Canciones

What told us that the day was over?

The shadows that bled together over the tired earth?

The sun that dropped behind the mountains?

Remember, brother, how we followed

the pickers who sang mariachi music to one

another, egged each other on with profanity

or a high yell that arched over the treetops

more piercing than the scorching sun?

Remember how we sat beneath the eucalyptus,

our paychecks lost to beer from the Japanese market?

One season the names were Pedro, Ramon,

the next season they were different.

Did they remember the two boys they taught

to drink and sing each summer?

Each summer we hoped never to return.

…

In “Canciones,” Papa writes of the struggle to reclaim himself as a Filipino American. Before the faint traces of Filipino American literature and history were celebrated in society and education through the works of giants like Carlos Bulosan, Larry Itliong, and Dawn Mabalon, Filipinos in America had to rely on oral histories and personal references for understanding. Lack of Filipino representation in popular and educational matters led Filipino America to embody a lack of interest in Filipino American culture. But even under the most oppressive circumstances our experiences were undeniably noteworthy. The formation of the Filipino Agricultural Labor Association in 1939, the asparagus strikes of 1948 and 1949, and the Delano Grape Strike which fomented the United Farmworkers Movement and Cesar Chavez’s legacy, produced milestones for our culture and greater American history. By assuming agency of their position as marginalized agricultural workers, Filipinos and Filipino Americans defied the menial existence designed for them and instead became an essential part of a country that sought to deny them.