Monday, October 12, 2015

While waiting for my bisaya friend enrolls her bronx raised kid in a catechism class in a roman catholic church in a parish of mostly italian immigrants

a heavy set chola with a big crucifix pendant, her lips darkly outlined, kneels two pews ahead of me.  when she unclasps her hands, i can see tear drop tattoos in the crook of her right arm. i think of rihanna and her so called fashion crime of cultural “ignorant harvesting.” and i look at my denims, and smile, not because this pair has been unwashed for two and a half months now, but in the knowledge that apparently wearing this innocuous, store bought garment is transgressive, offensive, i don’t know to whom—to the cowboys, perhaps—for appropriating something that doesn’t belong originally to my pacific islander culture. oh well, back to the grass skirts, then.