Last week, I received a package from NY-based friend Threese. It is a copy of Carlos Bulosan’s America Is In The Heart, a book which essays the brutal life experienced by the first group of Filipinos who came to the US. Bulosan, a forgotten literary icon, is lost to many of us in the new generation of transplanted Filipinos. Picking up this book is long overdue on my part. (Yes, shame on me.) America Is In The Heart is as much Bulosan’s personal history as ours. I am still on page 53 and to say that Bulosan’s simple but heartbreaking prose is both compelling and captivating is an understatement.
A Time article last month announced that breastfeeding may once again be in vogue. Much has been said about how breast milk is the healthier choice for babies over infant formula and studies tend to support that. Research seems to imply that breastfeeding is good for moms, too - findings suggest that breastfeeding may lessen the risk of breast cancer among women who give birth at later age.
I grew up in a small, rural community where women, most of them stay-at-home moms, were breastfeeding their infants. Seeing mothers with babies suckling at their exposed breasts while gossiping with friends was as ordinary as being roused from sleep every now and then by a bolo-wielding inebriated neighbor who goes amok.
In recent years, however, more and more mothers are choosing to pursue careers of their own for personal or economic reasons and pushing pregnancies past 25 years of age. In their efforts to hold on to their jobs, these moms understandably default to formula milk. But is there an alternative solution for moms who want to breastfeed and go to work at the same time? According to the Time article, cross-nursing may be the answer.
Cross-nursing means mothers breastfeeding one another’s babies. Pause. I know. The story points out:
“Not everyone is comfortable with this freewheeling baby feeding. Milk banks, which sell bottled breast milk, already make some people squirm; the idea of physically breast-feeding a child not your own evokes even deeper taboos.”
One California mom is quoted as saying, “Breast milk is a communal commodity around here." I wonder how many moms out there are comfortable with sharing their milk. Outsourcing breast milk will likely strike a sensitive chord among many people. Just think about it, some people are already offended by public breastfeeding. Last month, a Florida mother was kicked out of a restaurant for baring her bosom to breastfeed her five-month-old baby. Since when has something so natural as feeding your baby become unpleasant to the public eye?
In other news, some 4,000 mothers in the Philippines joined in a simultaneous breastfeeding event nationwide last May 2 to raise awareness on breastfeeding and a set a new world record.
Thanks to Youtube, '70s bands like The Doors come alive on the web. This is only one of several videos that fans of The Lizard King can access by the touch of a button and relive the glory days of rock n' roll. The husband will probably admonish me for this "sacriligious" act of bringing Mr. Morrison into this site but I have to admit I was rocking to this song when I pressed play. Ahh... college days.
Here comes one of their highly recognizable songs, "Light My Fire." Picture the island stranded Tom Hanks dancing like crazy around a bonfire in the movie "Cast Away."
Pareng Jim, the music's not over.