Different factors - the profitable tropicalization of our experiences by the media, the daunting challenges of tying imperial forces to personal history, the fear and shame that self-censor us into silence about difficult truths in our families - prevent many a diasporic writer from telling these urgently needed stories. Though we shared Spanish words and working-class roots, André and I had no clue how our family stories echoed the ebb and tide of empires, ancient and modern. Like a Pinoy Prospero shipwrecked on San Francisco shores by the violent undulations of global history, André taught me to curse like Caliban, combining “putang,” a variation on the Spanish word for prostitute, with “ina mo,” a Tagalog phrase for “your mother” that jingled in my adolescent ears like the English “eenie meenie miney mo.” André was a short, dark, pugnacious kid who, after breaking my nose on a basketball court, introduced me to the martial art of Filipino cussing. CONCEPCION An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes By Albert SamahaĪlbert Samaha’s memoir, “Concepcion: An Immigrant Family’s Fortunes,” stirred middle school memories of my immigrant friend André.
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