The other day, life brought me to my original stomping grounds of Carson, California, 90745 if you nasty. Hungry, I took my grumbling stomach to Tita Celia’s for a plate of tapa and eggs. We used to live right across the street from their original location. Saw that they were selling pickled mangoes so I had to pick those up. Then I finally paid a visit to Teofilo Coffee where they only use harvested beans from the Philippines. I ordered a double shot iced americano for a proper introduction to my ancestral kape. It was all perfect for the soul.
What if the future you came back in time and told you that what you’re doing is exactly how you should do it, and that what you’re creating is exactly how you should create it to get to the place you want to go?
“Define who you are and what you are, and be clear on that. Meditate on that and then, live and die by that…”
— Nipsey Hussle
I cried for Nipsey the other day, having finally listened to the Victory Lap album.
I was mesmerized by his voice and saddened that I will never hear it again outside of this capacity — in songs and interviews.
And I was reminded of the deaths of my favorite rappers, having grown up in the ’90s, exposed from the jump to the rise of rap and hip-hop and subsequent fall of some of the pioneers that paved the way for MCs like Nip.
So I broke down listening to “Last Time I Checc’d” and wished I could’ve lent my ears to his message a little earlier, when he was still alive.
Sometimes days are better, sometimes days, it’s light.
I live these days because I have to – and we have to.
“Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival
When “Bad Moon Rising” by Creedence Clearwater Revival was first released in April 1969, the United States – as it was and seemingly always will be – in full disarray. Civil rights, racism, war, anxiety, assassinations, and an ever-present threat of death pervasive at family doors.
A quick listen of the song today — it reveals that despite nearly 50 years of time passed, the lyrics remain as poignant as ever.
I feel a great sense of connection to these lyrics and to those who listened to them and loved them throughout the years.
“I don’t think I was actually saying the world was coming to an end, but the song was a metaphor. I wasn’t just writing about the weather.”
When I listen to “Bad Moon Rising” today, I feel my anxiety heightening because of its lyrics, and knowing that an entirely different generation of Americans have gone through a similar tumult that I’ve endured these past four years.
And my takeway after a couple of repeat listens is that life persists despite of it all.
Then I eventually come down and think about this pandemic, the racial divide being wider than it has ever been, the election so vital and crucial to our immediate future, climate change, and wonder if death is in my room, and maybe, it’s already holding my hand.
There was one day, one era, in the past where anyone who looked like me was considered to be alien, wrong, and unwelcome.
There are times today when this sentiment seems as raw as it was during that day and era, and there are feelings that perhaps nothing has changed at all.
I think, if anything, this year’s Filipino American History Month should be a reminder that, more than ever, there is an urgent call to deliver a stake into the ground to let others know that we — Filipinos and peoples of color — are here to stay and that — in no time — we’re here to take over.
One way to do that is to create art, to tell stories, to reconstruct our identities, and push the boundaries of what’s expected. For me, it’s about writing fiction.
I look at Pulitzer Prize winning author Viet Thanh Nguyen who, as an Asian American, became one of the most revered writers of our time. There are times when I feel like I can be like him, that I can pull off the work, get published, win prizes, and find an audience who will find my writing to be pleasurable. Then there are times when I just feel like quitting and feel like my writing is complete and total shit.
But as I think about what this month brings to Filipino-Americans and all peoples of color, I simply cannot let the idea of quitting take over because there is an obligation, that urgent call, that forces me to think beyond what I can or cannot do, that there are generations beyond mine and yours that will one day look back, as I look back now, at this time and wonder – can I do what they can do?
I’ve been imagining and dreaming of becoming a fiction writer since I was a teenager, having written plenty of works in progress but never anything to completion, and it’s really only been two years since I’ve started writing fiction in earnest. There have been many times where I feel broken and feel like a failure, and there are times when I see writers of color like Mr. Nguyen and say, yes, it’s definitely possible.
I had bookmarked and recently summoned an article Mr. Nguyen wrote for the L.A. Times in 2016 that have two awesome quotes that I need to share to remind myself that quitting is not option and that the road to becoming a better writer is a long one:
“The constant reworking of sentence and narrative through writing short stories was my version of rubbing two sticks together. Suddenly, at a decade’s culmination, the fire started, and I could write with greater conviction and concentration than I had thought possible.”
And:
“The scale of the audience bears no testimony to the worth of the work.”
I relate to Mr. Nguyen because of the color of his skin, and I want to be on his level of writing one day. And with the context of this month and with the urgent call constantly ringing in my head, I don’t see why I cannot be like him one day.
And that what’s important is not who’s reading my work but it’s whether or not my work is valuable to me because if it doesn’t sting or hurt, make me cry or laugh, make me want to jump or crawl under the bed, then what’s the point? It’s called “life’s work” for a reason – it’s work that’s most important to me.
Filipino American History Month is a celebration of what we’ve done in the past, but it also is a reminder that we should never stop chasing what’s most important to us — for the next generation’s sake and for those who sacrificed so much in generations past.
My mother had told me: “Read the newspaper. You’ll be smarter.”
And so I did, and so becoming, I fell in love with words, sentences, bold type, small type, bylines, and stories.
So when I first moved out of my parents’ house, the summer after I graduated high school, one of the few bills I paid every month was my subscription to “The Press Telegram.”
I remember how proud I felt writing that monthly check and mailing it to the subscription department, adulting like a motherfucker.
Then every morning I’d see that folded up paper on the front door of my $350 per month studio apartment right next to the Green Leaf Motel in downtown Long Beach, and I’d take out the sports section and check the boxscores.
Eventually, my love for the medium drifted away and my need to get informed was satiated by many other outlets.
And up until this day, I had subscribed to nothing.
I don’t want to forget — ever again — why words matter to me so much.
