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(This space will be reserved for literary contributions from readers. The PUNCH encourages readers to write and email to us their thoughts about their impressions and ideas about life in and outside of Pangasinan, whether social or economic or cultural. No politics, please. Thank you. – Publisher).

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Growing up Filipino in America
By Yoli Tucay

Alma just arrived four months ago from Binalonan. Her English teacher gives up trying to pronounce her last name and calls out Alma. She raises her hand and mumbles “present mam”. Kids around her giggle defying the teacher’s glare. She is later introduced to the rest of the Filipinos sitting around a table in the cafeteria. Ilocano, Pangasinan, and Tagalog expletives are sometimes heard unbeknownst to those around them. Alma is a picture of simplicity, innocence, and pure bravery in the face of a culture so foreign to anything she’s ever known.

Walking in to class one morning, Dominador announces that he is to be called “Shawn” from that day on. He is the one minority on campus that adults couldn’t help but profile. Most likely to start a gang, everyone fears. He has all the trappings, which go beyond the clothes, the bling-blings, the body language, and the street jargon. His is covert. His is the language he uses to get his peers to follow, imitate, and respond to what he breathes. With four more days to graduation, Shawn is a picture of notoriety, temerity, and utter arrogance that indeed he made it in the face of the adults who dared doubt him to begin with.

Maryann is that “Asian” student who knowingly wears the sign “whitewash”. She’s the editor of the school paper, class president, student rep to the Capitol, and voted most likely to succeed. When asked where she’s from, she’ll tell you she’s from Hawaii. She was born in Honolulu, but her parents are both from Pangasinan. Maryann is a picture of competence, self-assurance, and total indifference to a heritage lost in the face of a convoluted future forming ahead.

Three atypical teenagers giving the world a glimpse of what it’s like growing up Filipino in America: confused yet confident, misguided yet effective, frightened yet courageous.

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