Wake Up and Smell the Champorado

It’s Monday, early in the afternoon, an hour before school ends yet there you are, standing at the corner of Fremont and Decoto, eating your french fries form Mickey Fickey D’s.

Your head is bobbin’ to the loud music and right when the song is over, the act begins.

You’re sportin’ the pinoy Pride cap, wearin’ the Lapu Lapu Pinoy Strength T-shirt, sayin’ a few putanginamos here and a couple lintris nas there to show how down you are with Philippine pride.

Then, across from you, on the other corner, you spot your rival gang, them damn Filipinos from the East Side of Fremont Blvd., the same ones that stole the girl you got pregnant last summer, the same ones that shot at your brother for stealing one of theirs last spring.

At that moment, you raise your hands, revealing the gat in your pocket, shouting, "W’sup, it’s all about West Side!"

And now I ask you,Why?!

Why are you symbolizing your so-called pride if all you’re doing is denying education, fighting another for a sniff of that cooch, looking at women as only objects, and killing your own people?

How can you believe that wearing the shirt and cap and speaking a few words shows your pride?

You talk about how much pride you have, but what are you doing about it? Are you trying your best in school?

Are you doing something productive for yourself?

Are you giving back to the community, or are you merely destroying it?

Take a look at yourself in the mirror. You’ll find that wearing the cap, the shirt, and saying a few words only trivializes the hundreds of years Filipinos have struggled in America to gain recognition.

So maybe next time, when you’re not busy cutting class, sniffing the cooch, out killing your own, you can check the defintion of pride. It’s never too late to stop living a lie.
by Garrick Macatangay, February 1996