Dedication for the Academic Filipina (Circa 1930s)

for Rosario

You wash your hair with the soap Perla. You get dressed in a long-skirted baro’t saya. You have a

red typewriter, one you borrowed from your Lola. You arrive at school, one of three women in a

class of ten. You raise your hand for your American teacher in recitation. You think your

seatmate is muy guapo. In between classes, you sip a Pepsi-Cola and smoke a cigarillo. You

dream in Tagalog but speak fluent Spanish. You are learning English. You have mastered

pagtatahi―sewing. And pagtatagpi―connecting random thoughts. But English is difficult.

You wear your long hair in a bun, the shape of pan de sal. You wear high heels, which slide

in-between the cobblestones. You are the first woman in esta familia to go to colegio. Your

escuela in Maynila is the first school to open for women. You wish you didn’t have to go to

Manila, prefer the tall grasses in the provincia to all these cobblestones. You go home before

your curfew, beso your mama. You take your clothes off in the bathroom and wash them with

Perla. After you’ve washed your clothes―paglalaba―with what’s left of the Perla, you wash

your body―pampaputi. You carve out time in the night to type―start over each letter A B C

until Z.