Usaping Puki (Tagalog Version of The Vagina Monologues)

After traveling to OAK for a long weekend last weekend, and then spending this week catching up from being away, I'm trying to catch up here, too.

(Things in the queue: Guerrilla Girls at UMD; Dyspecific, Parae, Wood (& Kate Bornstein); DC Kings 6-year anniversary show; People who categorically don't dance; Pinay Power; House parties; parol tattoo; Black.White.; learning Jota Paragua)

But for now, let me say just a little something about Usaping Puki, the Tagalog version of The Vagina Monologues that I had the fortune to attend last weekend, Feb 26 at the Herbst Theatre in San Francisco.

The Filipina Women's Network along with V-Day held two benefit performances to raise awareness and funds to end violence against women and girls.

While I was a bit disappointed at missing my own university's production of The Vagina Monologues, I'd have to say that seeing the first Tagalog version to be performed in the U.S. more than made up for it. Another treat was the all-Filipina cast of performers.

Despite all the times I've seen, read, and taught the VM, it was an entirely different experience seeing it performed by an all-Filipina cast in Tagalog.

One difference was just being able to see so many brown women on stage. I don't think in all the performances I've seen that I've ever seen so many women of color on stage as I did at Usaping Puki. It was also a very new experience for me to attend an event with so many Filipinos in attendance, too. I think my mom's office parties when I was a kid is probably the only other comparable thing I can remember being part of a large Filipino gathering.

Another difference is just how AMAZING it was to be able to experience the VM in Tagalog. Anytime I can hear Tagalog, I cherish it--being here in Washington DC as opposed to Daly City, I don't get to hear it hardly as much as I'd like. I can't exactly explain, but it's a language that makes me feel grounded.

It was also such a different experience hearing about sex, vaginas, cunts, pubic hair, and everything else Vagina-related said out loud in Tagalog. I felt embarrassed, excited, shy, proud, and most of all empowered.

I go back and forth on whether I consider Tagalog my "native" language--mostly because as a 1.5 generation immigrant, it might have been spoken in the house, but rarely ever to me. This is still the case when I visit my parents, who'll be having conversations in Tagalog, automatically switching to English when I'm addressed. I'm still not sure why this practice ever started...so that my English-language abilities in school wouldn't be compromised? I don't buy the whole, "we're in America, so speak English" trope because it was always clear to me that we were "foreigners" (having diplomatic status)and that my parents' lives, friends, and communities were never about assimilating into "American" culture, but rather them maintaining Filipino ways and cultures. What happened to us 1.5 generation kids, though, runs the gamut...(maybe more on that later)

In any case, I also enjoyed Usaping Puki because it was a nice long show. I think in all the show lasted four hours, including one intermission. I definitely felt like I got my fill--well, at least for that day! I also really liked the Anti-Violence Resource Guide that the Filipina Women's Network distributed at the show.

I wish I could do my experience justice here, but the words are falling away from me...yet in their place is this amazing peace fueling passion.