Published by Planet Philippines
(Planet Philippines is a newsmagazine for overseas Filipinos published
and distributed in in Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Toronto, London,
Melbourne, Chicago, Boston and Los Angeles.)
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| my squirmy bookworm |
“Labhan ang
damit ng mabuti” says a sticky note on the washing machine door. By the light
switch, a sign says, “Patayin ang ilaw.” All over the house are little notes
that serve as a reviewer. In the
background, Sa Ugoy ng Duyan plays softly as my one-year-old naps. It’s all
part of my campaign to make sure that my son grows up fluent in tagalog and that my husband is not
alienated. My Pinoy immigrant friends ask why that it is so necessary. It seems like they do not see the value in
teaching their kids the native tongue when they can hardly use it on foreign
soil. I can understand that to some degree, but it’s disheartening to know that
many kababayans believe that their children
can get ahead only if they are fluent in English alone.
Once during a visit to Manila, I asked my 6-year-old
nephew a question in tagalog. He looked at me quizzically and said, “Please
speak English. I don’t understand.” It
was interesting that a little boy could silence me. My brother explained that
they’ve been conversing with the boy in English since birth. Even the maids do.
Apparently, the maids were getting reeducated too. He admitted that it is
turning into a disadvantage, because the child is now experiencing difficulty
in his Filipino classes. So does countless other kids in the Philippines whose
parents think that their children will be achievers if they make English their
first language in a country that’s generally non-English speaking.
I grew up with these kids, classmates who were made fun
of because they couldn’t speak straight Filipino. Is it their fault that their
parents trained them that way? They were always behind in our Araling Panlipunan classes, and I do not
judge them, because I too barely passed these subjects. Truth be told, I can
write better in English. And I am not proud of that.
I grew up speaking ilonggo
at home. But the TV certainly talked to me in English. And so did my teachers
and classmates four days a week. Mondays to Thursdays, we were obliged to
converse in English only. Fridays were Filipino days. They must have figured
that we did not need to practice Filipino more when we are after all living in
a Filipino speaking country. Even our
instructional language for major subjects like Science was English. I have to
admit it’s practical that way. Try
explaining E=MC2 in Filipino.
Even in addresses, streets are streets, not kalye. Similarly, majority of our
advertisements, signs, and directions are in English. It’s not the case in many
non-English speaking countries. If you can’t find your way around Korea
or Vietnam, you would more than likely get lost in translation. I
learned this the hard way, thinking that
English would serve me well. When I got lost in the streets of Hanoi, I was
greeted with quizzical stares when I asked for directions. Few Vietnamese know
basic English and they don’t make apologies for it, because it does not make
them lesser individuals, and inversely, to be fluent in English does not make
them superior or royalty. How many Ms. Universe hopefuls have taken the crown
with only the help of a translator?
I can’t argue with the fact that there are advantages
to being fluent in what is supposedly the universal language. Statistics show that English speaking
countries are responsible for about 40% of the world’s GNP. That says a lot.
But then it makes me wonder: why is Japan, largely a non-English speaking
country, still way ahead of us in terms of technology and economy? I guess language alone does not make a
country, but language still speaks plenty.
Is this another case of colonial mentality? Should we
blame it on the 48 years of American reign and the many borrowed words (tren
for “train” for instance)? Have we fooled ourselves into thinking that to make
the peso stronger, we need to speak the green dollar language?
The fact is, we’ve come upon times when it’s more convenient
to say things in English rather than tagalog. Thus the birth of “taglish” code switching. Unconsciously, when I converse in tagalog, I would
revert to an English word simply because it’s easier. Maybe it’s because there
are more syllables to Filipino words. For me, it also sounds more fluid
compared to the hard syllables of tagalog. “Ang sweet” is easier and shorter than
“ang lambing”.
Even the tambay
will more than likely say “wow sexy”
instead of “wow kaakit-akit”. I
had difficulty looking up “sexy” in the English-Tagalog Dictionary. A website came
up with mainam and balingkinitan, and they still don’t sound
right. I looked up my English – Tagalog dictionary by Leo James English and
came up with nothing.
Yes, I brought my L. English dictionaries with me to
the states even though they were about a kilo combined. I could have relied on
the internet, but L. English is the recommended dictionary of the literati. I
had to take it with me no matter the cost (of excess baggage). The act was
almost metaphorical. I was afraid that if I left that weight, I would completely
lose my native tongue. I brought it along with several other materials like work
books and OPM CDs all in the effort of making sure my boys learn the language.
Maybe we are not to blame for the decline of the use of
our own language, but we are definitely responsible for teaching our kids to exercise their native tongue. So when my friends
ask why, I tell them that bilingual children are better thinkers. They’re more
flexible and divergent in their thought processes. They become proud of their
self-identity, knowing that they are a culture bridge. And perhaps more
importantly, I tell them that although
my son has an Irish name and strong Irish-American roots, part of him will
always be Finnegan the Filipino.
