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Have you ever heard of an Asian American? What about a Filipino American to be more precise? To get a better understanding of the term, you need to hear from an actual Filipino American to get a sense of what a Filipino American feels, says, and acts in everyday life. A great example is a Filipino American author by the name of Jessica Hagedorn. She wrote a book (very similar to Hagedorn's life) that describes almost to the last detail of how one goes from being a full-blooded Filipino to a Filipino American, just as Hagedorn did. Jessica Hagedorn, a Filipino American author, illustrates the impact that cultural heritage assimilation between the Philippines and America has on a person and what they become as an end result in her novel, The Gangster of Love.
To get a better understanding of this thesis statement, you need some background information on her novel, The Gangster of Love. In fact, the main character Raquels (a. k. a.
Rocky) life is very similar to Jessica Hagedorn's life. Voices from the Gaps agree very much by stating that, The Gangster of Love parallels many of the events in Hagedorn's life (Miles). The Voices from the Gaps also describe the book by saying, The Gangster of Love is more like a tenement lover in that is concentrates on the impact of leaving ones home country and adapting to a new one (Miles). Thats exactly what becoming a Filipino American is. First and foremost is the big leap that Rocky, a teenager at the time, and her family, her mother Milagros and her brother Voltaire, take from the Philippines to San Francisco.
Jessica Hagedorn, as a teenager also, took this big leap from the Philippines to America with her family too. This is a huge transition from one world to another. Here Hagedorn describes her shift from the Philippines to America, It took a turn for the better when I realized that one of the positive things about is was that as a female person, I suddenly had a sense of freedom that I never had growing up in Manila in that over-protected colonial environment -- - the girl with her chaperones and everything that still goes on, that kind of Tradition. And even though girls are not discouraged from going to school, theyre still expected to marry and have a family and thats the subtext of everything. In America, suddenly I was free of these shackles (Bonetti). As you can see here, Hagedorn describes the coming to America as breaking free from the overbearing culture of the Philippines.
In The Gangster of Love, Rocky in a sense feels free also, but a little scared of what this new culture has to offer for her. Right from the get go Rocky and her family start trying to fulfill the American Dream. That means to start a business, find a place to live, and start a family. With Rocky's family there are a few exceptions because they go a little out of order. First, they already are a family to begin with. Second, they buy an apartment or a flat as they say in the book.
Third, they start a business. But this isnt just any business; its a business with the Filipino culture involved. Rocky's mother, Milagros, starts her own Lumpia X-Press business. Lumpia is the Filipino version of the egg roll. You can plainly see that theyre trying to fulfill this dream, but still go back to what they know best, and thats the Filipino culture. Theyre adapting to the American culture, but at the same time bring a little Filipino flavor along with it.
Later in the book, Rocky dives head first into the American pop culture that society had to offer at the time. She starts to experiment with drugs, falls in love with a musician named Elvis Chang, and also experiments with her sexuality with a bisexual artist named Keiko. Rocky feels free, or as Allen Gaborro puts it, The Philippines meanwhile, with all its taboos and obligations seemed a million miles away" (Gaborro). Soon after all this takes place, Rocky and Elvis decide to embark on a journey across America to start life anew as wannabe rock stars, in their band The Gangster of Love.
In fact, Jessica Hagedorn did this very thing. She went to the Big Apple and started a band. Very similar to the name The Gangster of Love, her band was called The Gangster Choir. Sengupta states, With her [Jessica Hagedorn] rock band, The Gangster Choir, Ms. Hagedorn would sing the irreverent funkadelic tunes of sly and the Family Stone (Sengupta). Voices from the Gaps also comment on Hagedorn's band in comparison with her book by stating, Main characters Rocky and Elvis start the Gangster of Love, a rock group similar to Hagedorn's own music group, the Gangster Choir Band.
They move to New York in 1978, just as Hagedorn did, and experience many of the same problems (Miles). With each passing day of her new life in New York, she deals with many dilemmas and problems. Most importantly though is this statement, She [Rocky] comes to understand people and her experiences through what is for the most part, an Americanized prism (Gaborro). This is a very powerful statement in that it explains how Rocky's Filipino culture is slowly fading away, and that she is starting to see things through an American eye. She is assimilating into a more American way of living. Shes making that transition of becoming a Filipino American.
Later on, life gets rough. Rocky's life starts to slowly crumble, and her hopes and dreams of her new life start to deteriorate. She describes the city as the capital of pain and desire. Rocky cant keep a job, the band is on the brink of breaking up, and psychedelic dreams haunt her in the night. Rocky starts to be regretful and has feeling of remorse towards her choices in her life.
Rocky says to herself, I don't know why I choose to remain in New York, why I don't go screaming back to my fading mother in San Francisco or to the tropical banshees that await me in Manila [in the Philippines] (Hagedorn 238). In the end Rocky ends up having a baby named Venus, with a guy named Jake. Her mother back in San Francisco dies, and her and her brother go back to the Philippines to see their sick father. Once shes back in the Philippines she realizes how much shes missed her birthplace and the grounds of her cultural heritage. But through all this madness that happens during the book, there are some really important key elements that help incorporate the idea of becoming a Filipino American.
Also throughout the novel, Hagedorn shows how important the Filipino culture is to the book by inserting into the text Tagalog, the Filipino language. A few examples are, Putting ina talaga (Hagedorn 17) Ball ba in (Hagedorn 32), and Sino ka ba? Any walanghiya! (Hagedorn 48). Later on in her novel, The Gangster of Love, Hagedorn starts to mix both the English language and the Filipino language, Tagalog. Hagedorn does this to show how the two cultures are starting to intermix. She calls it English, a mix between the English and Tagalog languages.
Ay! Talaga! So big! (Hagedorn 211). Here are some key elements in the book that show how the transition from the Philippines to America is starting to take a toll on Rocky's Filipino culture. First off, Rocky was born full-blooded Filipino. She spoke fluent Tagalog before she moved to America.
As her life goes on in the new world of the United States, her Filipino culture slowly fades away. Think of her life as an hourglass, where Rocky is the glass and her Filipino ethnicity is the sand. As time passes, the sand, which symbolizes her Filipino background and customs, slowly fades to the bottom and out of her life. Rocky says to herself in the novel, Ive forgotten so much of the language [Tagalog], and it exasperates me. Big holes when I try to speak. Like, how do you say sugar?
I remember asian for vampire, asin for salt. But not sugar. Ive dreamed entire dreams in Tagalog, but I dont know what Im saying (Hagedorn 18). As you can see here, her life and everything that goes with it, including her language, are slowly molding into the model of an average American. Rocky's aunt is also a key character that shows the resemblance of a Filipino American.
Even after all of her [Rocky's aunt Fely] years in America, Auntie Fely still says Open the light close the light when she orders someone to turn a light switch on or off and for a while when she has to put a phone call on hold (Hagedorn 9). You can notice from this quote that Rocky's aunt Fely, although has been living in America for many years, still says things very literal as the Tagalog language [Filipino language] does. She speaks English, but still with that Filipino twist of things. Hagedorn does this to show how Filipinos come to America and learn to speak English, but still have the rhythm of their native language of Tagalog. This is very important in the understanding of how Filipino Americans speak. In The Gangster of Love, a novel by Jessica Hagedorn, a young woman by the name of Rocky embarks on a journey that takes her on a trip around the world, literally.
First she moves from the Philippines to San Francisco, from San Francisco to New York, and back to the Philippines again. Many times during the novel, Hagedorn illustrates with many examples of how one, that being Rocky, is in a sense molded or transformed like a piece of clay from a Filipino into Filipino American. During her time in America, she goes through this process of where she assimilates the American culture, and sort of leaves behind her Filipino culture. Alan Gaborro states, Conceived as a full-blooded Pinay [female Filipino], but maturing into an internalized American, Rocky consummates the two identities into an irresolute synthesis (Gaborro). This statement basically sums up everything. It helps to get a better understanding of what Rocky becomes as a result of her journey from the Philippines to America.
She becomes a Filipino American. Works Cited Bonetti, Kay. An Interview with Jessica Hagedorn. web April 1994. Gaborro, Allen. Gangster of Love by Jessica Hagedorn.
web Hagedorn, Jessica T. The Gangster of Love. New York: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1996. Miles, Chris.
Herald, Jessica. Avent, Tina. Voices From The Gaps: Jessica Tarhata Hagedorn. web January 2002. Sengupta, Somini. Jessica Hagedorn: Cultivating the art of the manage.
web December 4, 1996.
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Research essay sample on Start A Business Cultural Heritage
