Delicadeza: a Spanish derived term meaning to act with tact and delicacy. A form of social currency, historically associated with the Ilustrados (the European educated elite class of the Philippines in the Spanish colonial era) to differentiate themselves from Americanized Filipinos. Delicadeza refers to the act of maintaining one’s dignity by acting with decency and propriety in social settings so as to not embarrass oneself/one’s family.
Delicadeza is a collection that displays self-ethnography of Filipino/a culture through the lens of a second-generation immigrant living in the diaspora. In exploring themes of loneliness and vulnerability, Filipina femininity, transgenerational trauma, and diasporic culture, Delicadeza is a sartorial storytelling of the complex relationships between the self, family, place, and culture, expressing doubts of cultural and feminine validity and dignity associated with second-generation immigrants. The complexities of these relationships is shown through reimagining the use of Piña (pineapple fibre cloth), a national symbol of the Philippines woven in my parents’ hometown.
Delicadeza is a love letter written to myself, my family and to a home that somehow always was, and never will be wholly mine.
Kabay pang naging proud ka kang. Bukon ako ro klase it tawong gapakikita gid it akong delicadeza.
