Glam in the face of Fireworks: A meditation on Freedom

I’m not the most poetic person, but there’s just so much to sit with — so many layers of memory, migration, and meaning — that poetry felt like the most honest way to hold it all.

So here’s a little something —for the river dwellers, the truth seekers, the ones sitting quietly beneath the fireworks, wondering what liberation really looks like.

This one’s for you.
Enjoy the flow.

SIP SLOW, ASK LOUD

I sit still,
tea warming my hand,
watching the sky prepare for its annual performance —
explosions of red, white, and borrowed light.

We just wrapped June —
Philippine Independence Day, they say.
But was it?
Not the day we revolted,
but the day they signed a paper,
swapping brown bodies between empires —
Spain to the U.S. for $20 million,
treaty of Paris:
a sale, not a liberation.

Now here comes July —
doubleheader celebration.
‘M*urica’s Independence Day,
and Filipino-American Friendship Day.
Fireworks and sales.
Flags and discounts.
And still,
we ask:
what does freedom mean?

Because true liberation —
isn't trademarked,
isn't loud,
isn't sold.

How do we celebrate “freedom”
on land that was never freely given?
Where First Nations were forced to forget their own names
in exchange for “citizenship”?
Where Black communities built wealth
they were never allowed to own?
Where immigrants carry passports
but not protection,
where brown women like me
are asked to be grateful for hand-me-down dreams?

What of the islands,
mapped by greed,
tracked for oil, gold, sugar,
spices and soil?
Where ancestors were displaced,
tongues erased,
souls traded in for civility —
and still,
we survived.

I sip again.

It is hard to say God Bless America
when God herself
may be in hiding,
mourning
mothers who bled in delivery rooms
with no justice.
Children birthed
into cages and camps.
Elders
discarded in systems they once fed.

And yet they say:
“Land of the free.”

Who is free?
Who gets to be?

True independence is not in a flag —
it’s in memory.
It’s in ancestral knowing.
It’s in the mother who hums lullabies in her native tongue
even when textbooks tell her children otherwise.
It’s in the weaving,
the gong rhythm,
the food we make when no one is watching.

It is in integration —
of past, present, and possible.

So what can we do?
We ask,
we wonder,
we sharpen our bolos —
not to strike,
but to carve a new story. A true story.
Written By us. Written by lived experiences.

We live.
We learn.
We make space — for each other,
for hard conversations,
for healing.

Freedom is not a date on a calendar.
It is a muscle.
A ritual.
A remembering.

This long weekend,
sip your cocktail, yes.
But hold the truth in your other hand.

May we seek not performative pride,
but deep peace.
Not loud independence,
but collective liberation.
Not blind allegiance,
but brave imagination.

From all of us at Elle Karayan —
Here’s to sitting with the discomfort,
standing in our truth,
and walking toward the future
with intention, clarity, and care.

Happy whatever-this-is.
We’re still here.
And we’re not done dreaming.


#MaximalismIsIndigenous | #ElleKarayan | #FreedomIsComplicated