Jessica Hagedorn

Writer, poet and playwright Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn , born in 1949, had grown up in the Philippines. Her childhood memories were made at 4461 Old Santa Mesa Street surrounded by family and friends. But when her Mother made the sudden decision to uproot the family due to their father’s unfaithfulness, Hagedorn was far from ready or willing to accept a different concept of “home” in the United States. In 1962 at 13 she along with her brothers along accompanied their mother to their new home in San Francisco. Friends and family back home begged for them to return, her brothers eventually did, she however did not calling her mother “[a] wronged woman, after all. And [she], the loyal daughter.” It was during these years of adjustment which she was tormented by heartbreak, anger and homesickness. She turned to books, movies and eventually writing to escape her “problems” and express her discontent. It would take years before she would return to her homeland. Once she did, she would find something completely different from what she had left behind.

Writing and poetry had become her outlet. Her home in San Francisco along with school and her environment allowed her to find ways to express her anger guilt and other emotions. She eventually took up multimedia work, acting and was a lyricisist for a band. Many of her writings carried rebellious ideals of that time period of the early 70’s. While she would eventually return to the Philippines, it was not always the center of her writing. Here is a poem from For Young Women: Poems that appears to be directed at her mother who while in the United States, kept her Filipino identity and the country close to her despite everything that had happened.

The Death of Anna May Wong

My mother is very beautiful

And not yet old.

A Twin,

Color of two continents:

I stroll through Irish tenderloin

Nightmare doors—drunks spill out

Saloon alleys falling asleep

At my feet…

My mother wears beaded

Mandarin coat:

In the Dryness

Of San Diego’s Mediterranean parody

I see your ghost, Belen

As you clean up

After your sweet senora’s

mierda

Jazz,

Don’t do me like that.

Mambo,

Don’t do me like that.

Samba, calypso, funk and

Boogie

Don’t cut me up like that

Move my gut so high up

Inside my throat

I can only strangle you

To keep from crying...

My mother serves crepes suzettes

With a smile

And a puma

Slithers down

19^th street and Valencia

Gabriel’s o.d.’s on reds

As we dance together

Dorothy Lamour undrapes

Her sarong

And Bing Crosby ignores

The mierda.

My mother’s lavender lips

Stretch in a slow smile.

And beneath

The night’s cartoon sky

Cold with rain

Miss Alice Coltrane

Kills the pain

And I know

I can’t go home again.

1971

Her trips to the Philippines would serve as inspiration for her novels and books. Her writings truly “Filipino American” for they are based off both personal experiences and the examinations of the Filipino culture and how it has continued to live off the American culture. She had witnessed the country’s evolution during the Marcos era from Philippine soil as well as from afar when she was in the United States. In her novel and turned play Dogeaters she describes the life and struggles of the Filipino people separated by wealth and class through a story and eyes of the youth. Through various characters of different backgrounds and personalities from the beauty queen pageant winners to djs and families, Hagedorn is able to present the different types of people in the Philippines as well as what they were experiencing through the country’s time of change.