Historic Tricycle Ride Across the Golden Gate Bridge Pays Homage to Illegal Filipinos in the USA

In the Philippines the nation has been celebrating the historic voyage of Ferdinand Magellan. With his arrival in these islands 500 years ago came Christianity and after him the Spanish period of colonization. Though he did not make it alive out of the Philippines his ship and remaining crew finished the first circumnavigation of the globe. It is a truly historic journey all of humanity should celebrate.

Meanwhile in the USA Filipinos are celebrating an altogether different historic journey. A Filipino rode a tricycle across the Golden Gate Bridge in San Fransisco.

https://ph.news.yahoo.com/philippine-tricycle-makes-history-by-crossing-golden-gate-bridge-160042486.html

A legendary Philippine vehicle crossing an iconic US landmark is where the rubber meets the road, so to speak.

A humble Philippine tricycle, dubbed TNT Traysikel, recently became the first such trike to cross the famous Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.

The historic trek was made possible by two Filipino-Americans, Michael Arcega and Paolo Asuncion, joined by 60 other Fil-Am riders in the parade.

TNT Traysikel described by the Fil-Ams as a “mobile public artwork that operates as a cultural marker for the SOMA Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District” in San Francisco, California. It resembles the motorized sidecar made in the Philippines.

The motor vehicle includes several features that shout out to the Filipino culture.

"Hoy" can be seen on the windshield and it is used by Filipinos to call someone's attention.

The "TNT" on the front and back of the sidecar means "Tago ng Tago", and is a colloquial word for undocumented Filipinos in the United States.

On the front of the tricycle sitting above "TNT" is "Por Wan Pibe" or Four One Five, a nod to California Penal Code 415 – Disturbing the Peace. Tricycles in the Philippines are typically boisterous contraptions like their big cousin, the Filipino jeepney!

At the back are the big bold "UFO" letters that supposedly means "Unidentified Filipino Object". But one can never take its meaning at face value, so it could also mean "Unapologetic Filipino Object". Again, a nod to the tricycle's tough reputation on the streets of the Philippines.

Inside the sidecar are two clever signages usually seen on jeepneys – “God Knows Hudas Not Pay” and “Basta Driver Sweet Lover”. The former is a call back of familiar scene in the Philippines where some commuters jumps out of a jeepney without paying their fare. Such people are likened to Hudas (Jesus Christ's betrayer). The latter is a common perception that Filipino (jeepney) drivers have a soft, sweet side, specially for their partners, in spite of their tough work environment.

This tricycle is less a functional mode of public transportation and more of a "mobile public artwork." Funny that this piece of art pays homage to illegal Filipino aliens and admits that the tricycle can be unduly noisy to the point of violating noise ordinances. We also get a reference to Filipinos being likened to Judas for skipping out of paying their fare. Breaking the law is surely something a Filipino wants to highlight when they are attempting to show off Filipino culture, right? 

I do not believe I have ever seen, in the Philippines, a tricycle like the one which made the historic journey across the Golden Gate Bridge. Allow me to show one of my favorite tricycles from the Philippines.

https://philippinefails.blogspot.com/2020/08/picture-of-week-filipino-nazi.html

And just one more.

Now, that is the Philippines I know and love. You cannot duplicate that in the USA. God bless them, every one.

But this tricycle celebrating the traditional Filipino pastime of law breaking is not just public art. It's also propaganda.

https://www.instagram.com/p/CL7zKLAln41/

TNT Traysikel is a mobile public artwork that operates as cultural marker for the SOMA Pilipinas Cultural Heritage District in San Francisco. The aesthetic of the traysikel is adjacent to Filipino-customized transport Jeepneys left by Americans after WWII. TNT Traysikel is an immigrant metaphor constructed from a deep colonial history. As a social sculpture, TNT Traysikel was used as an aesthetic object, a protest tool and symbol of solidarity with the Black community against Police brutality and delivery vehicle during the Covid-19 pandemic. It will be the main site for collecting stories of Filipinx diaspora in a forthcoming documentary. This is a collaboration between @mike_arcega and @pao_silog with help from our communities. Hand-Painted by Meng Nguyen, @allthingsmeng


TNT Traysikel was funded by the San Francisco Arts Commission Individual Artist Commission #sfacfunded with additional financial support from Awesome Foundation, San Francisco State University @sfsu_school_of_art and Balay Kreative @balaykreative .

What is the metaphor this tricycle is supposed to represent? Funny that this thing is funded by the City of San Fransisco and is "a protest tool and symbol of solidarity with the Black community against Police brutality."  Tell that to all the Filipinos who have been brutalized by the Black community. And what exactly do family oriented Filipinos have to do with Black Lives Matter which wants to "disrupt" the family?

https://web.archive.org/web/20200408020723/https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

We disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure requirement by supporting each other as extended families and “villages” that collectively care for one another, especially our children, to the degree that mothers, parents, and children are comfortable.

We foster a queer‐affirming network. When we gather, we do so with the intention of freeing ourselves from the tight grip of heteronormative thinking, or rather, the belief that all in the world are heterosexual (unless s/he or they disclose otherwise).

What does a Filipino-style tricycle have to do with any of that? You know, to heck with the Filipinix diaspora. You know what Filipinix is? It means they are including delusional, self-mutilating transexuals. Just like Latinx. It is also "a relatively new label that Filipino-Americans have been using to differentiate their own “identities and experiences.” It's an attempt to avoid gendered language to be inclusive despite Tagalog having a plethora of gendered language. 

To heck with these people. So many Americans and Europeans and others come to the Philippines to live. Do they build Little America's or Little UK's or wherever they are from? Do they drive around in "mobile public artwork" which shows-off their culture? Do they wring their hands about their "identities and experiences" and invent fake words to refer to themselves? No. They assimilate. They learn the language, they eat the food, and they embrace the culture. They marry the women and have miscegenated children. 

But Filipinos abroad? They don't assimilate. They attempt to reestablish the Philippines wherever they go. Just stay home! If you want to live in the Philippines then live in the Philippines and not the USA or the UK or Germany or elsewhere. Save yourself the fake self-serving identity crisis of you and your children by staying home. Heck anyone with a single drop of Filipino blood, like Dave Bautista, is hailed as a Fil-Am hero. Now, Dave Bautista is an American, born and raised, but his father is the son of Filipino immigrants. That means Dave can obtain Filipino citizenship and vote in the presidential election! That is nuts! But that is the end result of citizenship based on sanguinity.

This is a good place to segue into the next part of what this tricycle stunt is about. 

It's a commercial for a TV show called TNT SideCaraoke which is to air on the television network TNT. That is really funny because as noted above TNT means illegal Filipino alien. Here is a teaser for the show.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK03mMigki0

I think when I think about my Filipinoness the first thing that comes up is food which is why it's a good thing we're eating.

So this person, when they think about their Filipino heritage, the first they think of is food. I guess that is fitting because it's not like Filipinos built large empires or huge monuments of stone that have survived millennia or vast philosophical systems or tremendously beautiful pieces or art or anything of cultural value and importance really. From reading Pigafetta's account it would seem Filipinos didn't even know what clothes were when first encountered in 1521! 

These people live in liberty and according to their will, for they have no lord or superior; they go quite naked, and some of them wear beards, and have their hair down to the waist. They wear small hats, after the fashion of the Albanians; these hats are made of palm leaves. 

The women also go naked, except that they cover their nature with a thin bark, pliable like paper 

https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Page:First_Voyage_Round_the_World.djvu/149

But they do have the delicacies known as balut and red hot dogs on sticks with marshmallows.

Mmmm....masarap! That is Filipino culture looking back at you! Duck fetuses and red hot dogs which are used in everything from pizza to spaghetti sauce. I cannot find any word on when this show is set to air but I will be keeping my eyes open.

Let me say here that you don't get a TV show or government grants without knowing people. I am sure if we dig further into those behind this joke of a tricycle masquerading as art and cultural expression we can find unsavory and un-American elements. Heck, we already have with its alignment with BLM.

So, let's peer a little further at artist Mike Arcega who is the creator of this tricycle.

Michael Arcega is an interdisciplinary artist working primarily in sculpture and installation. His research-based work revolves largely around language and sociopolitical dynamics. Directly informed by Historic narratives, material significance, and geography, his subject matter deals with circumstances where power relations are unbalanced. His investigation of cultural markers are embedded in objects, food, architecture, visual lexicons, and vernacular languages.

Michael was born in Manila, Philippines, and migrated to the Los Angeles area at ten years of age. He relocated to San Francisco to attend college. He currently lives and works in San Francisco, California where he is an Associate Professor at San Francisco State University.

https://arcega.us/contact.html

Arcega is a man who uses his art to make socio-political statements. Here is one of those statements called "El Conquistadork."

https://arcega.us/artwork/2052326-El-Conquistadork.html

A Manila galleon made primarily of Manila file folders was successfully sailed by the artist in Tomales Bay, California to commemorate the famed trade route of 1565 through 1815 between Mexico City, Manila, and California. Based on one of the first intercontinental trade routes, the performance and installation is a humorous critique on contemporary and historic issues of colonialism and cultural exchange.

That performance is never going to be repeated so all there is now is this large Spanish Galleon constructed out of Manila file folders. Get it!?? Spain conquered the Philippines and the capitol of the Philippines is....Manila!!! What a bunch of "Conquistadorks!!" The subtle humor here is what makes it such a "humorous critique on contemporary and historic issues of colonialism and cultural exchange." Not! It is a neat looking thing though. What would be humorous and critical is if it were inside an equally oversized bottle and on the bottle were drawn the countries of Spain and the USA. 

Here is a little bit more about Michael's method.

Michael Arcega: I was born in Manila, the year after Benigno Aquino got shot. That was like, fifth grade? A year later we moved to L.A. and I lived there until I moved to the Bay Area to go to Art Institute … Other people would say my work is humorous, well-crafted, political, identity based. They would probably say that it’s smart, probably smart-ass (laughs). But I try to stay away form being locked into “identity art.” It has so many connotations, I’d like to see myself and other people working in topical or political issues go beyond that. I want to be more open so that other people can relate to it. That’s the attempt at least. I hope that my work is humorous but with a bite. In the end or the beginning or wherever, but with a bite somewhere. 

How do you balance playfulness with the themes of conquest, colonialism, war and violence? How do you reconcile humor and history?

It’s a tricky balance. I take mental notes on how comedians communicate. They deliver the message with a spoonful of sugar. I think The Simpsons do it best. But I’m also afraid of being didactic. I’m not here to lecture. I’d rather begin a conversation rather than end it. Like “El Conquistadork Project.” If it weren’t called “Conquistadork” it would be this macho thing. But by adding this one little “k,” it creates a change in perception and it becomes self-deprecating.

https://hyphenmagazine.com/magazine/issue-9-play-summer-2006/all-puns-intended

"'I'd rather begin a conversation than end it." That is the essence of modern art. Zero objectivity. 

In modern art the artist lacks a vision. He has a conceptual idea but the goal is to make the art subjective and thus about the viewer and not any objective vision of the artist. Michelangelo had a clear vision when painting the Sistine Chapel. Everyone experiences it differently but the objective vision of Biblical history remains the same. Michael Arcega's art is completely different in that there is no objective vision except in so far as it leads to a "conversation" with the the viewer. Thus the viewer and his experience becomes the real subject of the art. This lack of objectivity is why there will never be another Hieronymus Bosch or Rembrandt. Instead our age gets Yves Klein, Duchamp, and Michael Arcega. In fact Micheal Arcega is now the subject of middle school classrooms!

https://a.s.kqed.net/pdf/arts/programs/spark/404-arcega.pdf

Conceptual artist Michael Arcega likens the titles of his works to punch lines. The titles speak to the artist’s quirky sense of humor and his obsession with wordplay, while mobilizing humor to delve into weighty issues. Born in Manila, the 30-something artist uses his puns to address his interests in Filipino history, imperialism and global socio-political issues.

Pretty sickening how even art has become politicized today. Being that this is the liberal Bay Area you just know this is more of the anti-white narrative being pushed on children. Would Arcega even be noticed if he was not a Filipino and he did not make commentaries about "imperialism and global socio-political issues?" Imagine if a white American came to the Philippines and began making conceptual art about how awful this place and its people are but did it in a humorous and subversive way. Do you think the people would be amused? No, because too many people here are humorless and not self-deprecating or introspective. Besides what people in their right mind would tolerate an outsider besmirching their culture and uplifting another? Yet Michael Arecga is in the USA and is commenting on "imperialism and global socio-political issues" so he is a darling of the local art scene.

Despite Arcega's admission that he does not want to become locked into "identity art", as so many immigrant artists do, he has failed. The TNT Tricycle celebrating illegal Filipino aliens and fare skippers is proof of that. Heck the majority of his "art" testifies to the contrary as it is almost all steeped in socio-political critiques of "colonialism and cultural exchange." Behold his art known as SPAM/MAPS.

https://arcega.us/artwork/2062382-SPAM-MAPS-World-Detail.html

A series of maps made of Spam luncheon meat. Spam was used as ration by the United States Armed Forces during WWII. It ultimately spread through many Pacific Island nations as a standard source of meat. Spam’s diasporic nature is symbolic of America’s ongoing influence on many nations. S-P-A-M is M-A-P-S in reverse.

You know I am inspired. Looking at this map entirely made out of SPAM has given me a great idea. I'm going to save all my dog's poop and I will construct a detailed map of the Philippines out of it. This project will be representative of the stray dog problem which permeates this nation as well as a political statement about the state of the government and the environment. Who knows but maybe it will launch my career and lead to my own TV show? Now, excuse me while I go reread Tom Wolfe's The Painted Word where he exposes the fraud that is "Modern Art."