Watching Yellow Rose with an achy breaky heart
Plus MilkTea builds a Filipino cultural extravaganza around the screening of a landmark Filipino American film
The fourth of July, 2026. It was the first time Yellow Rose was screened before a UK audience. The astonishing Muri (video excerpt below) performed two rather wonderful songs before the film. Award-winning British Filipino director Paris Zarcilla (Raging Grace) was there to interview Yellow Rose director Diane Paragas, who had travelled from the United States to attend the event.
Rose (played by a luminous Eva Noblezada) is a Filipino teenager growing up in Texas. In the movie, the words ‘Yellow Rose’ are one of those clever cruelties people can make up, invoking the famous Texan folk song The Yellow Rose of Texas, while slyly taunting Rose for her race. Her Filipino parents transplanted Rose to Texas in pursuit of the American Dream, only for her Dad to die, leaving her mother, Priscilla (Princess Punzalan), to support Rose by working at a motel. When Rose, glancing around at their shabby motel life, chides Priscilla, “This isn’t the life he wanted.” Priscilla replies, “It will be better for you, I promise.”
This scene happens six minutes 22 seconds into the film and my heart is already aching. Because it’s going to get worse before it can get better.
I know this because this movie was filmed during Donald Trump’s first presidency when anti-immigration politics and family separations at the border made world news. I know this because I spent years as a journalist reporting on the phenomenon of Filipinos leaving home in their millions to seek better lives overseas. I know this because my country’s shared history with our not-so-former coloniser, the United States, was akin to a toxic relationship: the devoted partner endlessly trying to please a bad boyfriend, betrayals galore, broken promises, rejection and most of all, unrequited love.
(This piece continues with spoilers after the Reaching Hollywood sidebar below. )
Reaching Hollywood. The world has not been lacking in Filipino stories told via the silver screen. But these stories have mostly circulated through independent and festival cinema. Lino Brocka’s Insiang was the first Filipino feature presented at Cannes; Lav Diaz’s The Woman Who Left won the Golden Lion at Venice; and Brillante Mendoza won Best Director at Cannes for Kinatay. Filipino diaspora films including The Debut, American Adobo and Paris Zarcilla’s British Filipino gothic horror Raging Grace also reached audiences through independent and specialist distribution. What filmmakers have rarely had is the reach that comes with Hollywood backing. Yellow Rose was the first Filipino American film distributed by a major studio.
“Would you rather be with someone you love but doesn’t love you back, or someone who loves you but you don’t love?” Yellow Rose
The United States is, of course, the someone who doesn’t love you back. And the someone who loves you but you don’t love? It’s the Philippines.
At the end of the movie, Rose literally finds her voice, singing her own song in public (Brava, Eva Noblezada!). We see her aunt, Gail (Lea Salonga) live-streaming the show to Priscilla, now deported to Manila. Priscilla watches and cheers, her Filipino family crowded around her, heads leaning lovingly on her shoulder. She is home, with a family that embraces her. And she is free at last from the American Dream that had condemned her to scrubbing toilets and enduring the uncertain life of the undocumented.
And Rose? Her sense of self, her music, her ambitions, are American. The Philippines is not alive to her the way Texas is. And watching that final, joyful scene with Filipino eyes, I can’t help my own achy breaky heart. Rose has found her voice, she is telling her story through song. With her powerful vocals and words, she has found a home in country music, a quintessentially American art form. But she has chosen the fraught life of seeking inclusion in a land that refuses her full belonging.
Bittersweet is an understatement. Because the American Dream is a wish not merely for prosperity but for approval . . . to become, well, American. It grew out of nearly half a century of American colonial rule, which taught Filipinos to look to the United States as the source of democracy, modernity and opportunity, even though America never really intended to accept the Philippines – or Filipinos – as equals.
It was a treat to listen to British Filipino director Paris Zarcilla (Raging Grace) in conversation with Diane Paragas, Yellow Rose’s director, writer, co-producer, co-writer of some of the songs. Paragas is one of those personalities that can light up a room, and listening to her, you recognise the generous spirit that infuses the film.
As a novelist, I have to design characters who can show my heroes ways to be. Paragas has filled this film with kind characters that a critical framework might describe as white saviours, a problematic trope that describes white characters who uplift characters of colour. But viewing this film through a Filipino lens, I am alert to the more complex emotional structure underneath.
I hear Paragas pleading with Americans living in Trump’s America, “This is who you could be. You could be an ally. You may not be able to save this person, but you can make space for her. You can choose to be kind.”
BALIKBAYAN
Yellow Rose opened Balik Bayan, MilkTea’s month-long celebration of Filipino stories, identity and community. Running throughout July, the programme brings together film, live performance, exhibitions and family workshops at Centre 151:
A storytelling workshop with yours truly, Candy Gourlay (18 July book here)
Buhay (21-25 July, BSMT Gallery) an exhibition of work by artists and photographers including Hannah Reyes Morales (book here for the opening). It includes Kwentong Kahon, an installation produced by Graciela Mae Chico, exploring the Filipino diaspora’s tradition of sending balikbayan boxes home to the Philippines.
Mixtape: Filipino Edition, showcasing short films by British Filipino filmmakers (book here).
Balik Bayan is produced by MilkTea with support from Arts Council England and the BFI, awarding National Lottery funding. Its partners include Centre 151, Kanlungan, the Migration Museum, Voice ESEA, Occasians and Story Feast. Yellow Rose screenings in London, Manchester, Birmingham (You can still catch it on 17 July) and Glasgow were presented in collaboration with Voice ESEA, Move Midlands and ESEA Creatives Scotland.