Is a spork okay?

Montreal boy's silverware choice sparks protest in Philippines

CBC News: A disciplinary incident at an elementary school on Montreal's West Island is making headlines in the Philippines.

Last month, a teacher in Roxboro reprimanded a Grade 2 boy for using a fork and spoon to eat his lunch, instead of a fork and knife.

Luc Cagadoc, 7, is from the Philippines, and his mother argues that's the way people eat there.

Philippine protesters picketed the Canadian Embassy in Manila Friday in support of the Filipino boy. About a dozen people held up placards that read, "Respect cultural diversity" and "We eat with spoons and are proud of it."

School officials, for their part, contend the punishment – Cagadoc was separated from his classmates and made to eat alone – had to do with disruptive behaviour, not slovenly eating.

The Commission Scolaire Marguerite-Bourgeoys, which operates the school where Cagadoc studies, sent a letter to his parents last month saying an April 12 "educational intervention" was "in no way aimed at the cultural practices of your community.

It was very specifically linked to the way your son was ingesting his meal that day and in no way to the method or utensils used to bring his food to his mouth."

According to family lawyer Fo Niemi, the executive director of the Center for Research Action on Race Relations, his mother was told by the school's principal during a telephone call that "this is not the way Canadians eat; you have to adapt to Quebec society."

School officials also allegedly called Cagadoc's eating habits "disgusting."

Wow, how refreshing, a school that actually cares about manners, however misguided.

On the one hand, this could be a case of provincial, unironic Quebecers trying to bully immigrants into being like 'us'. Picking on a little boy no less, who undoubtedly was just trying to grow up big and strong so he could get the heck away from the backwoods. Or, alternately, so he could get married, have a large family, and over time have his culture become the norm.

On a related note, anyone who's ever seen either the excellent independent film The Debut or the less-polished but provoking The Flip Side will know that people of Filipino heritage often display a large wooden spoon and fork on the walls of their homes.

Why? Well, like any traditionally poor culture, things related to eating often take on--in this case literally--outsized importance. I mean, why do Chinese people greet each other by asking if you've eaten yet? Why does Passover revolve around the food on the table?

In this same way, Filipinos indentify the fork and the spoon with health and family. To tell a kid to get rid of his spoon and use a knife instead (in America that'd be classed a weapon) is like telling him to turn his back on his people. (Again, this happened in Quebec).

It's possible, of course, this whole incident occurred because the kid--even with the benefit of a utensil as great as the spoon--was just a sloppy eater, and they were trying to help nip that in the bud, as the school maintains. The kid thought they were going after him for the Filipino way, and the whole matter got out of control, fed by aggrieved outside interest groups.

Actually, in a way I'm hoping it was the latter. That way the Filipino Canadians aren't forced to continue attending a bigoted school. Further, it's about time more groups with Asian heritage do what whites have been doing for years: Take an issue, blow it out of context and make it all about them, and force the powers that be to humble themselves and apologize for nothing.

Hey, that's politics--you use highly-emotional issues like this to get your base riled up, get them into the streets and visible, get them to push their weight around a bit.

Then maybe the next time, on a larger or more serious issue, the schools will remember the power those Filipinos have--right or wrong--and bend over backwards to accommodate them.

Heck, if it's what Asian groups have to do to not be ignored, let's start sending kids to school armed with two pointy sticks.

AP photo of demonstrators by Bullit Marquez via Asian Journal.