Anak ng Third World!

Whenever I tell people that the Philippines is considered a “developing nation,” most of them start a sort of squirm, as if they were subtly putting on some dress that would make them P.C. in my presence. They want to deal with me “properly.”

The truth is, I’ve developed a taste for seeing them grow uncomfortable. In some social situations, I wear my Third World-ness like a neon-yellow badge, an open dare for people to come ogle at me, the yellow-brown freak who can speak English with an American twang. I want them to say something rude, so I can spit back at them. But even when all are steadily polite, I am rudely capable of reminding them of their imperialist tendencies.

Most days, though, I choose to blend in. Race is surprisingly easy to forget here. Sometimes I forget my Filipino self, and see myself only as this person wanting and building this chance at a new life in a new city. Just another person riding the subway home. When my brownness disappears like that, I take it as a good sign. There is so much comfort in traveling without thinking about my color, or the color of the man sitting across me. Many people still imagine New York to be a jungle of crime, graffiti and African-American/Hispanic gangs who rule the subway systems. But NYC has just been named the fifth safest city in the U.S. – it’s not without crazies and beasts, but the city

Speaking of the “Third World,” I’ve been thinking lately – when psychologists, critics, educators of developed nations speak of “children,” do they include in their definitions the youth of developing nations? Wonder, innocence, escape, the Oedipal complexes: do Filipino children experience these? What does “play” mean to a Filipino child? What is “work”?

I admit now that I have no idea what Filipino children want to read…or if they want to read at all. Children born into classes A and B are raised according to Western ideals, and so the often are raised to read. But children of classes C, D and E experience labor, violence (which upper class children also experience, true, but the lower classes probably have no concept of being guilty about the violence, because to many of them, it’s a way of life – I know, this is a stretch in logic) and, god, poverty!

How do we write for children who live poor? It’s not an issue of language – although Filipino may be less daunting for Filipino children to read, it’s not just the language that alienates them. It’s the themes, and the way that literature is made to appear a luxury that only the rich and/or the intelligent can enjoy. These children watch a lot of movies and TV, so it means they enjoy stories.

Damn. My brain hit a dead-end, as if it were fearful of finding out that there is NO solution. Damn. Damn. What to do?

Chew on This:

He who hesitates is lost!
Daniel Handler
from Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events: The Grim Grotto