What's in a Name?

I don’t know my own name. I can’t pronounce the damn thing correctly. Twenty-two years old and my name sounds strange off my tongue.

Krystal Banzon.

CHRIS-tul BAND-zahn in the states.

Krrris-TAHL BAAN-SOHN in the Philippines.

So I end up mumbling it incoherently when people ask, which requires them to ask me again because they can’t hear or understand me. So I repeat it louder, my lips clumsily tripping over syllables that have belonged to me my whole life, my eyes shifting, embarrassed that I don’t know my own name. Humiliated that I can’t correctly pronounce the ethnic tones that formulate my Visayan last name, the letters that connect me to my father’s heritage.

“KRRRISTAHL BAANSOHN!! Oh, very formal!” people exclaim.

“Krystal” here apparently doesn’t have the same suburban cheerleader connotations it has in the States.

I’ve realized that a similar narrative exists with people who grew up in more than one culture, that some of my own friends have had to resign themselves to be renamed a similar, but simpler nickname for the comfort and ease of the dominant culture, or have had to fight to get their name pronounced correctly, rolled-R’s,long-A’s and all. And then there are the ones like myself, who mumble their birth name all throughout their lives, for some reason never asking their parents for the correct pronunciation, and muttering it inconsistently for years before finally settling on an mess of vowels that is easy to say, but difficult to claim.

Banzon. BAANzon. BanZON. BanSON. BENson. BenZON. BANDzon.

a predicament
of hybridity
of imperialist hegemony
a speech impediment

culturally,

sneakily,

imposed

like bank repos
taken and resold.

it’s the therapy of society
to help you fix
that confusing ethnic

lilt

to train
your brain
to enunciate

PRO-NONE-SEE-ate

For the convenience of the bank men
The understanding of white friends
To avoid bureaucratic dead ends
And prevent corporate interview
career-killing trends

Make it effortless.

No distress

No questions

No shame(?)

in that mutter
stutter
slur
that is Your Name

A Strange Desire.

This is one of the most entertaining things I’ve ever seen, and I have a strange desire to participate in the fun.



By the end of the year, you'll see me astride a panda. Guaranteed.

Confessions of A BEAUTY QUEE(r)N

Filipinos are a very direct people.

Add the Family dimension to that and you’ve never experienced honesty so candid.

Apparently, I’m fat.
And uglier and than they expected.

And honestly, I’ve never heard insults so laced with love. It’s not a mean-spirited kind of forthrightness. It’s a kind of frankness that comes from a place of caring and joviality, a casual, unasked for opinion that is to be swallowed with appreciation and volleyed back with humor, not defensiveness.

Don’t get me wrong. It still takes some getting used to.

I was greeted by a beloved pinsan who exclaimed, “Oh, you’re still very, very ‘healthy’!”
*Healthy = Fat.*
My Tita causally mentioned, “Look at that big stomach! Don’t you want to be sexy for your boyfriend?”
*No doubt that’s why I don’t have one.*
My gorgeous cousin told me that she was so surprised when she saw me! Apparently, the picture our Lola sent was incredibly misleading because in the photo I was pretty and had pigtails.
*1) Was pretty?!
2) I don’t remember the last time my hair was long enough to be in pigtails.*
Another Aunt handed me some yummy-scented papaya soap and offered vehemently to buy me more when I run out.
*Papaya WHITENING soap.*
My nine-year-old cousin said that I am “chub-chub, talaga!”
*Self-explanatory.*

The cherry on the top of it all (which I apparently shouldn’t eat) was when I was admiring a relatives jewelry, specifically her beautiful hand-painted bangles, and I mentioned the irritating fact that they were made for small wrists. Her BOYFRIEND jumped in and said (without malice or mean-spiritedness),

“That will give you some incentive to get fit! So you can wear them too!”

Really now, If I’m not going to lose weight for a man, what makes you think I’m going to diet for fucking baby-wrist-bangles?

Oh, and several children have commented that I look like a boy.

Which, to be fair, is what I’m going for sometimes. But, looking like a boi in queer-mo NoHo or lezbionic Brooklyn is perceived differently than looking like a dude in the Mall of Asia. There is no blatant female queerness on the street, in the media, or in advertising. Androgyny is not all the rage in the Philippines as in America. No representation = no reference for the general population = strange = pangit.

Oddly enough, to some extent, in the Philippines gay men are more accepted in the public sphere. Gay men have a special place in Filipino culture; drag queens, high-pitched hairdressers and flaming fashionistas are taken to be a part of life. However, queer women are rendered invisible.

Perhaps femininity is valued in a different way in the Philippines. It seems like femininity isn't viewed as a threat, unlike the States. It seems to be a trait that is honored, cultivated, and venerated. The Lola is the matriarch and everyone loves and respects their Nanay without compunction. Maybe it comes from Catholicism and the idolization of the Virgin Mary, a form of marianismo within the culture that worships femininity and sees it as something to be desired. Maybe that is why gay men are tolerated and represented more than gay women?... Hmm, research time....

The ego is a fragile entity, and especially for women it must be nurtured and stroked more often than not to undo all the fucked up shit that gets thrown at it by Hollywood, patriarchy and racism: Be Thin, Be Feminine, Be White = Be Beautiful!

I thank Smith College and feminists in my life for creating the open, accepting, progressive, queer environment that I was so blessed to be a part of. If it were not for the first two years of fantastic friends and feminist maintenance that fixed my abused and broken self-esteem and body image, and the last two years of confidence building and training in how to feel hot and fabulous as a genderqueer POC with a sexy beer belly – I don’t think I would be holding up as well as I’m doing now.

I was about to say I miss seeing people like myself.
Ironically, this is the first time in my life I've seen so many people who look like me.
No better place to see Filipinos than the Philippines.
Now, where are the queers, I wonder?

Such is the struggle.