FILIPINO AMERICAN BARBIE They looked and looked
Maria-Luisa Aguilar-Cariño
Dear sister in the islands, it’s the middle of March
but there’s a snowstorm watch in Chicago. I need
to get away, to lie in the tropical sun, sign up
for one of those tours that primse you a blinding
“recovery of cultural roots”. Here, I can never
go anywhere and when we do it’s always to church,
to the mall or to parties, and there’s always
chaperones
and a curfew. I’m tired of winter’s chocolate-and-angel-
white fashions, tired of being mistaken for Pocahontas
without the fringe. My owner’s parents bought me
because they thought I would help her identify
more closely with a model.
inside my box and seemed disappointed
when they couldn’t find a manual or free cassette
on Tagalog Made Easy, but quickly appreciated
the fact that among my accessories– including
a Gold Card, magenta fan and singkil princess’
costume, a beauty queen’s sash and rhinestone
tiara– was a birth certificate proclaiming me
third generation, American born, all parts
assembled in the USA. “See,” they said,
“she isn’t one of those who’d chase after Ken
or some other chap in a G.I. uniform
because she needs a green card. Look at that
and count your blessings”. My owner
doesn’t always think kindly of me– all of this
is never spoken, though I can read it easily.
After all, I’m supposed to have a Filipino core–
perhaps something encased in my plastic rubber
ribcage? Anyway, when she’s in a bad mood she pulls
at my face and hisses at me to point with my lips.
She tells her parents I smell like fish, no matter
how many times she washes my dark, waist-length
hair in lemon-scented dishwashing detergent.
I can understand her frustrations. Like her,
my English is without accent, but sometimes
I think both of us could use a short aggressiveness
training course. It must be the rule of obedience–
you never raise your voice to someone older,
someone male; you never question authority.
Her parents and grandparents won’t let her, but
she wants to join the navy and see the world.
She wants to put on a ‘chute and fall nearly
weightless through a brilliant sky, to skim
down the sights of a rifle and hit a target
from a hundred yards away. She wants
to dye her hair purple or wear it in dread-
locks. She wonders what it’s like to kiss
a woman, what it’s like to have a white
boy come inside her. She wants to invent
herself and escape the sticky coils of chismis.
My heart goes out to her, especially when
she comes in from a fight with her boyfriend.
Despite her share of forthrightness, she’s still
caught in a bind. She wants him to listen
to what she’s not saying aloud, she wants
him to train every cell in his body to the messages
she unconsciously sends with her eyes, the unspoken
language of her need. She flings herself upon me
on the bed. It crosses my mind that following
the American way, this is a time she needs
to work out her griefs in private,
even as her warm salt tears fall on my
perfected face, and my brown arms ache
to form the gesture for embrace.