Acts of Naming

[Yes, these are just words, but we are writers here, invested in the power of words, the power of naming, the power of writing and speaking a thing into existence.]

Have you read Edwin Torres’s post, “Señor Smith to you,” at the Poetry Foundation blog? Torres writes about the recent SPIC UP/Speak OUT! event which took place at Spanish Harlem’s El Museo del Barrio. You can also read the NY Times article, and reading series host Emmanuel Xavier at the Letras Latinas blog.

I am wondering if the above is specifically Puerto Rican/East Coast, versus Latinos nationally. Here on the West/Left Coast, I went to college and did some amount of activist and literary work with Latin@s and Xican@s (this latter term I understand that especially when spelled with the “X,” is a highly politicized term). I don’t think I’ve ever heard my Latin@/Xican@ friends and colleagues use the term, “spic,” even in ironic ways, though I do continue to hear the term “Hispanic” used in a very loaded and distinct manner. Paul Martínez Pompa does this in My Kill Adore Him, and I totally get it. Actually, Professor Carlos Muñoz once wrote on the chalkboard in the Racial Politics in America course, “Hispanic = His Spic,” so this is not ironic (at least I don’t think it is). This I think is similar to the way Amiri Baraka uses the N-word when referring to certain African Americans exhibiting certain behaviors, and not as a synonym for members of the community at large. Still, people contest him on his usage all the time without apparently considering the distinctions (here’s an old blog post of mine on his appearance and City Lights Books in February 2007).

I am not sure if I can draw many parallels between this term and “Flips,” which was a derogatory term used against Filipinos: “Fucking Little Island People,” and all. We have done so much reclaiming of the term, and I do not know any non-Filipinos who ever use this term, nor do I know any non-Filipinos who contest me and my community members’ usage of the term.

“Flips” is the name of our major Filipino writers’ listserv, initiated by two of our literary leaders Vince Gotera and Nick Carbó (article by Butch Dalisay here). So many events and bodies of work bear “”Flip” in their titles — “Flip Out,” “Flip the Script,” The Flip Side, Flippin. It’s an easily punnable word. But I wonder what the larger community would think if  an event at such an institution as the Asian Art Museum were to be titled, “Flip Out!” (See, even though this doesn’t feel so offensive to me, it may to others, and I have to respect that.)

I wonder how contested this term was in the past, and by whom. I wonder if Filipinos worried that “Flips” would give others permission to call us that. I wonder if they asked whether it was even necessary to “take back” this word. Finally, yes, I realize that discussions of racial politics leave a bitter taste in people’s mouths, and yes, I realize these are just words. But we are writers here, invested in the power of words, the power of naming, the power of writing and speaking a thing into existence.

So then, I think this is a matter of what it is that needs to be written or spoken into existence.