ASIAN AMERICAN LIFE: Know the Animal
“Drop a fork and you’ll be visited by a man. ”
All photos in this blog entry, unless specified are taken by Brian Camarao
Dear Foodie Fam,
Joe Luna of Boy Bakes and Neil Estaris of Oblivion Comics were unbelievably cool about displaying a pinoy project I was part of for their 2018 Philippine Independence Day pop up show.
Me, playing Maria, an immigrant at SFO.
'Know the Animal' is a photonovel using Philippine mythology and tradition -such as the process of roasting of a lechon- as a vehicle to tell the story about immigration and deportation.⠀
In 2011, I was honored to aid this project in acting out the story of the main immigrant. My now-husband, Dutch, acted out the story of an immigrant cook dedicated to introducing Filipino food to the American world.
This photonovel was shot on-location in San Francisco, where my own parents immigrated to in their 20s. At times, we even filmed in a house my own mother frequented in her early immigrant years. This was impacted by the fact that a man who helped show my mom the ropes in San Francisco when she first immigrated there -and the father of one of the actors in this novel- was constantly telling me that in costume I looked like my mother did back then! Oh, gosh...
Mom shortly before immigrating to America. Personal Photo.
Dad right before moving to America with his mother who later moved here, too. Personal Photo.
My life as a first-gen Fil-American is very different than my mother's. My parents are sometimes vulnerably conscious of their accents and yet often forget Tagalog words due to the fact they mostly speak English, now. They naturally gravitated towards Filipinos in church, the workspace and even in my student-parent settings. How could they not? Don't we look for similarities in others when we try to connect?
While they love being American and fulfilling their civic duties as American citizens (and never complain about their immigrant life) I am often maddened for them by the shit they have and still put up with.
Why does my father have to put up with racism in the workplace over his accent? Fuck that. He went from being an fresh immigrant line cook at McDonalds to a waiter, to a food and beverage manager to one of the most esteemed Marriott Hotel General Managers in the nation without a college education! Fuck haters... am I right?
I, on the other hand, grew up in schools that were predominantly white or Hispanic in the Bay Area. In latter years, I was often referred to as "that one Asian kid" in school-reunion groups. Why not? Don't we as humans survive by making classifications? When we were children, wasn't it easy to remember others by their appearance? Later in highschool, I was labeled a "Coconut” by Filipino American cliques because most of my dearest friends were white.
Yet, at family reunions or in situations where I am amongst immigrant Filipinos, I am told not to bother with learning Tagalog or laughed at for trying. It sucks.
As a granddaughter of a woman who's father died due to his involvement in the Philippine Scouts during the Bataan death march, I am an avid researcher of the Philippine effort in the Pacific theatre of WWII. I designed the logo for the movement to award the fading generation of Filipino Americans who fought in WWII with gold medals. I pushed the petition that eventually won the effort to require California students to study the Bataan Death March- not because I want to lord the Filipino martyr over others but because that was part of the largest American military surrender of all time. Yet, when I share these personal successes with immigrant Filipinos, I've often been told my opinion in those matters is innocent/starry-eyed and less valuable than the opinions of those who live in the Philippines.
Holding the blade that bled the pig used for the lechon in this novel.
It’s frustrating to only be expected to function in the overlap when so many of my loved ones live outside it. As it was, as an artist, I already often worried about the validity of my voice, in general.⠀
Enter "Know the Animal"...
In shooting this project, I witnessed the passion of other First-Gen Fil-Am artists. Brian Camarao, Gerald Tamayo and Alfred Solis brought their vision to life- literally.
In real life, Dutch and I were actually involved in much of the process of actually roasting a lechon for this project.
Dutch and I heard the squealing pigs at the pig farm before walking in. We smelled the stench of the farm and slaughterhouse. We stood in the blood of pigs who were killed and cooked before our's. We watched as a pig was selected, bled and shaved down... and then we watched when another was killed because we were all so shook that we forgot to shoot the first process!
We looked a pig in the eye. We aided in bleeding it. We prepared it for roasting, learning from a wrinkly, stick-thin man who lived with his daughter in Elk Grove, California and only spoke Tagalog. My grandmother found him after much digging. He was so tiny and frail but his knowledge of this traditional art, passed down through so many Filipino families was huge. He had taken an heirloom in the form of a culinary process, brought it to American soil and taught it to me- a first generation American- and Dutch -a Filipino émigré.
There was something that felt -in an unspoken way- ethereal and ritual-like about the passing of this knowledge to two kids who were just there for a photoshoot. There was electricity in the silence as we absorbed this knowledge like the rites of a communion through his words. Of course, Dutch was admittedly the one who understood those words because he speaks fluent Tagalog and I do not.
Can I randomly also mention: Dutch grew up in the Philippines on a pig farm and happens to hate the sound of squealing pics and not eat pork? What a moment for him!
There was a powerful force in taking part in this ritual with this roaster and with my future husband at that moment of my life. I was fresh in my first 40 hour job in a casino advertising department, being asked for lumpia at every staff potluck, asked to double check Tagalog ads as much of our demographic was Filipino and asked of my opinion on which Filipino entertainers would be the most lucrative to invite to perform. I came back to work that day, to a very curious group of coworkers, feeling invigorated. I'm glad this project was documented in such a beautiful photo-novel telling about so much more than Filipino cuisines (it pulls from Filipino mythology). Those photos were used to tell such a beautifully crafted story.
This was the beginning of me not caring what the fuck people said about who I am- a Filipino or an American-nand I hope it will be a pivotal point for those who read it, too.
What an important realization in my life.
Check out this life-changing project:
About the Author of Know the Animal:
“My parents immigrated to San Francisco, California from the Philippines in the late 1960s as a result of the Immigration Act of 1965 that lifted immigration quotas for people entering the USA from Asian countries. Their story along with the stories of their generation help frame this submission to the Sustainable Arts Foundation by inspiring me to build my story based on their experiences. As a child born in a California suburb, I always struggled with my ethnic identity. Growing up in a mostly white suburb south of San Francisco, not only was I far removed from the Filipino culture, I was often unable to communicate with many of my relatives due to my limited understanding of the Filipino language; yet I was also proud of being Filipino. I currently live with my Vietnamese partner and our three year old son named Anam in Brooklyn New York. He is at an age where he is easily influenced by the stories he listens to. He will not only position himself as characters in the stories that we read to him but he will also ask questions in regards to why people (or monsters) do what they do. His curiosity to understand shapes my artistic decision-making when it comes to storytelling. I would like him to know that the way we communicate to the world and the way that we are communicated to are reflections of our cultural influences and race. One of the ways that Anam is beginning to understand difference is that he is becoming aware that he speaks to his mother in Vietnamese but speaks English to everyone else including me. I think that being aware of this point of difference will give Anam a better appreciation and understanding of his mother’s culture; a Vietnamese culture that could all but disappear for some Vietnamese children born I the USA.”
