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A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTCOLONIAL FILIPINO-AMERICAN LIFE
The Hyacinth Review
The Hyacinth Review

A RADICALLY CONDENSED HISTORY OF POSTCOLONIAL FILIPINO-AMERICAN LIFE

by
November 9, 2022
Still life etching of three bowls
Still Life, Vicente Manansala, 1957

Carmen X is a writer who needs to write more…

They gather round the table and say grace. The father helps himself to adobo and rice and then the mother and then the daughter. They eat in silence. There is the small porcelain Santo Niño on the kitchen counter. At the table there are four chairs. Then the mother hits the spacebar and news chatter blats out midstream. Something in regard to inflation and immigration. It is very loud and sounds angry somehow. The daughter takes some water. The mother listens and once or twice laughs or says something back. The father continues to look down and eat. Then the daughter glances at the chair and then her meal and then the chair and meal again asks about the doctor and her kuya and when will the doctor call, will the doctor call soon? When the father blinks he blinks very slowly. The mother: she continues to watch the screen, she doesn’t look at her daughter; she says: Relax, it’s all right. God loves you. The daughter stops eating. She wants to say if, well, but like, isn't all this precisely because God loves us? But she doesn't. She cannot say this to her mother. She thinks she might perhaps journal this down sometime later, perhaps. They continue eating. There is a small porcelain Santo Niño on the kitchen counter.
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Carmen X is a writer who needs to write more than they do. They promise the X doesn't really mean anything in particular.

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