Maligayang Araw ng mga Patay!

“Araw ng mga Patay” or Day of the Dead is celebrated in the Philippines from November 1-2. During this day, it is tradition to visit the cemeteries to pay homage to the dearly departed. Rather than maintaining a somber and solemn atmosphere, the cemetery becomes an atmosphere of remembrance and merry-making. Friends and family hold festivities and picnics together. Sounds kind of strange, but it’s really a beautiful experience where the large extended Filipino family comes together to catch up and celebrate.

Like people in the States often during Halloween, students come to school in costume. Later, they go door-to-door requesting gifts in exchange for singing a traditional verse about the liberation of holy souls from purgatory into eternal life; their own version of trick-or-treating!

Just a little tidbit on Halloween in the Philippines! Hope everyone had a safe and happy Halloween, and {m} also wishes everyone an All Saints Day to remember!

photo & post by krizia.

 

Spotlight’s On: the Pinoy Breakfast

Bay Area Bites, KQED public radio’s food blog, highlight’s the traditional Pilipino breakfast this weekend. Finally! Our traditional pan de sal, longanisa, tocino, ensaimada, mangoes, sticky rice, dried fish, salty egg, corned beef, and fried garlic-rice gets the attention it deserves from a more mainstream part of the culinary community!

If you like food (and you’d be soul-less if you didn’t), and if you especially like Pilipino breakfast foods, or if you simply want to learn more about it, Bay Area Bites blogger Thy Tran’s post includes a sweet reflection on a few of the delicacies of the Pilipino breakfast. She calls Pilipino’s “hearty eaters,” and also calls the range of Pinoy breakfast “impressive.” She CLEARLY knows what’s up.

She also includes a short list of some Bay Area restaurants that serve Pinoy breakfast, and a link to another blog that has a scrumptious roundup of various real-life Pinoy breakfasts complete with pretty pictures! With that said, don’t visit these blogs if you’re hungry! And if you do, you can’t say I didn’t warn you! Happy Eating!

<3 Post and photos by Krizia S.

 

A Pilipino Tribe in the Bay Area

For the first time, The Ifugao Music & Dance Ensemble of Banaue is here in the Bay Area direct from the Philippines to share their traditional culture and art. Unlike the more theatrical performances of most Philippine dance troupes, the Ifugao Music & Dance Ensemble can be considered a more “authentic” one, as members of the actual tribe sanction it. A friend of mine who recently saw this group perform described it as dancing “the way they might dance in an actual ritual, and act out various events in the tribal setting.”

In a society where native traditions are often romanticized and laced with theatrics, this may be a wonderfully rare and genuine experience to behold.

The ensemble will be performing this Thursday, October 11, 2007 at 7:30PM at Sacramento State University for FREE.

If this is too far for you to travel, they will be performing at the City College of San Francisco, on Thursday, October 25, 2007, at 12:30PM.

 

On the importance of representation

I have been to countless teach-ins, attended numerous lectures and day-long conferences, been enrolled in how many Ethnic Studies classes that all emphasize how important it is for underrepresented and marginalized groups to participate in the electoral process, to politicize themselves if they wish to see change. And though I knew how important this was, I never fully understood and felt its importance until this past Thursday morning at 3:30am, after an extremely long Associated Students of the University of California- Berkeley (ASUC-Berkeley) Senate meeting. At this meeting, after a number of motions, recesses, and debates made by the frustrated and exhausted senators of ASUC, it was decided that the student organization’s, Chicanos/Latinos in Health Education (CHE), funding for their 15th Annual Dia De Los Muertos Conference (which would expose underrepresented communities, mainly Chicanos/Latinos, to opportunities in health education) would be cut from $1500 to $1050, with the possibility of it being cut even further at Monday night’s Financial Committee of ASUC meeting.

 

ABC Undermines Pilipinos in Health Care

We recently received an e-mail petition about a curious tension that has arisen between Pilipinos and the television network, ABC.

To: ABC

To the producers of “Desperate Housewives” and ABC:

We are writing to express concern and hurt about a racially-discriminatory comment made in an episode of Desperate Housewives on 9/30/07. In a scene in which Susan was told by her gynecologist that she might be hitting menopause, she replied, ‘Can I just check those diplomas because I just want to make sure that they are not from some med school in the Philippines.’

It’s hard to know exactly how “hateful” the uttered statement was without any televisual context. Looking at the language used in the petition letter–among them, “oppression” and “disrespectful,”–it seems like Teri Hatcher’s tone might have been a bit too vile.

In text, the remark does not seem racially discriminatory, but rather, economically discriminatory. It is saying, “Poor countries like the Philippines can’t have good medical schools,” much more than it is saying, “Filipinos aren’t good at medicine.”

Still, not very flattering. However, it is laughable that the writers would choose the Philippines as the third world country to convey the humor of that remark, since countless health care technicians in this country–especially nurses–are from the Philippines. But then again, Filipino nurses have had some bad press in the past, including a scandal about nursing students cheating on the license exams.

What do you think: are we being too sensitive? Should Filipinos boycott ABC?

If you would like to read the rest of the letter and sign the petition, go here.

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{m}