West Trestle Review
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
    • May 2023
    • March 2023
    • January 2023
    • November 2022
    • September 2022
    • July 2022
    • May 2022
    • March 2022
    • January 2022
    • November 2021
    • September 2021
    • July 2021
    • May 2021
    • March 2021
    • January 2021
    • November 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
  • Cross-Ties
  • Silver Tongue Saturdays
  • About
    • Arrivals & Departures
    • Masthead
    • Submit
    • Join Our Team
    • Archive >
      • Jane Beal
      • Beverly Burch
      • Kathleen Gunton
      • Connie Gutowsky
      • Priscilla Lee
      • Irene Lipshin
  • Home
  • Current Issue
  • Past Issues
    • May 2023
    • March 2023
    • January 2023
    • November 2022
    • September 2022
    • July 2022
    • May 2022
    • March 2022
    • January 2022
    • November 2021
    • September 2021
    • July 2021
    • May 2021
    • March 2021
    • January 2021
    • November 2020
    • September 2020
    • July 2020
  • Cross-Ties
  • Silver Tongue Saturdays
  • About
    • Arrivals & Departures
    • Masthead
    • Submit
    • Join Our Team
    • Archive >
      • Jane Beal
      • Beverly Burch
      • Kathleen Gunton
      • Connie Gutowsky
      • Priscilla Lee
      • Irene Lipshin
Search by typing & pressing enter

YOUR CART

Daniela Paraguya Sow

You Don't Count

After Victoria Chang’s Dear Memory: “Dear Daughter [ . . . ] You were born in a more diverse and progressive state. You are half Asian and half white. Does that mean you experience half the racism? That you feel half the pain?
​Or, alongside your own pain, do you inherit all of your grandmother’s pain, my pain, America’s pain?”
I.
 
When I roll ground pork and minced
onions and carrots into pale, egg-washed
lumpia wrappers, I am furious
at my fingers that fumble, that fold the lumpia
into lumpy moist layers. These are the times
I think, I am only half
as good as my mother. She could do better.
Next time, the lumpia will be petite. Less meat.
 
There is no next time.
 
II.
 
The first Kapatirang Pilipino meeting of the
college school year. What am I doing here?
A sea of new students,
their voices like a windchime of shells
swelling into the national anthem.
 
            Bayang Magiliw                            
            perlas ng Silanganan                     
            Alab ng puso                     
            Sa dibdib mo’y buhay                   
            Lupang hinirang                            
            Duyan ka ng magiting                   
            Sa manlulupig                               
            Di ka pasisiil . . .                           
 
I don’t know the words.
I was never taught
any of this. A wave of panic pushes me
out the main door, the choir
calling, falling behind me.
 
III.
 
In a blender / every whirr / slices me open / Filipino is not
           Asian, you don’t count
                                     as Asian / Where were you
born, where did you grow up? / Oh, you don’t know
                                                                Tagalog / anymore? You ever been 
to the Philippines? / You don’t look Filipina–oh, sige, I see it in your eyes /
 
                    Mutt / hybrid / half breed
                              hapa / you could be an actress!
 
Here: your box(es) / check as many as apply
                                                              I / check 
I am not / star apple / lychee / longan / Billietiae with orange petioles
            I am not / Dark Lord in full glory / Florida bronze on your lawn
 
                                                                                                       I am not / your exotic
 
 
IV.
 
Poached. Yolk running down, over-easy.
Sunny side up—or boiled? Naming things: easy.
 
But there is no name
for the way I cooked my eggs this morning:
half scrambled—the yellow slightly stirred,
the rest of the white, showing.
November / December, 2022

Barbara Daniels
Daniela Paraguya Sow (she/her) is a Filipina & Romanian American writer and serves as an Assistant Professor of English at Grossmont College in San Diego, California. She holds an MFA in Creative Writing from San Diego State University. Her writing has appeared or is forthcoming in Mixed Asian Media, San Diego City Works Press, Amphora Magazine, Musing Publications, The Lumiere Review, The Hyacinth Review, and elsewhere. You can reach her on Twitter: @daniela_sow. 
Art: Woma​n in Red Dress. Oil on canvas. T. Aguilera.
  
Powered by Women