Week 9: This is what home as all along

This was absolutely the toughest quarter I’ve had in school. At the end, it fits because of what was on my plate. One thing I won’t do is discount all the things that lead me to here – write them off as something I moved pass from. From issues of my health to moving in with my partner to feeling my own intergenerational trauma to feeling so affected by the content of this course. So many things grabbed at me and have both contributed to massive amounts of stress and gratitude for being able to see through the pain and turn it into action.

The bad part is though, I don’t know if my writing has improved. Because I chose something so personal I focused a lot more on the personals than how I’m writing it. And with the stress and the issues I just wasn’t able to dedicate enough time to really think about my writing.

One thing I realized with my paper was how the home I chose to write about has been with me this whole time. For like the past three years. My home are the feelings of being connected to myself and my environment (sometimes other people are involved in it too lol), it’s the feelings of appreciation and forgiveness of myself, and honesty-acceptance-love for myself. Practicing it everyday, being patient in that process. Noticing when I’m far from home and seeing how long and what needs to happen in order to get back.

The hard part was connecting it to APIA pop culture. I started with family which is a definite sore spot. Then I moved it over to representation of Asian women and then shortening the lens to include specifically Pilipina women. I wanted to connect my home with how disconnected I was to my ethnicity and WHY. With my home and all that connection, I took the time to really feel my feelings, to talk about them, and to move forward with them. Because my ethnic identity was largely erased, most of the feelings I had about it were uncomfortable feelings. And I had no place to feel or talk about them. Even when openings were available throughout these three years I didn’t dare to walk through them. It’s the power of representation and opportunity when it took a rare Asian American culture program to get me to think deeply about my own damn life.

So that is where my paper is. I have not worked in it since this past Monday night but I did that purposefully to being all dedicated tonight and tomorrow. Really that is all I need. I highly believe in my writing abilities and I know the finished product will be something I’m proud of. I just need to really take the time out and let the words and connections all come to me.

A lot of my paper is recognizing my identities and how the development of those hindered my Pilipina identity – it just wasn’t something I thought about. In my paper I wrote about why it’s important for me to bring all my selves into the work I do and in my life. So yeah yeah it’s all personal to me, and when it gets like this I know I resist getting to the personal feelings. Like it’ll take me a long time to actually write something I can use. But this is why I waited until the night before to do all the heavy lifting.

When this is done I can relax and feel good about the work I’ve done.