Isabella Garcia Bernstein
on translating José Palma y Velásquez
At first glance, Palma’s work is a lyrical ode to the humble and beautiful sampaguita flower, which is a national symbol of the Philippines. The sampaguita, derived from the Filipino phrase sumpa kita or “I promise you,” symbolizes innocence, loyalty, and hope. Bearing this symbolism in mind, I also focused on Palma’s political views during the movement for Philippine independence. Knowing Filipinos’ struggle for autonomy largely shaped how I chose to translate this poem. Just as the author spoke about nostalgia for one’s homeland, I used my memories from my grandparents’ home in the Philippines to determine the word choice and tone of my translation.
It is crucial to recognize that Palma wrote this poem in 1900, two years after the United States began its occupation of the country, following the Spanish-American War and the Philippine Revolution. Considering his political motives and occupation as a soldier, I was very deliberate about how I wanted to translate the introductory line of the first stanza: “me pides sampaguitas…no te envío”. In Spanish enviar elicits a passive image of sending the flowers without a fight. However, I took enviar to mean “surrender.” Placing more value on the flowers and their agency, I translated the line as: “You ask me for sampaguita flowers…I will not surrender them to you.” This word choice highlights the struggle for land ownership and portrays Filipinos as strong, moral, and heroic like Palma might have intended.
The image of the sampaguita guided me in prioritizing Palma’s loving and protective tone over any particular rhyme scheme. To conserve the poem’s emotion, I adapted some of the descriptions in English. I translated sabrosa in the fifth stanza as “sweet” and “se tornan pálida” in the tenth stanza as “they lose their brilliance” to signify that the white flowers lose their vividness once they are picked from the branches. Throughout my translation process, the connection between sampaguitas and Filipinos became increasingly clearer. After many drafts of attempting to see the flowers as an extension of humanity (beyond personification), I chose my diction based on how I would write an obituary for a human being. The flowers are not simply plucked from their stem but violently stolen and killed by imperial powers: “que se irán al troncharlas” – “they will put an end to them.”
about the author
José Palma y Velásquez was an author of hispanofilipino literature born in Manila, Philippines in 1876 under Spanish colonial rule. He was the younger brother of acclaimed senator, journalist, and scholar Rafael Palma. The two brothers collaborated extensively in Philippine revolutionary journalism. In fact, it was in journalism where José Palma’s work began. As a staff writer for La Independencia, one of the most notable newspapers published at the time of the Philippine Revolution, he debuted his poem “Filipinas” which are the lyrics to the country’s national anthem. This work has been translated into various Filipino languages and English.
A dedicated revolutionary, he fought for Filipino political and cultural autonomy during the Spanish-American War. As a soldier of the Katipunan (a group of Filipino nationalists who advocated for armed resistance against the Spanish government), he advocated for independence against the Americans. Inspired by the natural beauty of the Philippine landscape, particularly flora, he wrote poems and music to raise morale and bring awareness to the resilience of Filipino people. Under pseudonyms, he shared these works in publications like El Renacimiento, La Patria, and La Moda Filipina. He died tragically young in 1903, at the age of twenty-six.
about the translator
Isabella Garcia Bernstein (they/she) is a third-year Filipina-American student majoring in Hispanic Studies and Archaeological Anthropology at Barnard College. Funded by the Laidlaw Foundation and hosted by New York University’s KJCC as the first undergraduate scholar in residence, they founded the Paglaban Pilipino Literature Project, a non-profit curriculum website that promotes Philippine literature produced in the Philippines and the diaspora. At Columbia, they serve as the president of the university’s sole Filipinx heritage organization and the editor-in-chief for the Columbia Journal of Asia. They currently research hispanofilipino literature at the turn of the twentieth century and corresponding themes of environmental personhood, post-colonialism, and exophony.
photo by Sanaa Patel
