A CLOSE-UP LOOK AT PEOPLE WHO MATTER : This Filipina Educator Says, ‘Speak Up’

The word in the Filipino language of Tagalog is hiya, and it describes an innate shyness of the Filipino people.

Carmencita Davino readily uses the word to describe her fellow Filipinos. But it does not describe Davino, the director of the Asian-Pacific American Education Commission for the Los Angeles Unified School District, the first Filipino American to head the 20-year-old organization.

“I’m different,” said Davino, who came to Los Angeles in 1981 to finish her postdoctoral work as a linguist. “I’m bicultural, and that’s something very rare.”

Davino is an outgoing person who this holiday season has been giving visitors to her Downtown office red roses made of wood, chocolate-covered espresso beans and paper scrolls bearing little tips for living--everything from “Take Grandma to lunch” to “Give an unexpected kiss” to “Say something nice to someone.”

A pianist who also is finishing her first novel, Davino came to the United States in 1981. To make it in America, she understood, she had to drop her cultural shyness--her hiya. Now, as head of the commission, she is trying to help Filipino students and their parents do the same.

Davino, an Encino resident for 10 years, was a bilingual instructor at Valerio Street Elementary School in Van Nuys three years ago when she heard that the commission job was open. She applied quietly without telling her principal about it, not allowing herself to believe she might get it.

Her principal, a bit surprised, gave her the news.

“I was so happy,” Davino said. “I was ecstatic.”

Winning the job as director fulfilled not only her personal ambitions, but gave Davino a bigger role in promoting multiculturalism and a positive image for the Philippines. She had already been doing that as a teacher, bringing music and the culture of her homeland into the classroom.

As head of the commission, Davino has taught other teachers about the Philippines, a country “born in the East and reared in the West.” It had been occupied by Spain for 300 years before being captured by the United States, then by the Japanese, then recaptured and eventually given its independence. It is a country in which men and women have more equality than in many other cultures, she said.

Because Filipinos who come here are generally well-educated and speak English, they are mainstreamed into American culture easily, she said, although they sometimes lose their cultural identity in the process. For example, there is no identifiable Filipino neighborhood in Los Angeles, like that of the other Asian communities of Chinatown, Little Tokyo or Koreatown.

She would like to see more Filipinos in decision-making positions within the school district. She can count other Filipinos in positions of importance on one hand, but there may be a cultural reason for that, she said.

“A lot of Filipinos are very family-oriented,” said Davino, explaining that some may not try for the better jobs because of their shyness. She does not let that hold her back “because I know this is how the culture works.”

Other Filipinos must learn how to function equally well in both cultures, she said. It’s a message she carries to Filipino groups, speaking English but also making sure to speak Tagalog “so they know you are with them.” Using that bilingual example as a starting point, she can guide them and explain how they can be more successful in America.

She calls it “sociolinguistic fluency,” an ability not only to speak a language but to work with the culture.

Consider the case of a quiet Asian elementary school student. Perhaps the youth doesn’t understand the classwork but won’t ask the teacher questions because silence is a way of showing respect in Filipino culture. The teacher might never know, Davino said, that the student simply doesn’t understand the lesson. The student, meanwhile, may never know that it’s OK to speak up.

As head of the commission, Davino also works to overcome what she calls myths of minorities, such as all Asians are smart, hard-working and well off.

“That hurts the Asian minorities,” Davino said. “A lot of Asians are poor. Not all Asians are good in math.”