Miranda Aguilar – in conversation
Carielyn Tunion - Kap.Magazine contributing writer
Playwright Miranda Aguilar, styled by Genesis Mansilongan, hair and MUA by Ana Costa and Photography by O’neal Perez.
Miranda Aguilar has a lot of questions – and they’re not afraid to admit it. In a climate of ‘wokescolding’ and a culture of one-upmanship, they are a breath of fresh air. Over Bicol express and non-lactose coffees, Miranda speaks to Kap. Mag about writing trans-migratory identities with integrity, how ‘Filipino-ness’ transcends stereotypes, and not playing games with white institutions.
Could you share some of your motivations for writing, and specifically writing for the stage? What inspires (or compels) you to do this work?
There’s a part of me that struggles with this question, with the specific question ‘why do you write?’ I write because I must, I write because it’s the only thing I can do. Writing is the only part of my identity, more than my Filipino-ness, more than my queerness, that feels innate, important. At the same time, it’s also something I feel I’m constantly trying to earn. I write because I’m a writer, and because writing is important, I write so I can do justice to my title.
I specifically write for performance (stage, screen, beyond) because I love its transformative power. Words change with its medium, and that’s scary – and exciting! I never know how folks will take something I’ve written. How will they perform that pause? How will it hit an audience living and breathing in front of you? How will they frame this scene in the camera? How will it change?
I lean into its collaborative nature, into the fear – and if I’m with the right people, working and listening together – it makes something better than what I’ve written on the page.
Your play, Let Me Know When You Get Home, explored ‘coming of age’ as a queer person of colour in Western Sydney. Although you’ve previously described the play as non-autobiographical, which elements of the story were inspired by your own experiences as a queer Filipinx writer growing up in Western Sydney?
As an explanation, though I was born in Sydney, I spent most of my childhood in the United States. I came back to Australia when I was 17, so while I didn’t have a childhood in Western Sydney, I did experience those formative early young adult years in Western Sydney, when you’re too old to be a kid or a teenager, but too young to feel connected to adulthood.
I grew up in the suburbs, and while I grew up in many different suburbs around the world, suburban isolation often feels the same. I dreamt about going into the big city, and while the big city changed, the dream didn’t: one day, I’ll go into ‘The City’ (Sydney? New York? San Francisco? Berlin?) and I would find the adults who would understand me and why I felt so weird, tiny and alone. They would welcome me with open arms as one of their own. I would be free, I would be an adult, and I would understand.
What happened instead is that as a uni student, I still often felt excluded. I knew too little and was too broke and far away to feel like I could wholeheartedly engage in queer spaces/theatre spaces/film spaces. I didn’t really find the spaces I was looking for until much later, until I had let go of the expectation that any one space or person could affirm me, or that I would ever know exactly what the fuck I’m doing.
When I first started writing Let Me Know When You Get Home, the more autobiographical character in my mind was actually Prince. The character Val was definitely written with me thinking about what I was like when I was 17, but Val is also much cooler and braver than I was at that age. Prince, meanwhile, was closer to my age, and I really related to the idea of their perfectionism, and trying to act like a mentor and look like I knew what I’m doing when I’m actually a mess.
It also took me five years of writing an aspirational, partially autobiographical, brown non-binary character before I realised I’m non-binary. Growth really can happen at any age!
How do you personally define ‘Filipinoness’? Is it a culture, a state of being, a lived experience or an aspiration? How would you say it shapes or influences your creative practice?
I LOVE this question because it’s so complex and, in a way, terrifying? Is ‘Filipinoness’ a birthright? Is it innate? Is it something I’ll grow into? Does it only grow with other people, other Pinoys? I don’t know! It feels true for me, but I don’t know!
Because people are more important, I will never begrudge anyone’s personal definition of ‘Filipinoness.’ Connection with culture is a journey, and who the fuck am I to gatekeep? People have different experiences, different vocabulary, different ways to connect, and even if I say ‘culture is more than Karaoke and lechon,’ I don’t want to take that away from someone else. I’ve found that as I connect with other Pinoys and try to expand my understanding of ‘Filipinoness’ and culture, it’s often like someone just flicked a switch, revealing something that was always there. Learning about kapwa, about kagandahang loob changed me – not because I hadn’t felt it or lived by these tenets, but because I had the understanding and vocabulary for it.
The way ‘Filipinoness’ shapes my artistic practice is something I’m still interrogating. At the moment, I’ve written Filipinx characters, but I don’t think I’ve written a Filipino story – yet. I’m trying – with Ka-llective and Salt Baby, with some other works I’m still developing – but it hasn’t happened yet.
The way it’s currently shaping my practice is that I feel my ‘Filipinoness’ as a responsibility. It means I want to, have to uplift other Filipinx people, whether they’re creatives or audience members. I can’t please the entire Filipinx community, but I keep them in my mind, in my heart, in my work. How am I representing us? How is my work giving back? Am I writing this for Filipinos, or am I writing it for white people who will applaud a brown face making white work?
Cultural critic and writer, Hari Zayid wrote,“When representation is the only thing that matters, it places the onus on us to rectify violent [media] institutions by adapting to them while those who have power over these institutions go unchallenged”[1]. What are your thoughts on the limits of representation and visibility-based identity politics?
I think when people from historically excluded communities, especially in the diaspora, think about creating work, the instinct is to just aim for representation. It’s not our fault! It’s what we’re told to expect, it’s what these institutions have told us to aim for. How can you dream beyond patriarchal, colonial structures that we’ve grown up in, that have gagged our imagination? The result is that we’re expected to be excited just to be at the table, even if all we get is breadcrumbs. We’re excited to see a brown face on screen, even if they’re written as a stereotype and surrounded by white people in the crew. We root for a Masc4Masc gay cop romance that’s produced by a film company that puts away their rainbow flags on July 1st. We buy into the idea that it’s okay that we’re the one brown face in the room because we aspire to whiteness, because we believe we’re better than our kapatids – they’re too entitled, too angry, too emotional, they don’t know how to play the game.
It’s all bullshit, and it’s a game I’m uninterested in playing. I don’t just want to write safe gay romances. I don’t want to reduce my Filipino characters to maids who drink San Miguel and swear in Tagalog. I don’t want to cheer for a girlboss of colour that still perpetuates toxic, capitalist work structures.
We have to challenge these violent media institutions, and that’s unfair. It’s unfair that even as we recognise these structures, we still have to work so hard to decolonise our mindsets and fight back against a world that wants us to stay compliant. On my tired days, I do just want to write like a Hallmark Christmas movie and just make bank, but it’s not enough! Visibility is not enough. Representation is not enough. So we have to do better.
What do you think lies in the future for Pinoy or Filipinx playwrights – whether at home or in the diaspora?
Abundance. There are more of us than we think, and we’re finally being seen, and folks are taking note. I think with it comes temperance, a responsibility to not replicate colonial structures. But theatre is expansive, exciting, and even if the gatekeepers aren’t ready, we are.
What makes you excited about your communities? What do you dream for them?
I am always excited by the young people in my communities – Filipinx, Western Sydney, queer, theatre-makers, etc. I hope that when I’m ninety years old, I will always recognise their brilliance, their passion, their wisdom. Young people are cool as hell, and we should be listening to them! People younger than me in my communities have taught me so much, and they make me want to create a better world for them.
I dream of ease. I dream of rest. I know I’m not old, but I am already so tired of fighting the same fight, trying to dismantle the same structures. I’m trying to dream past the fight and the trauma. I dream of a world that is just at the edge of my imagination. I’m dreaming of the foundation of a world future generations will build.
Miranda Aguilar is a queer Filipinx writer, creative producer, and community arts worker. Their debut play, Let Me Know When You Get Home, premiered at Parramatta’s Riverside Theatre in March 2021 after a six-year process that began at Curious Creator’s Writer’s Group, Into the Closet, in 2015. They are currently working on several projects including Salt Baby with writer’s collective, Ka-llective; as well a deeply personal play exploring intergenerational love and ancestral recipes, titled Kumain Ka Na?
Cadelina, N. 2021, ‘An interview with Miranda Aguilar’, The Western, https://www.thewestern.com.au/locals1/an-interview-with-miranda-aguilar
Ziyad, H. 2018, ‘Beyond representation: Visibility in media won’t save us’, Black Youth Project, http://blackyouthproject.com/beyond-representation-visibility-in-media-alone-wont-save-us/
