Decolonization is a processes that was initiated prior and will follow for generations to follow. The significance of writing a letter to you future seed, captures what you have learned in your life time into a manifestation of documents that will help generations to come. Condensing the letter helps one highlight the most significant aspects of our personal understanding of decolonization. Below is a piece I extracted from my letter to my future child.
Luminous by blood Mexican-American; by labeled culture-- know that you are more luminous than that, you are an indigenous human by blood. RE-INDIGENIZE YOUR SPIRIT AND PRESENCE. Love yourself, love others for what they are, and question everything present in and out of class (especially history), be yourself and be open about your narrative. Know that, not everyone is ready to decolonize-- love them too.
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"But we don't have to live like this." Generational Responsibilities is what we pass down to the younger generations of Filipin@s. An example would be like traditional filipino receipes or standards that a typical filipino abides. My example would be since i don't speak Tagalog, i learned two reasons; my mom thought it would be better for my first language to be English, since we live in america, and another reason would be so i wouldn't be made fun of. There is many pros and cons to passing our knowledge to what we know, but it defines who we are. Filipinos are a mixture of cultures, learn how to decolonize. Modern day Filipin@s have so much information with all the news and pop culture that we don't realize that we have our responsibilities as Filipin@s. We're learning in this class to strive, learn, and to excel on what our roots are. We build communities like the Kababayan Program to inform our younger generations about what Filipin@s are all about. By Justin Buenaventura
Names have a lot of power and strength behind them. They can carry weight and represent one's culture and family. Our names are significant to our parents and the people involved in naming us.
People know me as Earlson or E.J., but my full name is Earlson Josh Dela Cruz Tecson. My first name is a bit unique because I don't know another Earlson, and my parents along with my grandma came up with it by taking the first letter of people's names' in my family and combining them. E: Emelita (mom) A: Anicia (grandma) / Anthony (dad) / Aina (auntie) R: Romeo (grandpa) L: Leonila (auntie) S: ??? O: ??? N: Nieves (grandma) I feel like it's not a completely "white" or American name because it's unique and it's a combination of my family members' ethnic names. Although, lots of people in my family and a lot of my friends either go by a nickname or they shorten their name because they don't like it and/or they are embarassed by it. In America, a lot of times people with unique or ethnic names get made fun of, and that includes Filipinos. Some people then react with self hate, and feel the need to "white wash" themselves and assimilate because they feel their name and their culture are weird and inferior. Your name, especially if it's unique or different, is a constant reminder of who you are. It reminds you that you are an individual, and that you should take pride in your name, family, and culture. As a result, you develop a stronger sense of your own identity. You might get made fun for your name in the beginning, but in the end it makes you stronger. (Interesting Fact: In high school, I knew 6 Justins' in my grade alone, and they were all asian) Hey guys its Dante again, I'm here to catch you up with whats going down in class today. So we had a class about our letters that we did in the class prior to today. We opened up with little snippets of a couple of students letters and some cool rendition of the letters through poetry. And the topic of modern day outlets and how they affect millennials came up for a bit.Lets bring it back to the mother lands when chismis was obtainable by talking to people and pagers wasn't a thing yet. At the time, society's culture was shaped around how you lived on your island from what you wear to how you acted. You would inherit the traits of you fellow neighbors of your barangay from talking and interacting with people. Prepping food and just working together on projects would bring you socilizing. You dress your self with obtainable items on the island. Next we would treat people in our barangays as humans.Fast forwarding to the generations of early millennials, the invention of the T.V. and technology in the late 80's early 90's change culture forever. Creating a marketing monster that will change the way people act and dress. Yet not as crazy as today but, we will get into that later. Due to technology, companies were able to reach a huge population through movies, music/music videos, art, and television. Society was able to see what was cool and trendy from actors and artist, people praised similar to a deity, quickly setting a standard to how we dress and respected one another. Created fashion trends and standards to become acceptable. We as humans wanting to be accepted want to fit in group. So we adopt culture from a group to create "urban culture" where we demoralize each other. Call women B****s (and be okay with it) then make fun of each other to feel bigger. Went from simple to complicated yet before the invention of social media and smart phones, we retained some habits. T.V. made parties seem "cool" but for a party you need to prep by cooking food with our your family, which is time consuming, and spend time cooking and prepping which required communicating verbal. Watch this YouTube video and analyse what I'm saying from a scene in a great movie called Poetic Justice.Lastly we travel to today on how millennials are shaped into "zombies" craving acceptance and instant gratification. With later generation millennials, social network is really big. Social networks is a platform used to now communicate with a lot of people now unconsciously satisfying our craving for instant gratification for likes and follows. Instead of talking to our barangay we save time and effort by just posting it up. Also leading to finding the new trends that are sponsored by companies and corporations to follow that style. Creating a subliminal and concrete way of advertising. Conditioning a person idea of "hansom" or "beautiful" as something with a price tag. To impress everyone you meet instead of your family or barangay.In class, we were told to write letters to our future children (if we decided to have any), about colonization. In this letter, we talked about the many different things that colonization does to people. Many people wrote about the injustices of it. In my piece, I wrote to my future children about the power in their names.
Josiah and Maxene, There have been many times when your middle names have been mispronounced. I want you to know that these are strong names. Eucito and Bugayong are names given to your great grandpa and great great grandma. This is a legacy that I want you to know, understand, and cherish. Our line of ancestors is strong and, so are you two. Don't be fooled by your history books. We are more than a colonized people. The paragraphs in your text books may be small but, the impact of colonization is huge. You may not be familiar with this word but, you have seen her fruit time and time again. Her fruit is the insult of the word "fob" when you call one another 'kuya' or 'ading'. Her fruit is the multitude of white faces on the screens you watch. Her fruit is our family's warning of the sun changing the tone of your skin. Do not eat this fruit. As beautiful and attractive this lie may be- do not eat this fruit. Take pride in your names, my loves. Love, Mama Whats crackin' My name is Justin Buenaventura; Born in San Francisco, raised in Daly City. I'm honestly a pretty quiet person at heart, but I guess what this auto-biography is for. If you don't already know me, I like to dance, choreography and battling is pretty much my life. Food is great too, my usual at In and Out is a four by four with grilled onions, animal fries, and lastly a neopolitan shake; I eat a lot and I definitely eat everything that's editable. Since were speaking upon food and breverages, I work at Starbucks in Westlake, Trenta Iced Black Tea with strawberry juice, with a Double Smoked Bacon sandwich is my ish, its pretty lit. My life is basically food and dance, the two loves of my life. Yee, later gators. d^_^b
Hola!
My name is Iridián Martínez. I identify as Xicanx, queer, non-binary, and awesome. My parents migrated from México, so I am a first generation student. I am transferring as a Sociology major, Fall 2017. I aspire to organize with the comm(unity), specifically for anti-capitalism movements. My heart resonates with the people, so I spend most of my free time studying solutions for intersectional oppression. If you would ever like to organize anything on campus, please hit me up! (: Generational Trauma is a substantial event, behavior, or interactions that is subconsciously or consciously sustained through generations. I believe an example of this is conformity of oppressive behaviors toward womyn, by womyn in the Latinx community. Many womyn tend to accept toxic co-dependency due to the generational behavior carried from the origins of colonialism and the patriartical perspective colonizers imposed on the indigenous people of the (now) Mexican land. It is beyond crucial for people to learn about this, because once you understand the origins of an issue and that the issue even exists, the next step would be to dismantle the psychology that upholds the oppressive structure. What's up guys! My name is Earlson, or I also go by EJ. I'm just another Filipino kid from Daly City. I went to El Camino High School and graduated in 2014. It’s my third year at Skyline, and I'll be transferring to a university next Fall to major in Computer Engineering. On my free time, I like to hang out with my homies, produce music or make beats, and play the violin. I also do a little bit of photography and videography for fun.
The term Generational Trauma seems like there is a lot of weight to it, similar to the burden Filipinos have to endure with topics like identity and culture. My definition of Generational Trauma would be psychological wounds that are unaddressed and are passed on from generation to generation, causing mental instabilities like depression and a poor sense of identity. I believe it's important for people to learn what Generational Trauma is because it can explain a lot about someone, their family, their ancestors, their culture, and their identity and how their past affects them now. My name is Drew. I'm a biracial black and filipino woman just trying to figure out life. As a woman of color, I have become very much so aware of the injustices in the world. There are multiple places where injustice festers, and I believe that the classroom should not be one. As a result, I have decided to become someone who works with elementary students. I currently work as an after school teacher at a school in Bernal Heights. I am graduating at the end of the semester with an AA in Social and Behavioral Sciences, and will continue to SF State to achieve my BA in Early Childhood Education. It only takes one person to cause a chain reaction and I find it important that we make a positive impression in the youth! "Kids are not just 'the future', they are our 'today'"
Now that you know who I am, let's talk about a recipe. I would like you to imagine a hot, steamy, soup over the stove. For some flavor, let's add a list of things: death, famine, and poverty. It doesn't taste quite right at this point. Let's add some racism, classism, and sexism to the mix. It taste almost complete! Lastly, let's add years and years and a few more years of unaddressed issues. MMM! Smells like some great generational trauma! This sour and unpleasant soup is something many people experience today. Many people may not even know why they experience it and it is important to know that it affects us so we can learn to change it. The reason why it continues is because people are not aware of it. This is one of the many wrong things that affect people of color today. |
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May 2017
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