(Sagutin ito!) Language, Learning, Identity, Privilege

By JAMES SORIANO
August 24, 2011, 4:06am

MANILA, Philippines — English is the language of learning. I’ve known this since before I could go to school. As a toddler, my first study materials were a set of flash cards that my mother used to teach me the English alphabet.

My mother made home conducive to learning English: all my storybooks and coloring books were in English, and so were the cartoons I watched and the music I listened to. She required me to speak English at home. She even hired tutors to help me learn to read and write in English.

In school I learned to think in English. We used English to learn about numbers, equations and variables. With it we learned about observation and inference, the moon and the stars, monsoons and photosynthesis. With it we learned about shapes and colors, about meter and rhythm. I learned about God in English, and I prayed to Him in English.

Filipino, on the other hand, was always the ‘other’ subject — almost a special subject like PE or Home Economics, except that it was graded the same way as Science, Math, Religion, and English. My classmates and I used to complain about Filipino all the time. Filipino was a chore, like washing the dishes; it was not the language of learning. It was the language we used to speak to the people who washed our dishes.

We used to think learning Filipino was important because it was practical: Filipino was the language of the world outside the classroom. It was the language of the streets: it was how you spoke to the tindera when you went to the tindahan, what you used to tell your katulong that you had an utos, and how you texted manong when you needed “sundo na.”

These skills were required to survive in the outside world, because we are forced to relate with the tinderas and the manongs and the katulongs of this world. If we wanted to communicate to these people — or otherwise avoid being mugged on the jeepney — we needed to learn Filipino.

That being said though, I was proud of my proficiency with the language. Filipino was the language I used to speak with my cousins and uncles and grandparents in the province, so I never had much trouble reciting.

It was the reading and writing that was tedious and difficult. I spoke Filipino, but only when I was in a different world like the streets or the province; it did not come naturally to me. English was more natural; I read, wrote and thought in English. And so, in much of the same way that I learned German later on, I learned Filipino in terms of English. In this way I survived Filipino in high school, albeit with too many sentences that had the preposition ‘ay.’

It was really only in university that I began to grasp Filipino in terms of language and not just dialect. Filipino was not merely a peculiar variety of language, derived and continuously borrowing from the English and Spanish alphabets; it was its own system, with its own grammar, semantics, sounds, even symbols.

But more significantly, it was its own way of reading, writing, and thinking. There are ideas and concepts unique to Filipino that can never be translated into another. Try translating bayanihan, tagay, kilig or diskarte.

Only recently have I begun to grasp Filipino as the language of identity: the language of emotion, experience, and even of learning. And with this comes the realization that I do, in fact, smell worse than a malansang isda. My own language is foreign to me: I speak, think, read and write primarily in English. To borrow the terminology of Fr. Bulatao, I am a split-level Filipino.

But perhaps this is not so bad in a society of rotten beef and stinking fish. For while Filipino may be the language of identity, it is the language of the streets. It might have the capacity to be the language of learning, but it is not the language of the learned.

It is neither the language of the classroom and the laboratory, nor the language of the boardroom, the court room, or the operating room. It is not the language of privilege. I may be disconnected from my being Filipino, but with a tongue of privilege I will always have my connections.

So I have my education to thank for making English my mother language.

ORE NO AKIRA (WATASHI NO AKIRA)

(Para sa nagsabi sa akin na ako ang kaniyang mata habang nasa loob ng Mercury Drug)

Sa araw na ito, magtatago ako sa liwanag.
Hahanapin mo ako sa sinag ng araw,
sa kislap ng bituin, sa kinang ng buwan.

Makikita mo ako.
nakasilip, natatanglawan
ng ilaw ng kalangitan.

Ore no Akira means My Light

11th IYAS Creative Writing Workshop

Dear Mr. Peña,

Congratulations! You have been selected as one of the fifteen fellows for the 11th IYAS Creative Writing Workshop to be held on April 25 - 30 at Balay Kalinungan, University of St. La Salle, Bacolod City.

The selection committee has awarded fellowships for emerging writers in English, Filipino, Bisaya and Hiligaynon in the genres of poetry, playwriting and short fiction among applicants nationwide.

IYAS fellows will be given a partial transportation subsidy of P 3,000 for those from Manila, P 1,500 from Cebu/Mindanao, and P 500 for those from Iloilo. Your board and lodging is free; however, we will not provide for your inland transportation. Upon arrival, please proceed to Balay Kalinungan where you will be staying for the duration of the workshop.

We will have a welcome dinner for the fellows and panelists on April 24, 6:30 PM at Dr. Coscolluela’s residence. There will be a van at Balay Kalinungan to bring you to the dinner venue. Departure will be at 6:00 PM.

The workshop proper will start at exactly 8:00 AM on April 25. It will consist of plenary sessions and small group interactions with the panelist/s in the afternoon. Fellows will be assigned to a group with a lead panelist according to the language and genre of works submitted.

If you have more questions, feel free to get in touch with me through phone or email.

Thank you.


Regards,


Dr. Gloria Fuentes
Project Coordinator
Creative Writing Workshop