The most toxic debate can take place online. But last week, I could not resist partaking of the global toxin provided by social media when I responded to a heated debate about a bar or restaurant.
Life is short, really short for this concern. That was my comment. It was polite. I could have said, “Life is short for this dumbness,” but the worlds of those involved in the discussion were hurting. I did not want to contribute to the wound and scar.
At the center of this “concern” is a bar, opened by four young men in D.C. It bore the name “Barkada.” Tony and sleek, both the font of the name and the façade of the building connote sophistication. In fact, if I am to quibble, there is a dissonance in the hoi-polloi and gutter sound of the word and the place which uses such branding. But it is precisely that dissonance that calls one’s attention to the place.
The same dissonance would vary on two or three or even more complex labels. For the Filipino, the name would connote men huddling, macho and cool, masculine and sh_t-head but warm. The name could encompass young boys and girls mindful and unmindful of their genders, with one or two of them leaning toward the right and the rest to the left but still friends. You could go on defining what “barkada” would mean to Pinoys and Pinays (let me use these two labels because they just have chemistry with that label “Barkada”) and the semantic possibilities are endless.
For the non-Filipino, the name would be strange, not even exotic. There is a guttural moan when you pronounce the word. But to this non-Filipino, the name is meaningless unless he asks the owners about the name and their decision to name the place as such.
Until people, mostly Fil-Americans, started to question the act of giving the place a Filipino name when it does not aim to offer any Filipino delicacy. That was one issue. Some thought it was stealing an idea from the usually passive culture (“ah, so, they think we will just look and be shy about it?”), which would be flattered by the token use of the word that we embrace as Filipino. Yes, token. The decors are not even Filipino, another sector waved an angry flag.
What is a debate without another side or sides? A group of people, mostly Fil-Americans, found the issue a non-issue. Some saw in the conversation, however conflicted, a chance for Filipino culture to be properly introduced in another domain. Not in the form of a bamboo dance or songs about infidelities. Anyway, who really taught us not to smile when we are performing dance steps from the deep North and the far South? Do we always leave the silly smiles to the lowland Christians in our musical presentation? But, hey, this is another issue.
But the backlash would not abate. The pressure would not stop from, I suppose, Fil-Americans who may not even like the name I append to their group. But this is another matter to debate upon. The whole discussion, however, is not bad. Filipinos fused with whatever ethnicity have found their voices. And yet, I feel, we have lost the opportunity to have a place upon which other ethnic groups can develop a greater awareness about us—us in the States and the majority of us who have remained in the country.
The men behind the Barkada enterprise finally came out. They are Sebastian Zutant, Anthony Aligo, Nick Guglietta, and Nate Fisher. Mark those names because my friend’s reaction was: Are they Americans? They are Americans and they have apologized to those who ask that they change the name of their project. Here is their published apology: We apologize to all we offended, and to our community we hope to serve. It was never our intention to appropriate or capitalize on the Filipino culture and we fell short in engaging more of the Filipino community.
“Community” is singular; “Filipino community” is also singular. Outside of the US we are not Filipino community. But I do not propose that these men express their apology to all Filipinos. Some or many of us do not care about this issue. There are other battles to fight and they do not involve labels and bars.
The fact is culture is never homogeneous. It will be boring if culture has one true color. Culture is interesting because it contains different colors. Or, cultures are interesting because they are not just one single culture.
Authenticity has long been regarded as misunderstood or overrated. The cultures as lived are always about people in a journey between two or more domains of behaviors and thought-processes. We are, as James Clifford puts it, “oscillating between cultures.”
Confrontations are good; they yield new confronting idea. One thing that we all learned from this identity dispute is the word, “Barkada” itself. The contentious label traces its roots to the Spanish word, “barcada,” which means “boatload.” Did some (not all) of our ancestors learn about the word and its meaning? Did they decide to appropriate it in place of “balangay” or that sense of belonging to that clan based on the name of a big boat?
In 1972, a dictator changed the smallest political unit in our country from barrio to barangay, and the rest is martial law history.
What is the problem with cultural appropriation? All cultures have appropriated other cultures. We call that process change or domination or colonization. The entire United States of America is a product of massive cultural appropriations. Filipinos in America have appropriated behavior, sense of wealth and propriety so that they would become part of the monumental American dream and citizenship. It is called living and surviving.
In the end, shouldn’t some of us apologize to Spain for our appropriation of the Spanish “barcada”? Now, this is another essay and debate.
E-mail: titovaliente@yahoo.com
Image credits: JImbo Albano