Before ‘America the Beautiful,’ ‘The Star-Spangled Banner’ in Tagalog

The multilingual version of “America the Beautiful” that aired last week on Super Bowl Sunday drew inane comments from Americans who were offended by the reality of a multi-ethnic America.

But that reality is already accepted and celebrated by many states like California.  So it wasn’t at all surprising that a strong wave of condemnation quickly greeted the ‘oh-my-God-they’re-not-speaking-English’ crowd.

But there were other reactions worth noting. As some Facebook friends pointed, the sole Tagalog line in the Coke version — “Matayog na kabundukan sa ibabaw ng mga prutas” — was an awful translation of the original English. (“For purple mountain majesties, Above the fruited plain.”)

And then there’s the fact that this admittedly inspired initiative to reimagine an iconic American song as one that reflects today’s America was the initiative of a corporation closely identified with obesity, diabetes and poor health in the US and beyond.

In fact, the controversial Coke ad reminded me of how a well-known Filipino artists reinterpreted Coke in the 1970s.

Antipas Delotavo’s painting ‘Itak sa Puso ng Mang Juan’ shows the pointed edge of the ‘C’ in a giant Coke sign pointed at the chest of distraught Filipino man. It was a powerful commentary on how US corporate interests thrived in the Philippines during the Marcos regime.

Coke’s “America the Beautiful” ad also reminded me of another American anthem that also caused a stir when it was performed as a Filipino tune.

That song was the American national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner,” which was rendered in Tagalog by the folk singer Joey Ayala.

Joey, known for such beautiful tunes as ‘Wala Nang Tao sa Santa Filomena’ and ‘Walang Hanggang Paalam,’ and who also recently became famous for tweaking the lines in ‘Bayang Magiliw,’ was serving as deputy director of the Pusod community center in Berkeley, when he found himself feeling homesick.

“The feeling of being alien, of being far away,” was how he described it to me.

He decided to channel that sense of loneliness and isolation into a song.

Joey Ayala repackaged the US anthem into a tribute to the Filipino American experience. He spoke of the Filipino quest for “freedom to prosper in a peaceful land.”

But he went beyond the trite portrait of the US as some sort of paradise, the same picture painted even by the Coke-version of ‘America the Beautiful.’

Instead, Joey recalled the Filipino story in America in the context of history.

(You can listen to Joey’s song here: https://cdn.sfgate.com/blogs/sounds/sfgate/chroncast/2006/05/22/bagong_hinirang.mp3

“Over the bridge of war we crossed

Endured, lived and loved

Here we now stand

Migrant natives al

In this newly chosen land,

We forge our history…”

“The bridge of war,” of course, refers to the Philippine-American War, which began in 1899 and eventually caused the deaths of at least 200,000 Filipinos.

This year marks the 115th anniversary of the start of that war. But don’t expect any major commemorative events.  For the Philippine-American War is a dark, but little known, chapter in US history that, frankly, many Americans would rather not remember.

“The first meeting of the US and the Philippines was in a war,” Joey told me. “It was not a bridge of friendship. It was a bridge of war.”

Just as the multilingual “America the Beautiful” ruffled some feathers, Joey’s Tagalog “Star-Spangled Banner” shocked people who heard it — including Filipinos.

One prominent Filipino American civic leader in San Francisco called it “terrible” and “unconscionable.”

But it was bound to appeal to young Filipino Americans who were always looking for ways to bridge their American and Filipino identities.

Joey even drew inspiration from that, telling me, “I was touched kasi ang daming marunong mag kulintang, mag-alibata, mag-arnis,” he told me, referring to how many young Filipinos study native Filipino music and martial arts.

There was another reason he found himself drawn to “The Star Spangled Banner,” he told me.

“Ang ganda ng tono. For me, that’s an anthem. I love the melody. Beautiful melody.”

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