances learn of her academic achievements and that she is a Filipina, they express such tremendous astonishment to the point of almost being inadvertently insulting.

There is hardly any doubt that my sister’s foreign friends think in much the same way as a lot of other foreign personalities, stars and tourists who are asked the embarrassingly undying question, “What do you think of Filipinas?” As most of us never tire of hearing, a lot of people seem to think Filipinas are lovely, caring, loving and nothing else. It is as if there is a great void that excludes intelligence, wisdom, strength and talent. It is as if the adjectives that people use to describe the Filipina collective identity fit only the stereotypical roles of the Filipina as a caregiver, domestic helper and mail order bride.

What a lot of people do not know is that the Philippines is not a factory for ideal women who care for older men in their retirement. This country, like any other country in the world is also the home of women of achievement and distinction.

In the American music and film industry alone, a handful of talented women with Filipina blood have rubbed elbows with foreign stars. Perhaps some do not know that, regardless of whether they recognize their biological heritage or not, Tia Carrera, Nicole Scherzinger, Vanessa Minillo and Vanessa Hudgens all draw part of their talent from their Filipino bloodlines.

But the smattering of Filipina-Americans in Hollywood is just the tip of the iceberg. More than just entertainers, singers and dancers, there are also Filipinas who are award winning international performers like Lea Salonga and Cecil Licad. Salonga has performed major roles in Miss Saigon and Les Miserables in Broadway and has been awarded a Tony and an Olivier, besting other senior performers. Licad is a premier international pianist who has performed intricate Rachmaninoff pieces in Carnegie Hall. She has played with the London Philharmonic, the New York Philharmonic and the Chicago Symphony among others and has become the youngest female to be given the Leventritt Gold Medal.

Outside of the performing arts, our country also boasts of being the place of origin of Filipina visual artists Pacita Abad and Virginia Cruz Santos. Abad has conquered the world with 3,500 trapunto paintings of sewn fabric in 70 countries and has had a total of 40 exhibits mounted in the different continents and cities of the world including Paris, New York and Washington D.C. Santos on the other hand is a mistress in contemporary art. Some may not have known it but Santos was the creative hand behind Dory of Finding Nemo, Cow Girl of Toy Story 2, and Helen Parr and Dash of the Incredibles.

More than just artists, Filipinas are also artist entrepreneurs and you only need to look up the names of Monique Lhuillier and Josie Natori to appreciate that. Lhuillier specializes in bridal gowns but has designed other formal pieces for the elite women of Hollywood and is now a member of the Council of Fashion Designers of America. Natori is the founder and CEO of the Natori Company, a top luxury brand of women’s clothes and lingerie sold in Macy’s, Bloomingdale’s and Nordstrom.

Art and business are not the only areas of excellence for Filipinas and we have Josette Biyo to prove that. Competing against 4,000 teachers around the globe, Biyo won the 2002 Intel Science and Engineering fair in Louisville, Kentucky and became the first Asian to win the Intel Excellence in Teaching Award. Today, there is a Filipina name etched among the stars as minor planet 13241 is now named Planet Biyo.

If the question is about the contribution of the Filipina to the world, then we can proudly say that we have Corazon Aquino, the renowned champion of freedom, human rights and democracy. Aquino was Asia’s first female president and has been distinguished as Time’s Woman of the Year for 1986 and one of Time’s Asian heroes for 2006.

The list can go on indefinitely but the point should have already been clearly made. The Filipina is not something you can define in a dictionary or a travel guide. The Filipina is someone who has a right to define her own identity without the assistance of people who think they know and understand. The Filipina is someone who has as much a right to be a citizen of the world as anyone else.

*For more of the many faces of the Filipina you can go to the Filipina Writing Project. This writing project is sponsored by Barangay.ph, Kababayan.ph, MyUSMailbox.com and RegaloService.com.

My husband used to say that I have a slightly Americanized way of thinking and doing things. This is of course, not my personal choice. I was simply raised this way.

So when I had my first shot at motherhood, I immediately let my baby sleep in a crib beside my bed on our first night out of the hospital. My friends and family were promptly scandalized. My decision was virtually unprecedented among my circle of acquaintances.

On the first night and the next four days after that my baby literally drove all the spirits out of my body with loud seemingly ceaseless crying spells. My husband and I eventually lost all hope, energy and every ounce of sanity in our nerve wracked bodies that we simply decided to hug her close in our bed and let her persist in tormenting the neighbors. Surprisingly she stopped crying. She is now a toddler and still sleeps in our bed and has always had uninterrupted sleep at night. I have since thrown my Americanized sleep training along with my baby’s crib out of our Filipino house.

This is probably why I was puzzled and alarmed by the news that according to the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission, numerous infants and babies die in adult beds. This implies that co-sleeping is not a safe practice and which is probably why we television addicts have become familiar with scenes of American babies sleeping in separate rooms.

This kind of makes me wonder about the differences in sleeping equipment and patterns between Filipinos and Americans. I don’t have the statistics for my country but all the Filipino parents I have ever known have always slept with their babies and none of those babies ever died. What’s the difference between co-sleeping here and there? Why do some American babies die?

I just finished eating my breakfast the other day when I noticed a sign outside the restaurant. It pointed to Golden Friendship Park. I remarked to my companion that I didn’t know that the park was called that even though I had already lived almost four years in the city. He said he’d show me why the park carried such a name.

He took me for a walk and pointed at the park benches. Nearly each bench was occupied by a homeless individual. “The park is just like a friend’s home,” he began. “You can’t sleep on someone else’s furniture if it didn’t belong to your best friend.”

He then directed my attention to a makeshift donut shop at the center of the park where street kids, who seemed like they could each down a calf, milled around for yesterday’s donuts to be handed out. “Who but a friend would allow such sponsored treats in the morning?”

“In the evening,” he continued. “Prostitutes and intoxicated students barely out of their teen years take their turn at other park amusements. No one but a tolerant friend would allow such liberal abuse of his property.”

I couldn’t help but agree that the park had been aptly named.

In the Western world, depression is a serious, life threatening psychological condition that must be treated seriously with a range of medications, counseling techniques and alternative remedies. Suggesting that it is a condition that is all in the mind may promptly earn you a public flogging.

I have been educated for four years in Western psychology and I have lived half of my life with frequent bouts of depression. I therefore should not contradict what the West has to say about depression. A friend however has recently pointed out that depression is an illness of sophisticated people which is probably why I’ve survived this long. I am not a sophisticated daughter of the privileged West.

In the third world, financial poverty is a natural cure for depression. People are simply just too busy trying to find a way to divert the gastric juices from eating up the stomach walls.

NBC’s “Victoria Beckham: Coming to America” finally aired last Sunday in the U.S. and it seems it has only served to heighten some people’s impression of Victoria as– well– posh. The documentary featuring Mrs. Beckham’s glamorous travails over the details of her family’s transfer to the U.S. did capture the third most watched slot on prime time T.V. That doesn’t say much though about the mindless bashing the former Spice Girl got from unappreciative critics. Posh in a negative kind of way may have been the mildest adjective used for Victoria. Other critics have gone on to call her snobbish, vain and vapid.

Naturally, Victoria’s seemingly shallow rants over designer accessories, manicurists and stylists have pissed off critics who worry over the millions of destitute, poverty stricken humans in third world countries. Well, a negative impression may be all you will ever get if you weren’t quick enough to catch the dry, slightly sarcastic trademark British humor beneath the seemingly unintelligent, self-indulgent banter. If you’d like, maybe Victoria would be more than willing to run the jokes by you again.

Oh, and by the way, there is no modern British imperialism. There will be no instant flood of British imports or insiduous plans to retake the continent for Queen and country through commercial hypnosis.