Creative Writing Awards 2022 Winner: “Dancing in my Golden Terno” by Michaela Gabrielle Serafica

The 19th Annual Creative Writing Awards (CWA) were held on May 5, 2022, a celebration of the liberal arts deeply embedded in the science and clinical practice of the Yale School of Nursing (YSN) community. After a keynote speech by nurse and author Beth Cavenaugh, RN, BSN, CHPN each of the three winners read their work aloud. Pediatric Nurse Practitioner student Michaela Gabrielle Serafica ’24 MSN made the top three for this submission. 

Dancing in My Golden Terno

A terno, also known as a mestiza dress, Filipiniana dress, or Maria Clara dress, is a traditional Filipino dress. Characterized by large, butterfly sleeves, it is a symbol of the rich and resilient Filipino culture. Filipino immigrants comprise 4% of the US national nursing workforce, yet accounted for 26.4% of COVID related deaths in nurses in 2020. As detailed in Catherine Ceniza Choy’s “Empire of Care”,  the United States has a history of relying on foreign Filipino labor to address the nursing shortage.

Dancing in my golden terno
My sleeves command attention in the room
A room full of nursing scholars
Celebrating the annual ball
I wish my diasporic heart could gleam
As brightly as this dress shines and glows
Though I feel many eyes on me I have never felt more unseen

These beautiful butterfly sleeves
Feel heavy upon my shoulders
As I feel the weight of 26.4% 
Woven into the pleats

Labor from those who look like me
Holds our healthcare system together at the seams
But like the seams of my dress, they remain invisible
Not to be perceived

As my hem sweeps the floor
I wonder whose names have been swept away
In this history that many try to erase
This history of Filipinos who answered the call
To do no harm, even when they themselves are harmed
Wage gaps
Hate crimes
Exploitation
I feel these weigh as I carry my culture on my sleeves
My sleeves which once felt so light and airy
Have become so exhausting to bear

In this choreography composed by colonization,
Those who took up the “White Man’s Burden”
Set the stage by creating schools
Built to silence our languages and assimilate our minds
So we could build our Empire of Care abroad to reign
Then leave our homeland drained

I wonder how heavy my lola’s sleeves felt
When she left the Philippines, nine kids in tow
For Watsonville, California
Serving the community hospital for decades
Her sleeves must have been seen from near and far
My mom felt the call too
Her sleeves made here in the States
Her compassion drives her nursing process
And her tenacity makes her great
She reminds me who gave me my sleeves
That I now wear on my shoulders
My matriarchs, the ones who came before me
In this profession of care

So now I take on the Pinay’s Burden
Answering the call to serve
Even if this generational trauma
Is sometimes too great to ignore
The ones who came before me
Shaped this profession of healing
Now they give me the tools
To find healing in my journey too

So I will stand on their shoulders
Their sleeves as tall as mountains
Holding my head high
My sleeves as visible as can be
As I dance in my golden terno
To the beat of nursing school

Read More CWA 2022 Winners 

Read the award-winning entries of the other two 2022 honorees: Sajni Persad for “My Most Dearest Ruthie” and Gayelan Tietje-Ulrich for “Paperwhites.”