Problèmes de bourgeois?*

A university asks applicants to write a supplementary essay addressing how they might be eligible for "diversity scholarships." Unfortunately, I got tangential and did nothing of the sort, so I figured this might be a more appropriate space for these words. Although I'm not the most eloquent person, I do think about such "issues," and lately, in light of all the weird tags and political posters I've been seeing in my neighborhood (umm, "anti-Spanish racism?"), conversations with co-workers, an event that happened at school, conversations with A, and thinking about the concept of the EU, of the new Spaniard.

The laptop on which I’m drafting essays—because hardly anyone in my generation really writes by hand anymore—is light. A graduation gift, the machine is a portable 12.1” that can sandwiched in my right hand, just like a pocket book. Most every (non-Mac) aficionado I encounter is pleased with it. They comment on the design, the weight, the relative cleanliness. After nearly two years’ worth of use. It might already be out of date, but no matter. I beam like a proud parent.

This is an anecdote to mark my privilege, presumed to be the land of white-collar workers, or perhaps, more appropriately, the non-workers. This is an anecdote to state that privilege comes in all forms—and that I’m conscious of mine.

Highly conscious of having a computer, of being computer literate, of being literate. My mom beams. A proud parent.

She didn’t grow up with computers. I have vague notions of her past. She describes it as filled with lack—an oxymoron, if I ever heard one. There are no photographs from her childhood or her adolescence, only something from the 1970s. She was taking my three cousins on some sort of outing. I can hardly imagine the Philippines then, even now. I have vague memories of my last trip: smoke, dust, noise, like any contemporary metropolis.

I use my laptop to search for images. I recognize and don’t at the same time. “Otherness” and “hybridity” are terms I’ve learned through schooling in the U.S., but are concepts I’ve been negotiating. Often I ask myself whether or not my mom and I share similar spaces, and most of the time, I think the answer is a resounding no. I’m self-absorbed in a very “American” fashion, although it’s through her travails that I’m able to assume a slightly more elevated socioeconomic status, to sometimes pass. Proof: speech, dress, property—the accoutrements of privilege. Yet, like my mom, I’m still visibly tagged.

It’s for easier reference.

She says not to worry. She reminds me that many opportunities lie ahead. Education is the key.

Now we’ll see what door(s) will open.



*so titled after a scene in Julie Delpy's 2 Days in Paris, in which she and her sister (in the movie) laugh about the superficial quality of their complaints



(Photo: Jeff Vergara)