As a child I thought it was silly that my mother never learned Tagalog, because my Phillipine-born grandmother was fluent in it. Now my grandmother is afraid to go to the Asian store to buy rice flour, and I don’t think it's silly anymore. She is afraid to go because she is Filipino and has brown skin, and possesses a tongue privy to Tagalog that illustrates this to the world. She is well aware that her complexion and her voice could result in masked men twice her stature forcing her delicate, proudly jeweled hands behind her back. I don’t think it’s silly anymore, when she fears these strangers in bullet proof vests yelling at her for an ID at a volume that presumes she is stupid because she must not be from here.
I wish I could comfort her and tell her that because she was naturalized in America and possesses a record of her citizenship, that it is enough to keep ICE agents from interrogating her. But they do not hear Tagalog or see a beautiful product of the American melting pot; they hear and see something foreign. I instead must implore her to bring my caucasian grandfather with her to buy rice flour, and pray that despite his frail age, his whiteness is enough to defend her. It is not so silly now, why she insisted on never teaching her homeland’s language to my mother. A piece of heritage smited before it could be formed, before it could endanger her children in an Arkansan Asian store, the purchase of bokchoi or Tamari sauce their last moment before they’re on the floor of a detention center. I understand now.
By Ana Minkel
You’re still asleep when I wake up, so I make French toast. Vanilla, butter, brown sugar. I save
the best slices for you. But does it matter? You’ll still say it’s too eggy. As if I can control how
eggy my eggs are.
I serve you the roundest pancakes I make, the ones with the crisp golden edges and the neatest
banana-slice smiley faces. But will you see it? You hate bananas, and you’ve never had much of
a creative eye.
You’ll always have the muffins with the most chocolate chips, or blueberries, or cinnamon. The
ones with the shiny, full tops and the buttery bottoms. But do you care? You’ll remind me that I
never make enough muffins, because I run out of some ingredient before the rest. As if anyone
can ever tell how much olive oil is still in the bottle.
You’re still asleep when I get hungry, so I eat the French toast with the worst proportions of oil,
milk, salt. The slices with the slimy intact egg white and the soggy center. It doesn’t matter.
I serve myself the crinkled pancakes, I guess I flipped them over too early. Their edges are
blackened. Not toasted, just straight ash. The banana smiley face I made is lost in the batter
somewhere. You won’t see it.
I’ll always have the muffins that somehow missed the chocolate chips, or blueberries, or
cinnamon. They’ll have sagging, chalky tops and crumby bottoms. You don’t care. How could
you, after all? I do all the shopping, and I ran out of olive oil before anything else. Did I make
enough muffins, now that half of them will be moist and half of them won’t?
You’re still asleep when I crawl back into bed. You turn over, content. How could you not? The
best of everything I have is yours, and you’ll never know. You’ll never be the one that is awake,
alone. You’ll never eat by yourself, and you’ll never do or forget to do the shopping. You will always be fed, and I will always
be hungry.
I made you French toast. I hope you like it.
By Madison Bussell Escoto