Emil and the Librarians
When you live in California, where there are so many Asians and Asian Americans, you forget how much of a minority we really are.
I learned this from giving a speech to a group of librarians.
But first, here’s my advice if you ever give a speech to a group of librarians: Don’t lead with a joke about tiger penis.
They just don’t process information the same way as us normal people.
Mention tiger penis and librarians are going through the Dewey decimal system trying to create a unique category number to the thousandth-millionth. It’s their form of bingo. Tiger penis? Where does that go? Put that under engineering robotics-tiger penis at 629.89218! BINGO! Hey, it’s how they see the world. Whether you know it or not, everything, even you, have a decimal in Deweyland destined to be your permanent address on a shelf, any shelf. It’s like genetic code. The librarian will find your spot in the stacks.
If only we all carried the card catalogue view of the world in our head. Then we’d all play the game, incessantly slicing, dicing and placing information into its respective little info-space, for later reference of course.
To a librarian, it’s simply what they do. Give them a fact and they’re at work, looking for a new category like Balboa the Pacific (put that under 900 “Geography-Bodies of Water). So just say “tiger penis” and it’s off to the races. Could that be “pure science”? Or would that come under “generalities”? But if we’re talking tiger parts, then does that include tiger urology? How about famous or celebrity parts. Tony the Tiger, comes to mind. See also, arts-leisure-cartoon-animal rendering-tiger-parts of.
All this from an idea generated by a question, hypothesizing that tiger penis as an aphrodisiac, or as symbolic of overwhelming Asian sexual prowess, could explain the notion of why Filipino Americans failed to overtake Chinese Americans in total population among Asian Americans between 1990 and 2000. Someone had the tiger penis and it wasn’t the Filipinos.
The librarian is so busy processing, figuring subheadings, they never have time to figure out that despite a certain seriousness, I may also, quite purposefully, be making just a tiny little joke (though as we know, size is not important).
Thus, I discovered quite innocently the “librarian” frame of mind, as I spoke to a group of librarians the other day. But mind you, these were not just any librarians. This was a unique subset of the group — Asian American librarians! This was the National Conference on Asian Pacific American Librarians — NCAPAL. Sounds like a Filipino politician. And I know they must have been thinking all of the aforementioned because there certainly was enough silence every time I mentioned “tiger penis.”
But then silence IS the hallmark of the librarian.
Who else but the librarian can be categorized as the “guardian of public silence?”
From their very first “SHHHHHHHHHHHHH!,” librarians make their mark in their world.
Don’t make any noise buddy, there’s reading going on. That is, unless we’ve invited you to speak to us. Then make it snappy, and don’t get into any “tiger penis” stuff.
For the honor of an invitation, I must thank Dr. Ling Hwey Jeng, an associate professor at the University of Kentucky. She first contacted me over a year ago to confirm my presence. That’s foresight. You know what they say, book in advance for those Emil Guillermo speeches and lock in the best rates.
Dr. Jeng had identified herself as a fan and as an avid reader of AsianWeek. So of course, I said yes. And besides, libraries carry my book, as well as the books of other Asian Americans. Sometimes it takes an Asian American to fight for space on a shelf, to make sure all books are included and accessible. If information defeats ignorance — the root of racism — then the librarians are the ones to make sure society holds, stores and finds all the information it needs.
But I noticed something else in several conversations with Dr. Jeng. To me, it was clear she was an Asian in America starved for an Asian American community.
“We have a small store here in Lexington,” she told me once as we finalized arrangements by phone. “It’s just all Asian. It has everything.” Not as well catalogued as a library, I’m sure, but you probably could find some version of fish sauce that will remind you of home.
When I finally met Dr. Jeng at the convention, she was busy coordinating all the events, but I could tell she was in her element. No longer a lost Asian in Kentucky. She had arrived in California and found comfort among her fellow Asian Americans.
For that reason, groups like the “Asian American (Fill In the Blank)” remain a necessity. Because believe me, whether you’re in Kentucky, Vermont, or even in California, the isolation of being the only Asian in your field can be debilitating. Some more individualistic people thrive on being the lone Asian in the crowd. Others can be crushed when being constantly made aware of their ethnicity.
But in my speech to the librarians, I spoke of an America that was quickly becoming more Asian than it has ever been, at 10 to 12 million, not counting illegals. In California, we’re the second largest ethnic group after Latinos.
I talked about warning signs in our community. That maybe the term Asian American was changing so much with mixed race and new generations, that I really can begin to see Asian America coming apart.
But then I see the immigrant professional like Dr. Jeng and the other librarians in such far-flung places like Kentucky — and I see the counter-force to my pessimism. It’s the “hopeful” census trend. As more immigrants blend in, stake out new ground in other parts of our country, the character of Asian America changes. It isn’t just California. We’re spoiled here. Naturally jaundiced. Asian Americans in the hinterlands remind us that the need for community remains true. |
