Friday, September 14, 2007

Pinoy tummy

My three-year-old son, Angelo, is now in pre-school and last Friday I received a homework request.


“Dear Pre-School 3 Parents,
Please use the provided paper to help your child make an “All About Me” collage at home. We will share the collages in calss, and please be sure to include a family photo.
We will also love to bring in your child’s heritage to our classroom. In order to do so, we would like you to provide information regarding your nationalities.”


The “All About Me” and family part was easy. I just had to pick the appropriate picture with Lightning McQueen and Thomas the Tank Engine. We have a recent family picture that would go perfectly well with the collage, and now the part about heritage. I have a Philippine map postcard at home which I trade away (Pinay New Yorker is a postcard collector of maps and lighthouses particularly, and anything Pinoy and anything New York), but I needed something more visual to show this class of three year olds. So of course I landed on the web searching for a suitable graphic of the Philippine flag.
I was stumped when it came to defining our heritage in an 8 1/2 x 11 sheet of paper — then it hit me. What is it about my son that embodies the Pinoy side of him? I made a dialogue bubble and wrote, “Angelo is a Filipino and he has visited the Philippines already. He speaks both English and Tagalog and he loves to eat rice.”


Sometimes I wonder if it’s all the rice that he has been eating which makes him look more like a four-year-old (he is almost 42 inches now and over 40 lbs). Then I have to remind myself about the gestational diabetes during my pregnancy and how he was born a whopping 9 lbs and 8 ozs. He will be a big boy indeed! Still when I look into his eyes and I see how chinito they are, I know he will always be Pinoy na Pinoy in features — and in diet. He will take a healthy serving of rice (anywhere from 1 1/2 to 2 cups) any day to a burger. And he’ll take it without any viand to go with it — give him his kanin-rice and he is happy.


We Filipinos have always loved food — and while Filipino dishes are not my strength in the kitchen, I’m trying to learn and brush up on those dishes that will bring my son in touch with his Filipino roots. Since he loves soups, nilagang baka, tinolang manok (with spinach instead of dahon ng sili), picadillo and sotanghon soup are just some of the dishes I try to whip up for him. And when he’s all done, he’ll say “Tama na. Busog na.” Maybe when he’s older, he’ll like my adobo, kare-kare and binagoongang baboy. For now his tummy prefers Pinoy food — and I hope he doesn’t outgrow that.
Posted by Angelo's Mom at 02:57:45 | Permalink | No Comments »

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

My FILIPINO-American Boy

I haven’t been posting here as often as I had hoped to — but inspiration hit me when I stopped by Filipina Moms today and I saw Mom2Amara’s post “Ako si Mom2Amara“.

I migrated to the US seven years ago when I married by better half — giving up family and career in the Philippines to raise one of my own here. After two miscarraiges, we were blessed with our now three-year-old son, Salvador Angelo II (Angel). I was fortunate enough to have had my Mom here to assist me in caring for Angel until he turned three this May, and together, we tried our best to speak to him in Tagalog, while my husband concentrated more on speaking with him in English.

By the time my Mom returned to Manila in June this year, Angel was able to understand commands in Tagalog, and he was conversant enough to reply to simple questions or commands. I even had to train him to say “No, thanks” as opposed to saying “Ayaw na” because his teachers in daycare wouldn’t know what “Ayaw” meant. He distinguished between his two grandmothers by calling my mom “Grandma,” and Alan’s mom, “Lola”. His favorite food is his beloved “kanin-rice”, and one word you will hear him uttering every so often is “Sama” (baby talk for “I’m going with you”).
I had started teaching him Tagalog as a baby, trying to teach him to count and teaching him body parts like “mata” (eyes), “kamay” (hand), “daliri” (fingers), even singing to him such nursery rhymes like “Sampung mga daliri” (Ten fingers) and “Leron-leron Sinta” (whose translation escapes me because it is more of an expression akin to “La la my love”.)
Unlike Mom2Amara, I am fortunate enough to have actually learned how to formally speak, write and read Tagalog in school like Alan, and although Alan has been here for the last 20 years and his own Tagalog-English translations are getting rusty, you would know he grew up in Manila when he starts speaking in the vernacular.
I have often written about how I find it sad that we Filipinos seem to continue to struggle with being bilingual, falling prey to the supposed better state of being fluent and steeped in English. We fail to see that we grew up being bilingual, and as such were better off than most who were confined to their own language. I cannot help but admire the Koreans who talk to their young kids in their native tongue, and I tell myself that I hope I can succeed in teaching Angel not only to understand Tagalog but to speak it, and speak it fluently I hope.
Living by the personal mantra that anything can be learned — just as I discovered I actually had the talent to cook and I started learning only when I was left to fend for myself and Alan here in New York — I hope I can learn to teach him to speak the language beyond token phrases and lines. I often slip and end up talking to him in English — but as much as possible, I am talking to him in Tagalog.
I hope to one day introduce him to the colorful folklore of his Mom and Dad’s native country, the different slang terms we grew up with, and I hope to see him enjoying the Filipino movies his Dad and I watch from time to time. I want him to be able to carry a conversation out in Tagalog with the slightest hint of his being from New York — a tall order, I know, but something which I hope to do. I want him to grow up being proud of his Filipino heritage. For all the flak that we get as a damaged culture as others would term it, I am proud to be Filipino, even in this land where I am just one of many shades in a raindbow of nations and cultures.
Posted by Angelo's Mom at 20:53:14 | Permalink | No Comments »

Saturday, June 30, 2007

Pinay New Yorker is now part of Filipina Moms

I was so thrilled to be invited to join Filipina Moms and while I haven’t contributed as much as I had hoped to when I joined, you will find a post finally gracing their pages, and crossposted in my original blog, Pinay New Yorker.

How could I say no to writing about a topic so close to my heart? Definitely more to come!

Posted by Angelo's Mom at 00:37:54 | Permalink | No Comments »