i am no carlos bulosan

it all happens after the insipid ideals of my humanities class. whereas the burden of finding a book, skimming it, close, then open again and spend nights before the deadline gruelling and printing your paper hours before the class. they call it term paper, i call it pseudo liability.

but everything seems to point me toward meeting someone departed, scrutinising a rigid more complicated biography thru books and text, engaging myself towards a life he had that i might possess.

a young boy drowned by the deception of poverty. a real witness of social stigma and for others, they are the visuals of this stigma.

i never thought i could stand with my principle, i never knew i have it at all. but when my professor at the other side of the building asked the class what went wrong in our country. deep silence. all you can hear is the shuddering of the air condition and the shivery people vying for the title of i-can-handle-the-cold even when their faces disagrees.

then suddenly, a hand threw up high in the air. so high that the cold faces sigh a relief for that hand can be their hope to say i-handle-the-cold, but their faces grew more white knowing that the hand does not rebel with the cold, but rebel with the question.

i never wanted to admit it. but it’s the same hand typing at the moment. it’s when people wanted another battle in mactan but because rather inapproppriate, they call it power of the people, power of the masses. yes, we are all indeed sick and tired with the administration. don’t get me wrong, i’m talking about the present administration, the one with loud boo’s and jeer’s. yah, another present times, another boo’s and jeer’s, another call for action, different faces of the leaders, same problem.

did we all try to put ourselves in equation? or do we still need batches of great lawmakers, great leaders and great people and put them in the collection of crocodile effigy soon to be burned. it’s great to see people still fighting for a cause, but it’s weakening to see people fighting for a cause not knowing what they are fighting for because they are marionettes of social illeteracy and more despairing is that their ventriloquist is vying for a hidden power.

suddenly, that one hand raised breaks the silence of the class, hands down and i feel the collected shiver in my body and my mouth started to tremble, evidently. the professor come somewhat shocked, neither of us expected that kind of utter. but it all come into conclusion. that principle is somewhat acclaimed. well, everybody may argue for the lack of this, lack of that. i know i can’t make deep reasoning, i am not so confidant with words. but whatever your notion is/or any hater response. it’s worthy of the class’ hand. ^.^

it’s so stupid that being away from my home, i tend to make this kind of recall and be sober. I am no Mr Carlos Bulosan, the one drowned with poverty in his own lifetime. The protagonist of his own novel and years after, i observe the written words furtively.

Mr Carlos Bulosan represent the modern day migrants. the need to be lost to find theirselves away but with ease of economic norms. the need to be away for the promise of everything green. unlike him, after the worst trials the foreign land has given him, he can still see a bit of light and tries to magnify it with his spirit. i don’t know if i can handle it. america indeed is in the heart and that heart belongs to my native land.

mr carlos “allos” has given me real inspiration. i am where his foot once stood. i just don’t know if i can stand to his principle.

~ by Dyepri Budoy on August 30, 2008.