Dear diary part 2:POEM

    Dear diary, I'm still waiting to get my draft body paragraph revision back, but because I emailed it and am to poor for INsite I fear its lost in the infinite messages my teacher gets. Anyways back to the important stuff, recently in English we went over a poem based on Filipino history it was a poem by Kevin Nadals called "Ikaw", it triggered immense feelings from me I felt angry and as if I was being told a bit of my story through his poem.

Twenty years ago

you told me that life was better.

Better than they used to be.

But then you called me a dogeater.

Monkey.

Oriental.

Nigger.

Chink.

Flip.

Fob.

You told me my skin was dirty I'd never be like you.

You told that I was ugly because I didnt look like you.

Kevin Nadal incites his anger and the past discrimination he and other Filipinos had to deal with living in America as the subordinate race. The fact that his skin color was different and the stereotypes behind the Filipino race brought many insults like the term dogeater, which he mentions including all the insults he and every Filipino has ever been called, he states it.

Reading these lines brought me back to my earlier child years. I remember clearly the insults and the discrimination I went through growing up. As a kid I didn't even know what a chink was I remember I couldn't even respond back the first time I even got called a chink, I just knew it was something negative from the tone of the other kids voice, I was probably only 7 at the time during my baseball years when it first happened. Reflecting back on the past as a child I didn't even know what race I affiliated with yet; I just knew I was different and was already getting ridiculed for my ethical backround, but today I can say I'm proud to be Filipino regardless of the discrimination I faced in the past.

Bayan Community

The Bayan community is a community where students unite along with their teacher as a family, Filipino's and people of other races get together to create an environment where they can work as a family. Everybody in the Bayan community refer to each other as brother or sister in a sense of mutual respect in order to create a sense of family bond. The purpose of the Bayan community is to get students to unite with each other to become involved with the Filipino culture and the values they share.

Being a student involved in the Bayan community, I learned what it meant to be apart of the Bayan family meaning helping each other on assignments, sharing ideas, and following the instructors rules. So far being five weeks into the semester I can say I developed bonds with my classmates better then I do other classes, I feel more united and comfortable around them.