To give some background, we had originally planned to only present for one of our annual shows, Bahay Kubo. For Bahay Kubo, we wanted to get a headliner, Joseph Vincent (who came to Northeastern last year for a different show). Unfortunately, he was a little pricier than we had anticipated, but we did not have any other options for a headliner as he was the cheaper option of those who could commit. Then, we were asked to present on behalf of an organization that does not receive funding to bring in a Filipino American speaker, Geena Rocero, to talk about her life story as a Filipina transgender woman. She is a prominent social justice activist, primarily within the LGBTQA community. Again, though, she was also very expensive.
When it came to presenting, I had already known that we would most likely get asked why we were having two expensive events only three days apart. I even suggested beforehand that another group pick up the Geena event because I had foretold we would run into this problem. However, I did not anticipate to get asked questions from a faculty member and some peers such as:
"What does being transgender have to do with your mission statement" <-- i.e. celebrating and spreading Filipino culture and heritage
"Why does this Filipino artist have primarily only American songs on his YouTube?"
Now, to be completely honest out of context these are seemingly innocent questions. Honestly, they're legitimate questions! However, the tone and manner in which these questions were asked made all of us presenting feel very uncomfortable. Personally, my nerves were so shaken that I had another spasmatic episode in my seat (of course I tried controlling it) while defending our organization and our cause. Of course I cannot expect non-Filipino people to understand how historically, religiously, and politically the Philippines is very conservative, influenced by it's predominantly Catholic culture. And of course, if I told someone was a Filipino artist, someone's first assumption might be (he must sing in Filipino [which is technically incorrect to say]). However, we had stated many times that this was a Filipino American artist we were trying to bring in. Growing up in America, it would be natural that many of the songs he performs are American. Moreover, in many countries, including the Philippines, English is slowly becoming the primary language as Americanism, globalism, and past colonialism combine to slowly erode the cultural aspects of many independent countries. Moreover, a Filipino American artist based in America probably has most of his popular songs be in English since /sarcasm more Americans probably speak English vs. Filipino.
Naturally though, we retorted. We tried to explain the impact of religion towards Filipino culture and lifestyle. We explained that while many Filipino American artists sing American songs, when we invite people they typically understand the cause and offer to sing a traditional Filipino song. I don't know, we were desperate. We negotiated to try and sell tickets instead of have the event be free, but we couldn't budge from going our suggest $5 to a whopping $13 for what normally is a free event.
I felt so terrible because I reassured everyone after having been through so many proposals with different groups that we would be fine. In the end, I figured that PAAC, the group bringing in Geena, absolutely needed her and I offered we cut our headliner for Bahay Kubo. Without Geena there would be no speaker event, but without Joseph Vincent we could still host Bahay Kubo. It was definitely a sad decision, but negotiations had to be made and we were in such a tight bind--something had to be said. Even then, it's still not known whether or not we will be funded for these events. All we can do now is hope and pray that things may turn out alright.
So, what's the lesson here?
1) Don't be too hurt by these microaggressions. As I wrote this post, I realized that from their perspective, they obviously just didn't understand. Of course, it does not mean ignorance is acceptable, but rather, I always believe education is the key to mitigate ignorance.
2) The decision wasn't personal. The majority of this vent session was about the woes and misunderstandings between the group in regards to the cultural aspect. However, it would have been unfair for Barkada, our student group, to be funded for two expensive events in the month of April when so many other groups are vying for funding for just one. In the end, that's the main reason why we were turned down (from my perspective).
3) I write a lot and probably really poorly. Hahaha, I haven't wrote anything quite substantial in such a long time--maybe it's something I should get back into?
4) Blogging feels good. I feel better writing this out!
4.5) I blog late at night. I should sleep. Oh well. GG work.
No comments:
Post a Comment