The dilapidated
ancestral home that I once knew as a child is no longer. Instead,
this grand two-story structure with a Spanish-style balcony, complete
with arches and railings, is what greeted me when I first arrived
in the town of my birthplace: Sta.
Barbara, Pangasinan, Philippines. I walk into the home, not as
a stranger but as a granddaughter, home to see my Nanay after a long
absence of 7 years since the last time we saw each other. The first
meeting that took place between she and I was one of instant recognition
from her part and endless giggling from mine. In that moment, the
recognition was made, the distance of time between us was bridged,
and our lives merged for the two weeks that I was home to visit. The
first meeting with my Grandmother was an enchanted moment. I saw my
entire heritage and my family's history just by gazing into her eyes.
I have an online
journal that I use to write about my daily adventures in Japan, where
I currently live, and the various trips in Southeast Asia that I've
taken. I had wanted to update and write about everything as I was
experiencing it during my trip to the Philippines, but that is always
nearly impossible. Before the novelty wears off, those first thoughts
and impressions must be printed, but instead, they are now imprinted
in my mind as images.
The one impression
that I couldn't get out of my mind was the fact that of all the places
that I had lived and visited, I had never felt so much at HOME as
much as I felt during my visit to the Philippines. Of course, I was
visiting family and the members of my clan with whom I have lost connection,
since I grew up in California. I was welcomed with open arms, and
laughing smiles, and I realize that home isn't exactly the physical
place of destination or the ancestral home of your parents. HOME is
wherever your family resides. But overall, throughout my visit, I
was able to see and understand the dynamics of the Philippines with
a grown woman's eyes, and I was amazed by everything that I learned
about my family, the Pilipino people, the language, culture and social
structure of the country.
Roots in Poverty
My family isn't ashamed to reveal our roots in poverty. In fact, it's
a topic that manages to sneak its way into every conversation between
mothers and daughters, fathers and sons, uncles and nieces, etc.,
during every family event and celebration. It's a conversation tinged
with pride, since my parents and their brothers and sisters know very
well the smell and taste of the blood, sweat and tears that came with
the struggle of their rise from poverty. This taste of blood, sweat,
and tears is a factor that my brothers, sisters, cousins and I don't
clearly know, nor do we understand. We, those of us who were American
born and American raised, grew up in a different playing field than
our parents. But there was always the constant reminder of "You
have it easier than we did growing up. You have more opportunities
in America. Make sure you take every advantage of it."
That phrase was
never really full of meaning to me until I visited the Philippines.
I saw how my extended family in the Philippines; although not completely
stricken with poverty, but nonetheless, had to struggle to make ends
meet and feed their families, and send their children to school. In
their struggle, I saw what my grandparents, my parents, and what my
aunts and uncles struggles may have been like. It's that determination
and resolve you see in their eyes that yearns for a better standard
of living, and the humbleness of their character that leads them to
take pride in their jobs to do it right and to do it well.
With much pride
and admiration, I watched my cousin, who drove a motorcycle, and my
cousin's husband, who drove a Jeepney, and the daily hustle it took
to make the extra peso. I thought about my grandfather who was also
a bus driver, and saw the man that he must have been like through
my cousins. When I went off on my own to explore Northern Luzon by
myself (with the distress of my Nanay, Lolas, and Aunts ringing in
my ears) I continuously invoked the spirit of my Tatay, as well as
the patron saints of the road and travelers, and completely put my
trust and faith in the Pilipino people to protect me from harm and
danger (as well as from being kidnapped) as I rode on the buses, Jeepneys,
rented vans, and motorcycles that took me from the alpine city of
Baguio to the mountainous regions of Tabuk, Kalinga, and finally to
the valleys of Solano, Nueva Vizcaya.
In fact, when
I paid my cousin and her family an unexpected visit in Sta. Fe, Nueva
Vizcaya, to their surprise a Jeepney driver who knew my cousin's husband
delivered me to their front doorstep. I had spent an entire afternoon
in Solano asking EVERY Jeepney driver, "Excuse me, do you know
Kuya Popoy? Do you know the Barnachea Family?" because I didn't
know exactly where they lived. I was welcomed into their home, the
niece who kept a number of people up until the wee hours of the night
in fervent prayer for my safety.
But it was through
my cousin's family, the Barnachea Family, in which I saw the struggle
that every young family goes through in the Philippines. My cousin
is a teacher, her husband a Jeepney driver, their oldest is a college
student in Baguio, and the 2 youngest were still 2 and 4 years old.
They shared their simple meals with me and I was in heaven as I ate
dishes that were most familiar to me. I had a room to sleep in, and
my little cousins kept me entertained as they taught me how to speak
Tagalog and Ilocano.
Language
The thing about the Pilipino language, I'm proud to say is that it's
still there; a silent part of who I am that is waiting to be utilized
and spoken. Pangasinan, Tagalog, ha, even Ilocano!! (Just kidding,
although I have found that the phonetic pronunciation of Ilocano has
a lot in common with Cambodian, and other SE Asian languages.) I think
living in Japan has a lot to do with my comfort and ease in picking
up the Pilipino language as easy as I did, since I've learned to turn
my mind off when hearing a string of words that I don't understand,
and I've instead began relying on gestures to understand the overall
meaning of the actual phrase.
Of course, Pilipino
is heavily peppered with English, and the vocabulary that I learned
as a child is quite extensive, so when I heard Pilipino being spoken,
I understood pretty much everything that was being said. As I was
playing with my younger nephews and niece (3 in Manila who spoke Tagalog
and 3 in Nueva Viscaya who spoke both Tagalog and Ilocano), I asked
them to tell me certain words or phrases, or I would repeat everything
they said. Much to my surprise and pride, I can still speak the language,
although I need more of an opportunity to speak it on a regular basis.
Music
Another thing I learned from my family back home is the Pilipino people's
passion for music. In the warm evenings of the holiday season I'd
sit on the 2nd floor balcony, listening to the children from the neighborhood
going from house to house singing Christmas carols, and I am reminded
of the Christmases of my childhood when we did the same thing along
the same street. One night, I gave two of my cousins a 50-peso bill,
and they managed to get a small bottle of whiskey, and within hours
they were drunk, playing their guitars and singing acoustic rock music
that is popular with kids from my generation. It was kind of like
being serenaded, and in my foolish way, I tried to imagine what it
would be like to be serenaded, the way the Spanish used to serenade
the women they were courting in the 1800's, the way my father and
my uncles and their compadres must have done to court their girlfriends,
now their wives.
The love for music
and sound has got to be the unofficial national pastime in this country.
The sounds of the neighborhood every night that I was in Sta. Barbara
was filled with barking dogs, screaming children, and karaoke, or
videoke, as it is called. It reminded me of the Mexican-American parties
that took place in my neighborhood in Long Beach, California; loud,
obnoxious singing, salsa and cha-cha music blaring, you can tell jokes
and stories are being exchanged by the sound of laughter that rumbles
into my bedroom window.
I loved listening
to the night making its preparations for sleep, the sound of a tricycle
whirring off in the distance, the blast of its engine sounding like
an old man endlessly gargling. Then there were the crickets and other
insects that make their living in the night. I felt like I was a child
of 5 again, and I would rummage inside my mind bits and pieces of
memories and the things I thought and did and said as a child.
Television
While living in
Japan, one way that I've learned to peer into the psyche of its people
is by watching their television programs. The same could be said for
the Philippines. It disturbed me the way young girls were sexually
objectified on television. There was a TV program called the Sexbomb
Contest, in which young college girls wearing skimpy outfits dance
provocatively on screen to win the cash prize. It's very similar to
what can be found in the U.S., with shows like Soul Train that I watched
while growing up. There were other variety shows that feature other
young girls dancing their lives away. I guess it isn't so surprising,
since it's no stereotype that Pilipino women can groove to the latest
in modern and classical dance.
Other kinds of
TV shows are the dramas, with the Pilipinos adopting the Spanish term
telenovelas, or soap operas. But it's total love cheese. It's full
of stories about unrequited love, young couples torn apart by their
families, young girls dying young. And this is where I realized that
romanticism and idealism towards love and family is very much ingrained
in the Pilipino mindset. I see the way Pilipino men are such romantics
and the way Pilipino women can be such drama queens. My Nanay, my
mother and her sisters, as well as my sisters and I can attest to
that--it's imprinted in our genes, my dad says and never hesitates
to call us maarte whenever the occasion arises.
Houses
While I was in
transport, I liked to watch the landscape and silently took note of
the kinds of houses that people called their home. For the few that
can afford it, their homes are built out of concrete blocks, huge
Spanish style mansions with 1st and 2nd floor balconies with railings
and metal iron gates that were twisted into intricate designs that
dot the landscape and barangays. Although, I realized that most of
the homes are still "in the process" of being built, my
mother's ancestral home included. Paint is a luxury that few people
can really afford, so it's the last necessity in building a house.
My mom's ancestral
home has been razed, and this sort of "mansion" has replaced
the dilapidated building that was once the home of my aunts and uncles.
It's now 2 stories, with a 2nd floor balcony. Inside is wooden staircase
with a balcony that leads to the bedrooms. The bathrooms have been
renovated, with flushing toilets and a bathtub. This home, while quite
beautiful and comfortable for my grandmother, is void of emotional
attachment on my part. I remember the crumbling house in which my
grandfather died in, the dark rooms, the concrete floors, and it is
that house that I embrace in my memory.
While my mother's
ancestral home was void of emotion on my part, my father's ancestral
home was filled with to the brim with emotional attachment. It was
already remodeled in the late 70's, when my aunt who lived in Germany
and my uncles who joined the U.S. Navy put in money in renovating
it. Silver dollars molded onto the marble staircase, wooden walls
and ceilings polished with mahogany, wooden furniture with intricately
carved designs, a huge dining room table with grand chairs. I walked
in the upstairs bedrooms and was met with the spirits of my Ama and
Ina, and my aunt from Germany who died.
I sat on this
bed that belonged to my Ina. It has a wooden frame, but the inside
part is made of plastic. I'm surprised it's still around. That bed
has seen a lot of bodies and babies being born on it. As a child,
I have always felt like I was only visitor in this house, but when
I returned as an adult, the feeling that rushed through me was the
fact that this home was my last physical connection to my childhood,
and immediately I felt accepted into its fold. This was the only time
that I really cried with happiness and nostalgia during my visit.
Some of the houses are like the "bahay kubo" houses; the
nipa huts in the nursery rhyme that we used to sing, made out of wood,
nipa, or bamboo walls weaved in intricate designs and roofs made of
rusted iron. I loved seeing the image of nipa huts in the middle of
huge plots of rice fields, the foundation of 4 wooden legs sticking
into the water. When I was little, we had a house like this, although
it wasn't situated on a rice field. I remember I loved to sit on the
family bed to look out the window to watch the dusk slowly settle.
The Social Structure
of the country (as seen by an outsider):
No matter what,
poverty is a way of life in this country. I was constantly at odds
with myself whenever my relatives said, "Now you can see our
way of life, and what our life is like here. It's hard, there's no
jobs for college students, everyday is a struggle, and a hustle to
make the extra peso." For every family in the Philippines, the
goal is to rise up from poverty, no matter the costs.
My Tio Gualberto
told me as they were escorting me to the airport, that American democracy
doesn't work in the Philippines, a society in which 10 percent of
the population still owns the wealth and resources of the country,
while the rest are living in poverty. My uncle has roots in activism
and believes in the theories of communism, and laments the negative
views that the rich has created out of the Marcos era and his achievements.
But I must say, I don't really know much about Philippine history
and its politics to really make a comment.
But towards the
end of my trip, I was starting to feel the familial angst of poverty,
feeling the burden of being poor that is the fact of life for my relatives.
There wasn't really much I could do for them but offer the rest of
the cash I had, but I knew they didn't really expect anything from
me.
Since last year,
my brother and sisters and I have made our independent travels back
to our birthplace, and the experience has been astounding. I think
my brother and sisters and I feel a sort of guilt for our lot in life,
since we were born there, but raised in the US, and we have plenty
of opportunities to have a better standard of living. But one thing
I've acknowledged about being an American is the fact that EVERYONE
has the opportunity for upward mobility. In the Philippines, there
just isn't much of anything that is up for grabs.
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