PINOY SA AMERIKA

WRITTEN AND VOCALS BY JOEY MALIGALIG

lniwan ko ang aking bayan
I left my country
Sa hirap ng kabuhayan
Because of life's difficulties
Sabi niya ay mag-babago
They said life will change
Hindi naman ako kasalo
For others but not for me

Sa ibang lugar ako tumungo
I went to a foreign land
lbang lahi ng tao
A land of foreign people
Walang akong makilala
Not a thing is familiar
Kahit pangalan ng kalsada
Even the street names

Ako'y Pinoy sa Amerika
I'm a Pinoy in Amerika
Hindi mo ba ako makilala?
Don't you recognize me?
Ang dilim ng kulay ko.
My skin’s dark hue
Ay hindi ko pagbabalatkayo
I will never deny
Pinoy akong totoo.
I’m a Pinoy in body and soul

PINOY SA AMERIKA
(2020)

WRITTEN BY JOEY MALIGALIG
LYRICS BY MARIO ‘NOMI’ DE MIRO
ARRANGED BY JOSHUA ICBAN
PERFORMED BY JOSHUA ICBAN AND MARIO ‘NOMI’ MIRO

Pinoy sa America removed from the motherland, removed from my mothers hand 
To move and till a foreign land 
Pinoy sa America sends money to the family, balikbayan boxes back annually 
Salary is low - and the price of living high 
We had to say goodbye and it always made us all cry
Hopes of opportunity for a better life 
But now we criminalized by the president and ICE
Paradise is my homeland but you gotta go man 
Moving to a cold land where you’re brown and broken 
Feeling so alone separated from your family
They passed laws that wouldn’t let ya marry ain’t it scary 
From the generation then to the generation now 
From care workers for the ill to farmworkers with a plow
The Bayanis of now treated like commodities
That American Dream an odyssey through poverty 

Pinoy Sa Amerika ako 
Mahirap talaga ang buhay dito 
Pinoy Sa Amerika kame 
Pero walang kapangyarihan

Pinoy sa America an odyssey through poverty 
Where families are broken by system and economy 
On 6th Street to P-town, Stockton to Anchorage
Seattle and back down - woven in the fabric  
Pinoys of diaspora sacrifice and separation 
Overworked in isolation aliens of an alien nation
Pinoy sa America resilient as the Narra tree 
Uprooted and replanted in the land of dreams and robbery

SPLENDID DANCING

WRITTEN BY JOSHUA ICBAN AND JAIME JACINTO
VOCALS BY MELVIGN BADIOLA, AUREEN ALMARIO, & MJ AUSTRIA

There were times when tomorrow
Seemed so very far
And I could hear my mother, Inay  calling me,
From the sands of the other shore

If only home could be so simple
And many times, I feared the possible fact,
I crossed an entire ocean
And may never make it back

I found myself with other kababayan,
Rootless all the same,
We found we could be stronger together,
Build a home, A new place  to carry our names

And it was in the night time
Where our dreams were not so far
No Heat from the sun to burn us
Ten cent Tickets  in our hands

In the taxi dance halls,
Ang hirap, dinadaan namin sa sayaw
We danced away our hardships
As long as we have enough tickets,
The world  was under our command

In a room full  of bachelors,
Who were told who they could and couldn’t love,
rounds and rounds of lonely men to dance with,
seeking refuge from their aching hearts

To forget or to remember,
the music plays on,
“I am Bisaya,  you’re Tagalog”
"I am too young and you’re too old"

Enough love letters to fill a shoebox
Even though I’m barely 15
Am I to these lonely men
the true love they wish to win?

But in the quiet parts of the night
When my thoughts were my own
Inay’s  voice would call me again and again

Don’t to come back, Anak – stay

There are somethings you can’t leave behind,
no matter how far you go

I can still feel the wind
Still hear the water
That brought us to this shore
A land where we could all have extra
And even more

But soon I found myself
With hands back in the dirt
And to the night I’d often return
Where we could laugh at the same old joke

This place was our providence
Where we could have our joy and laughter back
Before tomorrow came calling
Always to have us back

We sent home
what this place
could not take from us

our smiles
our pride
our pagka-tao
our humanity

Kinaya namin ang hirap
We endured all the difficulties
At sinikap naming mag-tagumpay
And we strived to triumph and succeed

LABORING BODIES

WRITTEN BY JAIME JACINTO
VOCALS BY ANDREW EISENMAN

We carried our dreams across an ocean to find a life 
among vines and branches in the summer fields 
where our bodies turned the color of red dust. 

You do not know our names though you've eaten the harvests we've gathered day after day. 
Look at  our hands, our arms, brown and blistered--burnt by the sun,
our knees bending to the dark soil tending to a harvest
for someone else’s table  far, far, away.

Our days are not always about work, but those moments are too brief...
and for the few country women among us,
we may even dance, and speak our best ilocano...binisaya…..waray..kapampangan
and even sing a harana serenade to remind them of home.

And the fields are always there waiting for us
to tend to the harvest
to thin the weeds and vines, 
our bodies stooped beneath a blazing sun,
our knees bent into the earth,
our arms lifting crates of grapes and apples, of tomatoes and lettuce
bound for places named Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles

And…there’s always an unlucky one whose body will give way to the heat

And when work is done,
back at the bunkhouse and the packing sheds, sometimes we play
dancing for each other, as if we are birds, our wings spread wide in the swirling dust of an empty field.

But we are still men who love to gamble
and when we can, we'll swing our blades and rattan sticks until one among us will be the winner!
The most malakas at makisig! the strongest and most handsome!
We place our bets, kissing our coins and dollar bills and hope for the best.   

Who gains from our laboring bodies? 
Who stands on our stooped shoulders, our bended knees, our aching backs? Who pays us what we are truly worth?

We will strike though some of us will refuse
for across the ocean, their families wait for help. 

Though some of us will bend, we will not break!
Stand with us and march!
Let the fruit rot on the vines and branches!
Let the flies feast! Let the bosses know we will strike.

We are our own roots, our own branches,
we speak in our own voices

Isang Bagsak!
literal translation: One down!  In solidarity!