All American English

Photo credit:  https://www.choosephilippines.com/eat/restaurants/5518/international-burger-day-zomato

English is not my mother tongue.  I learned it by watching Sesame Street when I was growing up and then my teachers taught me the language starting from the first grade.  I vaguely remember that there were only five subjects on my first grade- Math, Civics, Filipino, Writing (which is not about doing essays but literally learning how to write) and English.  So when it comes to learning the English language, Filipinos have an early start.  It was one of the foundation of our education. 



When I arrived in the US, speaking almost fluent English, everyone was surprised, and the automatic question of everybody was, “when did you learn to speak the language”.  If I am feeling smart-assy, I would say since Big Bird and Oscar the Grouch started bickering at each other.  And if I wanted to have the conversation to end with “how nice” and we could go on with our lives-I’d say, since first grade. 



Now the English that I know is very textbook.  It is not very conversational.  It is very formal to the point that I do not make sense at all when I talk, at least to the lady at the check-out counter at Walmart.  And I have a very thick accent (which I still do presently).  I will roll my Rs and mix my P’s and F’s.  Pronouns are very interchangeable to me so there is no gender bias in my vocabulary.  So if you are a madam, and I address you as a he, please do not take offense at all as it is the Filipino undertone that is speaking to you.  Filipino language, mainly Tagalog is very gender neutral, even if our society is very much macho.



I feared speaking English when I arrived here.  I had to rehearse in front of the mirror to say what I am going to say even at a take-out counter.  The most challenging speaking task for me would be trying to explain my dilemma to a customer service agent wherein I have to dig at the deepest recesses of my brain to exhaust  every English vocabulary I know to make the message come across to the person I’m talking to.  Fifty percent of the time, they will not.  Which frustrates me, and frustrates the other person.  And to top that, that person would give me the clincher of frustration-an eye roll, which I think is borderline racist, as if trying to say that I could not speak good English and there was no point in explaining my argument.  The only thing that was separating us between logic and irritation was a language interpreter. 



One time, I helped a Filipino friend talk to an insurance claims officer after being hit by a car at a parking lot in a grocery store.  He was trying so hard to explain the events that transpired, even the most unimportant details were being relayed to the agent that somehow made his story more convoluted and confusing.  I helped him translate to the other person on the line the situation he was in but the he kept interrupting the conversation because I was missing details about the event, which by this time, I didn’t think mattered because I could hear the frustration on the agent’s voice, so I told him, “would you mind getting an interpreter” so he could explain in Tagalog what he wanted to say because my translation was not enough, at least for my friend.  So the agent obliged.  This was when I realized that he was not even fluent in Tagalog because the interpreter did not see his point in going around the bush.  The story was still confusing and convoluted.  The barrier was not language-but his personality. 



Anyway, what I am trying to say is, non-English speaking immigrants of the US will have to face this dilemma when they get thrown into the community.  But the thing about Filipino accent is that it is usually not apparent when Filipinos start singing.  And you probably know how obsessed we are in karaoke.  We are separated by more than seven thousand islands but we are united by the Miss Universe Pageant and singing with a microphone.  My work-friend once told me that I “sing” like an American as my accent goes away when I start belting out Frank Sinatra’s My Way.  I told her, “I should start talking to you in song”, which she got excited.  But I do not want to give her the satisfaction of me being embarrassed for being out of tune. 



In addition, most Filipinos are good at writing.  And we are damn more legible writers than most US-educated students.  Heck, I told you we had a subject in writing since the first grade.  Our grammars are usually on point- but I still catch myself slipping from time to time. 

Since we are good writers, our conversation matches the way we write, very formal and respectful.  We speak as if if we are writing- no phrases like, “I’mmanahave cheeseburger with fries, whacha’ll havin?”  Ten years ago, I would have just nodded to that question because most probably, I did not understand what the hell it meant.  It just takes practice to get used to colloquial English language.  My mom is still having a hard time understanding servers at restaurants because they talk fast and speak Texas-English.  She does not have any enough practice in English because she likes to be cooped at home watching Filipino telenovelas and Korean soap operas.  I would not be surprised if one of these days she will talk to me in Korean at the dinner table because her favorite dessert after every meal is Lee Min Ho.    



I remember memorizing my line in front of a mirror before ordering at McDonald’s: “I will be having a Piley oh-piss.  The meal.  I want it regular only.  And I will be having Coke.  Yes.  Coca-cola.  Not the Diet but I want the ordinary Coke. Only.  Please.”

An even before ordering, the usual greeting would be, “how are you?” which I did not come prepared as I did not rehearse the answer to the question.  I did not realize back then that your response was a simple “I’m good, how about yourself?” and then go on with your business.  My naïve Filipino self would enumerate the things that happened to me that day- that I had a long and stressful one because blah blah blah which was a totally an unexpected response. 

This situation always brought smiles to the person behind the register, talking to an Asian who happens to lament  about the struggles of his daily life (and maybe the challenge he was faced with the English language) while at the same time ordering an American meal in his perfect, yet broken American English. 

He had no idea how this Asian practiced in front of a mirror several times that morning just to enjoy an All-American indulgence of fat, salt and patriotism. 

April 30, 2020