when the marauders finally came, the island already rose up two feet higher from the bottom of the sea. that was how a story that i seriously believed then that i could write started out. i was reading a lot of south american magical realist texts at that time. nothing came off of that story, or of my writing delusions, for that matter. i am just tone deaf with narrative.
early this evening, on public television, they had gloria estefan singing american songbook standards which she infused with her cuban inflections. meanwhile in the filipino channel, a son of a biracial marriage and raised in the west coast, was featured in a puff piece on gay lingo. the conceit of the segment was that he, having never been taught by his filipino mother how to speak her language while growing up, learned this quite esoteric manila gay subculture speak in no time at all.
filipino parents here in america have, and this is, of course, anecdotal only, the highest anxiety level of any immigrant parents for fear that their kids won't assimilate and disappear quickly into the muddle of the great american blob. to loose one’s accent, to forget our stories, that is the gold standard of having made it here. oh, and to drive a fancy car. that and a house with a kidney-shaped swimming pool, too.
gloria, in her glorious mezzo tone, was middling when she sang in english but when she switched to spanish, or even, at one time, brazilian portuguese, argued the music just so. in the language of her mother, she has what i would never have, a prodigious talent at narrative.
at one point in the concert, she sang her own wedding song "el dia que me quieras" which she translated to "the day you say you love me." when she sang it in english, it was so florid, it's almost comical. but when she wisely reverted back to the original lyrics, it wasn't treacly, at all. it was just right. you could almost hear her singing into the song her lover's name, emilio, i believe, and telling us, and we would believe her, that it's another verb for to love.