The language of love, welcome will make US thrive
Editor’s Note:
The afternoon of February 22, 2025 saw a colorful celebration of the diverse heritage of Queens through poetry, songs, and dances. In a festive pushback of the prevailing fear and division, immigrant communities gathered for an event called Cultural Harmony: A Celebration of Mother Languages in line with the International Mother Language Day.
Held at the PS 12Q in Woodside, the cultural gathering was put together by the NYC Commission on Human Rights, the Bangladeshi Institute of Performing Arts, and the Queens Borough President Donovan Richards Jr. It was co-sponsored by the NYC Mayor’s Office of Immigrant Affairs, LiveOnNY, and the Apicha Community Health Center.
Deputy Borough President Ebony Young told an enthusiastic audience to continue speaking their mother languages to keep it alive. “In New York, we protect you. Our diversity must be celebrated and protected. I lost my Nigerian language and heritage due to slavery. So keep the mother languages alive,” she encouraged.
Apicha CEO Therese Rodriguez provided an enlightening context of languages as an integral part of humanity, and how they get eroded or erased with migration, colonization or poverty. Her poem Aha resonated well with the audience of young and not-so-young generations.
Queens is the most culturally diverse borough of New York and the US. Asians and Latinos are now the top population, followed by Blacks. (NYC Department of Planning, 2020)
We are sharing the full text of Ms. Rodriguez’s speech here.
Teens of Andean descent perform an Andean song.
Therese Rodriguez, CEO of Apicha (seated, left) and Deputy Borough President Ebony Young (standing, left) with Apicha’s Senior Director of External Affairs Glenn Magpantay (standing, right) and COO Mihaela Mihai (seated, right). Rasel Rahman, director of Queens Community Services Center of the NYC Commission on Human Rights, is standing in the middle.
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The language of welcome and love is the measure that will make the US thrive
Remarks by Therese R. Rodriguez
Maraming salamat sa inyong pagdalo sa pagdiriwang ng ating mga wika. Thank you all for coming to this event to celebrate our cultural heritage. I am honored to be one of the sponsors and thank you to the NYC Human Rights Commission and the Office of the Borough President of Queens for organizing this event.
I read and write in Tagalog and English.
There are over 120 languages spoken in the Philippines. Tagalog and Cebuano are the most spoken. English came with American conquest.
Fifty years of American public school system with English as the only means of instruction, Coca Cola, Chiclets, chocolates and Hollywood. English became dominant, supplanting 333 years of Spanish colonial rule, and remains so today.
As immigrants in the U.S., we bring with us our mother tongues. We bring the richness of our cultures and traditions, enthusiasm and hard work.
However, our contributions in this country are often left by the wayside because of the false narratives about immigrants. “English only” policies and misguided hostility towards immigrants result in assimilation by exacting abandonment of our native cultures, including language.
Sarah Palin, once a vice-presidential candidate, contemptuously put it this way, “When you’re here, speak American, I mean…let’s speak English. A language understood by all, a unifying aspect of a nation,” outlook dismissive our language and heritage.
That’s the kind of language immigrant children hear other children say in school yard bullying. There is nothing unifying about that.
Luis Pedron and Flo Coronel of the Knights of Rizal share a poem in English and Tagalog in honor of Dr. Jose Rizal, Philippine hero.
Cultural anthropologists, linguists and historians have raised concerns about the perils of languages being shunned, shushed or shut up. In an article written by Matthew Reysio-Cruz in the Philippine Daily Inquirer about “Saving PH Diverse languages from extinction” he reported:
“In bemoaning language “dying” or “in peril” a cultural anthropologist said, “Language is the soul of a culture.” It is also a massive repository of knowledge culled from generations of interaction between a people and their environment. The loss of these words, which could be clues to discussing everything from disease to food security, would deal a crippling blow to scientific discovery. A linguist added, “The loss of one language would be a loss to the overall body of knowledge…centuries of information we have yet to decipher.”
Undermining language can be a result of government policies that may disenfranchise minority groups. “Militarization, infrastructure projects, intrusion of mining and logging” or forcible eviction of indigenous people from “their own lands also lead to the breakup of linguistic communities.”
“But the biggest stressor for these groups remains poverty—with… bleak economic prospects…, learning a more dominant language becomes a tool for survival and for upward mobility.”
As a healthcare provider, Apicha believes that healing begins with an appreciation for cultural perspective and context, and access to the language of the patient. These are critical ingredients to dispensing quality care. At the end of the day, the language of welcome and love is the measure that will make us, the US, thrive.
Finally, a poem about my first years in NYC.
Aha
I had an aha moment recently
I had thought seasonal time change
Fall back, spring forward
Was a freak of nature.
Until I read in the news
It was debated and set by the U.S. Congress.
Bright!
Born and raised in the Philippines
Came to the U.S. at 23 on 17th of July 1972
I had no idea that NY time is 12 hours behind Manila
Finally, I got it.
Stopped waking up the maids back home.
12 o’clock midnight in NY
Is just the right time to call Mama while she is having lunch.
One Sunday when I first came to the United States
I visited the NY Public Library on Fifth Avenue
Done with library business
Walked down the steps
Waited at the sign for the downtown bus.
Guitar case in hand and books held tightly against my chest
I waited patiently for the M22
until I read the sign “No Standing”
Shaken that I was in violation of the law
But afraid I might miss my ride
I began to pace back and forth
Taking normal steps
Careful not to look like a new immigrant
Bus stop to 42nd Street corner back
To the bus stop back to 42nd Street corner back
To the bus stop back to 42nd Street corner back
To the bus stop.
My old country baggage in tow.
It’s not enough to “speak English so well”
The bus came. I sat beside a middle-aged white lady.
“Where do you come from?”
“The library,” I answered.
“No! Where do you come from?”
“The library.” Befuddled.
Indignant she muttered under her breath
“Go back where you belong!”
She stood up. Kicked me.
Welcome to America Therese!”
May I have a chicken sandwich?”
“…white, wheat, or roll?”
“Ahh…,”
Transported back…chicken sandwich?
Why so many questions?
In Divisoria you just ask for a sandwich.
“C’mon lady I ain’t got all day”
“Toasted? Tomato? Lettuce? Mayo?”
“Ah…On Tastee please no tomato, no lettuce, yes mayo.
Just a sandwich please.”
August 20, 2011
