Student of the Month August 2014
Featuring: Shannon Cristobal
University of Hawai’i at MÄ noa
A Note on the Series Our Student of the Month series features on our website stellar student writing and visual art from the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa, the institution where our roots dig deep. In print for more than 40 years, our journal has been an established voice in the Pacific and beyond for decades, featuring work from emerging writers alongside literary heavyweights. The Student of the Month series is our latest effort to expand Hawai‘i Review’s reach in local and far-reaching literary communities.
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Introduction
I first met Shannon Cristobal in spring 2013. We had both enrolled in Brandy Nālani McDougall’s American Studies course on Indigenous Identity (AMST 620), and as this powerful interdisciplinary experience unfolded, Shannon proved to be a compassionate and forward-thinking scholar. More recently, she has shown her colors as a poet to Hawai‘i Review. Writing as a fourth-generation Filipino American woman born and raised in Hawai‘i, Shannon shares the following four poems: “Anak,” which speaks to the poet’s daughter about gender, race, and cultural identity; “Made in Hawaii,” which comments on the poet’s “triple consciousness” as local, Filipino, and American; “Our Journey,” which narrates Filipino diaspora in Hawai‘i; and “Filipino Chicken Soup,” which Shannon performed with her daughter at Kōkua Market’s first Pacific Poetry Feast in October 2013. Shannon is currently writing poems about Filipino foodways in Hawai‘i and plans to include these works in her MA thesis. Enclosed after Shannon’s poems is an e-interview I conducted with her last spring, where Shannon talked about her family, Filipino diaspora, her relationships to the Philippines and Hawai‘i, and the life behind her poems. “I am still searching and attempting to piece together a history that has been fragmented by a colonial legacy,” she explains. Indeed Shannon approaches poetry as a form of decolonization. By looking to the past and uncovering buried histories through writing, she is able to confront colonial trauma and cultivate healthier and more positive futures for her children. “Overall, my poems are about love.” —No‘u Revilla, Hawai‘i Review Poetry Editor
Anak
(My Child)
I will break through barriers for you So that you may run swiftly unhindered By the hurdles of being Born . . . Filipino and a girl One day you came home from school And said, a white girl told me . . . White rules brown drools What does that mean mom? It means that whoever taught her that Is sadly mistaken I will empower you with weapons to fight The pen to slay The word to shield Your heart and mind One day you came home from school And said, why am I one of the few Filipinos in my school Why can’t I go to a school With other Filipinos? Because education is a weapon I will be a bridge for you Illuminating your path with our ancestors dance Sustaining your strength with our sacrifice Fortifying your love with our humanity We belong to a culture struggling To emerge from these invisible chains Virtue of a colonized mind Generation by generation Stripping of our history Silencing of our language Searching for our ancestral land You will be the generation Who knows their history Who knows their language Who knows where they come from ANAK you are FILIPINO
Made in Hawaii . . . I was Made in Hawaii Woven of different threads Threads of Filipinoness Lay only in distant yet vivid memories of my grandparents Cleaning yards in Kahala for only $5.00 each The pungent smell of fresh cut grass on a Saturday morning My grandma frying up bundi bundi The scalding oil searing my lips and tongue Too anxious to wait for it to cool Threads of Localness To prepare for May Day I would climb my grandma’s Plumeria tree and pick flowers to make leis The white milky sap from the flowers sticky on my fingers After school I would walk with my cousins and my grandma To the crack seed store to buy 25 cent ice cake The refreshing cold on my tongue made me forget The Kalihi heat walking home Threads of Americanness Woven together like patches of a quilt Land of opportunity Innovation Ingenuity Leadership Democracy Free Enterprise Social Justice The threads of my identity My Triple Consciousness I say I am all But do I belong? I was Made in Hawaii That is why they say I’m not a true Filipino I’m a fourth generation woman Who doesn’t speak Tagalog or Ilokano Who has never been to the Philippines and never wanted too The threads that connect me now are My memories, my face, and the color of my skin I was Made in Hawaii That’s why I say I local I grew up interwoven in Hawaii’s local cultures and traditions
Hawaiian, Japanese, Chinese, Portuguese Merrie Monarch, Bon Dances Visits to China Town, Leonard’s Malasadas Speaking Pidgin, no more one betta feeling Like I stay home And I can be myself But this land no belong to me, but to another Am I only a settler? I was Made in Hawaii But immersed in American and Western culture American culture taught me to reject my Filipinoness American culture silenced my Localness American culture educated me to question the threads of my identity Which made me realize I have the choice! To define myself Not one identity encapsulates who I am! I have the choice! To accept or reject the status quo! To reinvent myself To honor my elders To be the catalyst for my children I was Made in Hawaii My triple consciousness Local, Filipino and American I’m like a mix plate Two scoops rice One scoop mac salad Spam Chicken adobo Garden Salad with Ranch Dressing All different but das what makes It so good… Three is betta den one!
Our Journey
For Valentine Jasmin
Pacific crossing Blending ocean and sky 13 days Aboard steely S.S. Pierce Only 16 but 19 On the Passenger Log PI to HI Departed Urdaneta, Pangasinan May 23, 1931 Arrived Honolulu, Hawaii June 10th, 1931 Status: Immigrant Plantation travels Kauai Cane Sugar Cheap labor Das wea he started Worked up To Janitor In da Hospital Met my grandmadda Kid on every Island 6 in all Bought home in Kalihi Status: Settler Paradise progress Entrepreneurs Weekdays clean offices Weekends clean yards Kahala $5.00 each Lunch time Coral Tuna sandwich Best Foods Mayonnaise Hawaiian Sun Passion Orange Wrapped in Reynold’s foil Status: Happiest times with you Paradise lost 1 stroke 2 stroke Diagnoses Alzheimer’s 7 years
You drifted away Back to the PI In your mind Never got to ask All the questions Now I find in books Status: Searching
Filipino Chicken Soup Warm Simmering Goodness Wafting Soothing Smells Cradling My Soul Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . With One Sip of Her Chicken Marungay Unscathed by Modernity Untainted and Authentic Eloquently Passed Down Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . With One Bite of Her Chicken Marungay Plucking Tender Leaves Together You and I Incandescent Love Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . With One Bowl of Her Chicken Marungay Jovial Diasporic Communities Rejoice and Reconnect Taste of Home Resonating Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . Mmmm . . . With One Pot of Her Chicken Marungay
Interview with the Author by No‘u Revilla, Hawai‘i Review Poetry Editor
You are a fourth-generation Filipino American woman. Where is your family from in the Philippines? When did they move to Hawai‘i? My maternal grandparents, Mary and Valentine Jasmin, came from Ilocos Norte-Abra and Pangasinan province in 1931. My paternal great-grandfather, Roman Punio, arrived in 1927 from Vigan province and met my great-grandmother Betty Punio on the island of Hawai‘i. Both men were recruited to work on the plantation by the Hawaii Sugar Plantation Association (HSPA). Where in Hawai‘i were you born and raised? Where do you live now? Who do you live with? I was born in Honolulu and raised in Kalihi/‘Ālewa Heights, Hawai‘i. I currently live in ‘Ālewa Heights with my 11-year-old daughter, Christian, 9-year-old son, Cody, and my husband, Arnold. How would you describe your relationship to the Philippines? My relationship to the Philippines is one not uncommon to third- and fourthgeneration Filipino Americans who are born and raised in Hawai‘i. Although my grandparents and great-grandparents had
family ties and land in the Philippines, they did not share much history or culture with me. Growing up, I was ashamed of being Filipino because I was never taught what and who I should be proud of. So my relationship to the Philippines is one of an imaginary community that I have cobbled together from pictures, Filipino American literature (America’s in the Heart, Leche), and stories from friends and family who have visited. It is my goal to visit with my husband and children that we may share the experience of learning our history, culture, and heritage together. Your relationship to Hawai‘i . . . My relationship to Hawai‘i is different from my relationship to the Philippines because I consider Hawai‘i home. Home for me is where my family is, where I grew up, acquired language (pidgin), and socialized into Hawai‘i’s distinct local culture (that emerged from the plantation era and from Hawai‘i’s public school system). However, I also consider myself a Filipino settler as I recognize how Kanaka Maoli rights, lands, language, and culture have been overturned and undermined by settlers. It is these complexities and multiple layers of difficult history that make Hawai‘i unique and not just the idealized and romanticized notion of a multicultural paradise.
How do your poems reflect your own voyage in Filipino diaspora in Hawai‘i?
roles as a Filipino American woman, wife, and mother encounter.
As a descendent of plantation immigrants who came to Hawai‘i from the Philippines for a better life, I want their stories to be known instead of the dominant narrative of benevolent assimilation. . . . Filipinos have fought to retain a culture and heritage that has been systematically designed to be oppressed, divided, and undermined. Through my poetry I want to show how Filipinos are resilient and that our history and voices matter.
What inspired you to write the poems “Anak” and “Made in Hawaii”? How do these poems reflect family values? Cultural values?
The poems about the present are informed by my struggles with living in the diaspora, reclaiming and reconnecting with my cultural heritage. It is about being able to situate myself as a non-invasive settler in support of Hawaiian rights and sovereignty. Thus, I am constantly negotiating my insider/outsider position not only from a Filipino perspective but also as a local and as an American. You have explained that your voyage is meant “to bring the past into the present, to un-silence it, and to remove the shackles.” May you elaborate? Why do you believe poetry is a means to unsilencing, a mode of resistance? The question what makes you Filipino, or local, or American, also lead to questions of authenticity, language, and home. Similar to the insider/outsider position, the notion of the Other is a concept that I am still wrestling with. At times I am considered the Other even within my own ethnic group and family. . . . My poetry reflects this delicate balancing act that my
I am working through questions of identity for myself and for my children. I learned that if my children and I knew our genealogy and history, and if we heard our stories, we would be able to overcome the stigmatized identity that comes with a colonial mentality (internalized oppression and being deemed not worthy). I want to un-silence Filipino history, stories, and voices to empower us to gain the cultural capital necessary to be proud to claim our Filipino identity. I write my poems to offer the next generation weapons to fight with, words to inspire, and the hope to overcome. ~~~
Shannon Cristobal was born and raised in Honolulu, Hawai‘i. She is a fifthgeneration Filipino American woman, mother, and scholar. Currently, she is an MA candidate in the American studies program at the University of Hawai‘i at Mānoa. Her focus is on Filipino American literature, Asian American literature, foodways, diaspora, identity discourse, and postcolonialism within the Pacific. She is passionate about tracing the past to unsilence history and decolonize the mind.
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