In collaboration with Paloma Sierra-Hernandez, Abigail Salmon, and local artists and writers of Pittsburgh, I translated a poem from Tagalog to English by Myla Granadino.
Entitled "Paglalakbay Sa New Jersey," the poem dives into her experience migrating from the Philippines to the USA, expressing the importance of community and food for sustaining cultural identity in the diaspora.
Our collaboration was part of Project-LOGUE, a fusion of visual art, creative writing, and musical performance to showcase Pittsburgh's linguistic diversity.
Project-LOGUE culminated in a publication called "Home Language" and an exhibit in March 2019 at Assemble, where I met the writer of the poem I translated, listened to her reading of the poem in Tagalog, and read my translation in English.
For this project, I taught myself Tagalog and had my first "official" experience of translating, which has become increasingly fascinating to me as a realm for intercultural expression.
Photo from Myla Granadino. Pictured left-to-right are a friend, a member of the Filipino-American Association of Pittsburgh, me, and Myla Granadino.