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Motherland
I just finished watching this really heartbreakingly real documentary called Motherland on POV/PBS. I started and stopped and started it again about 5 times because I was crying my eyes out. I’m not exactly sure what to write about but I am feeling compelled to think through writing. There’s no context or interviews or voiceover. Throughout…
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How to Raise Feminist Kids
A New York Times published a piece called, “How to Raise a Feminist SonHow to Raise a Feminist Son” written by Claire Cain Miller popped up on my Facebook feed a couple of days. And of course, since the arrival of my son (my partner and I chose to keep the sex of our baby secret until…
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To this year’s Filipina/o Graduate
Dear Filipina/o American graduate, I see you. At the end of my first tenure track year at San Francisco State University, it was you that reminded me that I’m exactly where I need to be. No matter how long and hard the journey has been just to get here and how much harder…
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And they are also always breathing…
Its taken me a while to figure out what I wanted to write about Alex Tizon’s story about Eudocia Tomas Pulido, better known to Tizon’s family as Lola. Reading Tizon’s account of Lola’s life brought up different emotions for me. One of which was to question how the life of Lola was being written about;…
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What’s the point of protesting Donald Trump?
Dear Papa, Yesterday, over dinner, you asked me an honest question,”If you go protest, will it stop Donald Trump’s inauguration?” In that question, I heard so many people’s despair and hopelessness. I answered, “No, it won’t.” And then I took a couple of minutes, taken aback by your very real question, to muster up an…
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Beyond Final Papers, Beyond the Classroom
In the past few years, I’ve invested in assigning creative final projects for my upper division classes. Across the three institutions I’ve taught at as a tenure-track professor, the risk is high (because students loathe group work so they’re always giving me side-eye for assigning a group project as a requirement and sometimes it ends…
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On Post-Colonial Rage and Not Being Mad at Big Brother aka US Imperialism
First of all, let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR, President Rodrigo Duterte’s “war on drugs” is unconscionable. Thousands of people and innocent bystanders have been slain in the name of “cleaning up” the Philippines. Without due process, the Philippine National Police have become the prosecutor, judge, jury and executor of Filipinos who may or may…
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4 Reasons Why Filipinas/os Should Support Black Lives Matter
I have been struggling the past few days. Here, I’ve put my words down again to implore my community to join in solidarity and support the #BlackLivesMatter movement. 4. Anti-Black racism has plagued our community. As a young darker-skinned Filipina, I was often taunted as “Black Beauty” and told never to go under the sun…
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The Problems with “The Problem With Filipinos”
So, an article called “The Problem With Filipinos” has been posted and shared on social media over the last couple of days. A friend and colleague, Dr. Akissi Britton, shared and tagged me and a Pinay kasama-sista-scholar, Dr. Johanna Almiron-Johnson on it to get our takes on it. First of all, especially, as tribute to…
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#MyAsianAmericanStory
Jason Fong, a high school student in California, created the hashtag #MyAsianAmericanStory in August of 2015 in response to Republican presidential candidate, Jeb Bush, referring to Asian children as “anchor babies” that undocumented Asian immigrants count on for status. A storm of stories that represent the diversity of Asian America followed. In my SJSU Asian American Studies…
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