Poem for Mom: My Pinay Nanay!
This blog post originally appeared in the blog, poetry & tsismis: emily's blog.
In honor of all women, here is my mother’s favorite poem entitled “My Pinay Nanay”, that I wrote in 1998 for her and all Filipina American mothers. It was published (with three of my other pieces) in the anthology InvAsian: Growing Up Asian & Female in the United States, by Asian Women United of California (San Francisco: Study Center Press, 2003). You can watch me perform and explain excerpts of the poem on Jay Sanchez’s Fil-Am Television in Virginia Beach on WHRO by clicking HERE, or on YouTube, by clicking HERE.
I wrote the first draft of the “My Pinay Nanay” poem in the car, on the way to another phenomenal spoken word poetry event that was curated by the incredibleIrene Suico Soriano in downtown Los Angeles. I needed a new, fun poem to read because Irene was helping to christen the Aratani Courtyard: a new, outdoor public performance space (which is still being used to this day for the monthly Tuesday Night Café, produced by Traci Kato-Kiriyama and TNKat Productions). Irene’s mother had cooked all day for the event. It was November, 1998, and I wrote on the bottom of the “My Pinay Nanay” poem:
Chillin’ under the Mikasa empire’s patio heat-lamp, amidst candle-lit trays of Irene’s mom’s pancit and empanadas, ten bottles of wine, and seventeen spoken word instigators firing up pre-war spirits in L.A.’s old “Lil’ Manila”, once “Bronzeville”, now “Little Tokyo, the new Union Center for the Arts: tonight, our “Safehouse”.
“Safehouse” alludes to the title of Irene’s chapbook, but also to the fact that the building that now houses the Union Center for the Arts (including East West Players Theatre and Visual Communications) was once a church: a safehouse for immigrants, refugees, internees, and other outcasts of all races and generations. It was an historic night outdoors, at an historic place: who knew that it would lead to one of my most-requested poems?
The version below is what I read two years ago at my mother’s Rosary/Community Memorial, which had another standing-room-only crowd, in the newly refurbished Filipino Community Center of Seattle.
Happy every-day-is-Mother’s-Day, everyone.
MY PINAY NANAY
© by Emily P. Lawsin
Revised for Emma Floresca Lawsin’s Community Memorial at the Filipino Community Center of Seattle, June 27, 2008
My mother had many names:
“Mama”, “Mommy”, “Lola”, “Grandma”,
“Tia”, “Chang”, “Manang”, “Emma”, “Emang”,
But I just called her: My “PINAY NANAY.”
MY PINAY NANAY,
She could speak Ifugao, Ilongo, Ilocano, Cebuano, Waray-Waray, Kampampangan,
Spanish, Tagalog, AND English,
Thanks to the THREE Pinoy men she married,
And the thousands of U.S. troops stationed in her island province.
MY PINAY NANAY,
She could whip up a dozen lumpias — vegetable and shanghai,
Roll it, paste it, fry it, see you joke with it like a cigar or boto/penis,
And whirl a boomerang bakya/slipper at you all-in-one-breath.
MY PINAY NANAY,
She could cook a feast for seven in as many minutes,
Spread the table with fresh mongo beans, seafood, pinakbet,
Chicken/pork/beef adobo plus tokwa/tofu chicharron sizzling on the side,
Lasagna trays of pancit noodles: Bihon, Canton, Lug-lug, AND Malabon,
Vats of tomato-pasty Menudo, Machado, peanut Karé-karé, and
Dinaguan (“chocolate meat” — ha-ha!)
AND for dessert: platters of steamed Puto, Suman, Kutsinta cakes,
Maja Blanca/corn pudding, baked Bibingka, Biko, Deep-fried Cascaron/donut holes,
And bowls of steaming, sweet coconut-y Ginataan, with ping-pong-ball-sized-bilo-bilo dumplings,
Just like you like them,
And STILL asked you,
“ARE YOU HUNGRY?
YOU BETTER EAT!”
MY PINAY NANAY,
She could, with one hand, twirl a hundred-pound lechon
Over a fiery roast pig spit,
While smoking a Marlboro – BACKWARDS.
Guess a Mah-jong tile’s face with one finger — always her middle –
Sliding underneath. (“Ay, Mah-jong!”)
Filled the house with smells of fried garlic rice, longanisa sausage,
Sliced red tomatoes, and eggs,
So the Pusoy poker players would come back
With much “tong” to help pay for your 18th birthday debut.
MY PINAY NANAY,
She could sew First Communion dresses and Eddie Bauer jackets
Without a McCall’s pattern;
Net, pierce, gut, chop, and can Alaskan King salmon with a blind eye,
Write round-trip tickets to the Philippines,
And cuss-out the neighbor Jones kids
For throwing firecrackers down her white stone chimney,
All with her Tondo accent and ninth grade education.
MY PINAY NANAY,
She stood with a 100-member army (of all of you) in the Mayor’s office,
Demanding in nine different languages
That he give Seattle its historic Jose Rizal Bridge and Park,
Its Pista sa Ngayon, and save the Filipino Community Center
From the light rail wrecking ball and everything else in between.
Then acted like she didn’t speak a lick of English on a Metro Bus
So a greedy seat hog would scoot on over.
MY PINAY NANAY,
She had more power – more PINAY POWER –
Than all of our childhood role models put together.
My Pinay Nanay,
She was down,
She was brown,
She was the Pinay
SUPER-FLY.
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