I submitted 52 pieces for my weekly Rhizomes column in the Asian Journal. These pieces, excerpted below, resonated with AJ’s readers and also on social media.
It is interesting to observe that months after I spotlight an author, a musician or an artist, many more good things happen to them. It is a testament that God rewards those who put effort into their craft, with the best intentions of sharing their talents.
May you all have a peaceful, truth-filled, just and prosperous 2019! God makes miracles daily – we must be still to claim them all! We are all His anointed beloveds!
The Philippine Chamber Singers-LA (PCS-LA) performed at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on August 17, 2018. Members include sopranos: Marivic Francisco, Charmaine Normandia, Kit Buhion, Annie Jeanette Dwight and Ana Hurn; altos: Ana Burog, Lisa Ulanday, Apple Nazareno, Jennifer Morelos, Judith Guerrero and Kim Bautista; tenors: Louie Ulanday, Noel Anzures, Hero Emolaga, Aris Canlapan, *Oscar Pantaleon Jr., and *Gerry Francisco; and bass: Dino Padallan, Dale Francisco, Medard Obida, Dennis Quiambao, and Novem Cabios. (*Indicates guest singers) Photo courtesy of The Philippine Chamber Singers-LA
Part II: Philippine Chamber Singers-LA give their all to OPM at the Walt Disney Hall
Nagbubungkal, nagtatanim, kumikinang (shoveling, planting, healthy vibrance) are features of hard work in growing crops.
But, what if those activities were applied in nurturing families and growing communities?
If one is born into music, what if someone aligned with that luck, applied himself in that path, keeping in mind the law of favorability, and that the Universe conspires to give us more favors to grow our luck?
Much like Andrea Morricone — an Italian composer-son of Ennio Morricone, who speaks with a sense of certainty, in sharing himself “as perhaps already swimming in music,” while in the womb of his mother, Maria and listening to his father, Ennio who played the trumpet — Anthony Angelo “Gelo” Francisco has similar roots of “swimming in the musically-gifted womb” of Herminia, a coloratura (soprano skilled in opera), his mother, and listening to Gerardo, his father, a singer.
They became part of an erstwhile Mandaluyong Polyphonic Society’s (MPS) and as the photo accompanying this article shows, Francisco’s dad (bass) and mom (soprano), encircled in white, who with their group, performed at exclusive Cardinal’s events in the Philippines. At MPS, Gerardo met Herminia and they became a couple, giving birth to the youngest Gelo Francisco with four elder siblings, all with gifts of musicality. A similar PCS-LA gathering with their families are in another photo.
Fast forward to this Music Center’s Disney Hall event and we find Gelo Francisco’s family integrated into PCS-LA as well, with wife Marivic (a soprano), in a featured solo, while their son, Joaquim Antonio Belo Francisco, (college-bound on his gap year) strummed the kalatong, a bamboo percussion instrument with Gelo. Both Joaquim and his father (Gelo) played the kalatong bamboo drums to a fast rhythm that provided the background to “TINIG NG LUPA,” which earned a chorus of audience’s bravos. We celebrated that we saw how the Francisco family rose as one, passing on the legacy inherited from Gelo’s father and mother, and now Gelo and Marivic passing on their gifts of musicality to their first born, Joaquim, another professional artist born that night.
The integrity of passion and conviction to good music shows
Equally outstanding was the rendition of “ANAK,” a popular song of Freddie Aguilar, with new arrangements from John Pamintuan. It was a solo featuring alto Lisa Ulanday, accompanied by Malaya Filipino-American Dance Arts and of course, PCS-LA.
Many Filipinos can sing “ANAK” as the tune is almost instinctive, having been born in the Philippines, a place where this song is heard in the plazas, musical halls, academic stages, television, and movies and like a prodigal son, one breaks off from family to grow independence and returns to home again.
To have a Filipina-American like Ulanday sing this in Tagalog, which is not her primary language, took a lot of preparations from her as to style, enunciating the words and vowels with the punctuated emotions, and of course, the sound dynamics.
She said, “I never thought simple words like ‘gatas’ (milk) could sound too aristocratic when I applied traditional choral singing vowels. I had to consciously add more ‘y’ in kamay (hand), so I didn’t sound hoitey toitey.”
“How did you prepare for this?” I asked her, one evening, after putting her own anak to sleep.
Abraham Ferrer: Using art to influence culture and building communities
The festival he managed for 32+ years will now be on its 35th year in 2019. The workshops continue to be well-attended as Asians are cast in center stages talking about diversity issues while providing forums to discover, to incubate and to showcase the community’s emerging artistic talents.
The festival is a “home,” a reliable cultural space for artists, a “major tastemaking event,” such that the Academy has qualified this festival as a pipeline for short films and a reunion of past to present Asian Pacifics involved in community building using the arts and social awareness.
“Festival No. 34 maintains our spirit of producing this annual showcase through the process of creating our ideal communities,” states VC Executive Director Francis Cullado on 2018’s LAAPFF, “Our programmers and staff imagine our ideal communities to be inclusive while striving towards equity and change. And with regards to the ongoing discourse about diversity, we aim to have a space that engages intra-diversity amongst AAPIs and inter-diversity with other communities and groups. We at Visual Communications (VC) and this Festival proudly present a slate of artists and creators who continue to shift narratives and challenge perspectives.”
2018 gave festival attendees an early chance to see John Cho and Debra Messing in “Searching” via Sony Green Gems, which was co-written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty, a first-time feature filmmaker.
Abe’s programming and cultural acumen have now switched to digital management of VC’s archives. His articulation of their dynamic programming committee’s criteria converged with what I read: “Has my involvement in the process, of which this particular art object [film] is part, raised my consciousness in any way?” Whatever the answer to that question, the fact that we can ask it gives art [film] a new life. With the full emancipation of art, we must also allow it the freedom to do anything and, more to the point, to say anything: to have free speech, if you like but also to have freedom of expression in the languages beyond speech,” Hugh Moss, one of London’s leading 20th century dealers in Asian art who represented the best Chinese artists in Hong Kong, and who wrote “The Art of Understanding Art: A New Perspective” (2015).
Immigrants are pieces of American history
Desirree Delacruz shared this: “I am a millennial American citizen who was born in Westminster, CA whose father, Cesar hailed from Bulacan province. He is the second of eleven siblings who migrated by first becoming a seaman and who now works at USPS. He is credited with helping seven of his siblings migrate. I can only imagine what my dad had to endure: depression, loneliness and in those tears, he had to be so strong to have a vision, larger than his situation then. He met my mother, Imelda who worked alongside my dad at a technology company until she was laid off. For six years, she cared for Juanita Lopez, my grandmother, who had a stroke. I believe if I had to face what they went through, to live lives for others, I would not have the emotional and psychological capacity to transcend their struggles and sufferings. Why? Because everything was given to me. I did not experience those difficulties and I would not know how to respond. Immigrants are a piece of history. They are pieces of American history that built our ancestry, that built our family, that built everything.”
First, Desirree’s smile was my red carpet welcome. Before the ritual of facials started, she held both of my hands, and we both got still, in meditation. As we held hands, I sobbed uncontrollably inside O Skin Care in Cerritos.
After meditating, she asked what happened. I cried and could not help but think about the pain and suffering of toddlers in diapers, imagining what they went through when U.S. border agents tear gassed them. This act was supposedly done according to Pres. Trump on behalf of our national security interests. As Americans, we were not consulted nor did we agree to these despicable acts of cruelty propagated by heartless, yet professionally trained federal agents.
I cried imagining the irritants that caused burning to these toddlers’ eyes, mucous membranes, throat, lungs and skin. Kim Kyung Hoon snapped a moving image that was published in the Washington Post. It catalyzed a discussion about who came to America’s shores and who were allowed in.
The “red” stories of martyrs’ sacrifice of one’s life so others might live (This book garnered the Best Book of Nonfiction in Prose in English award at the 37th National Book Awards on Nov. 25, 2018. I wrote this piece on September 8, 2018, following U.S.’ book launches of the author.)
“With such robust capacity of observation and memory recall, the blood pouring out of the carabao’s jugular vein in his neck, makes for a visual sensory metaphor for how the women and men were arrested, tortured in prison and how women were raped wantonly by a gang of military men, leaving red blood stains all over the place.
Lahoz describes these incidents of torture with precision and specificity, yet with such respect for the women and the reader as to spare us the gory details of the criminal acts, and leaving us to imagine the atrocity, while describing the details after the gory incident. We came to know the various methods of torture, including the use of flat iron to sear the soles of the prisoners, the grabbing of hair until they are torn off one’s scalp with brute force.
Many good deeds are equally described, including soldiers who give a hand to the tortured prisoners, or how Abra farmers were supported by construction of irrigation systems funded by the Catholic Lenten Fund of Germany, enabling the farmers to have two croppings a year.
You could sense the tedious verification that the book went through, as he writes about ordinary people in these chapters and then, through a series of circumstances and the decisions they made, we sense how noble they are, through the words that Manny used in writing this book, not flamboyantly, but precise enough for a person to appreciate how a pregnant woman was helped by movement allies to give birth to her child and even a lesson on how to make spaghetti by her host only to cook it using sardines with canned tomato sauce, and a separate red sauce for Manny.
It was a gift from her heart to Manny, appreciating how she and her child were sheltered from harm. What is the big deal, as the book asks? Spaghetti is not something you can simply buy at the country store in that period; imagine eating this at a remote village where one has to walk by foot for miles to reach the highway. So, one is left wondering? How did she make the spaghetti? The woman thought of keeping the spaghetti noodles she got from her host family and kept it with her for months, on the mere chance she would see Manny and thank him for what he did for her.
Olivia Quido-Co’s journey of humility
She was determined. She analyzed how the network of connections was formed and offered facials to key folks, building her clientele through trust.
Trust is an elusive intangible to acquire. It is not just given to anyone who is still new in the business. It is acquired through repeated quality service, and personal “kabaitan” — personal goodwill, where one will always treat the other in an honorable way.
“Relying on my own intelligence, relying on my own strength, [skills, reputation and experience], I distributed flyers in different supermarkets to build my client base,” Olivia recounted.
She offered facial service for $45, at times even giving $10-discounts to clients who request for it. Once she increased her clientele, she had the promise of return business.
After being a solo entrepreneur for two years at her first business location, she decided that it was not sustainable. She felt disheartened and thought of giving up.
But Jeremiah 29:11 made her realize that God is in charge of her business. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ “
“Si God naman ang magpapasweldo (It is God who will give me the salary),” she said.
Olivia changed direction from personal power and self-reliance, and asked a Higher Being to be her Universal Partner, whom she calls Father God.
“Once I claimed that promise, I realized that the Lord was giving me a lesson through the trials I was going through. You don’t learn everything [when you’re successful], you learn more when you are down, kakailanganin mo ‘yon, ang pagbangon (You need the trials so you know how to recover),” she continued.
She kept cultivating trust, an intangible that was not easy to build. It was difficult to find the clients that it took her five years to build a reliable base. In the meantime, she was restless.
“I wanted this, I wanted that, I kept chasing worldly things, using my own strength. Then, I learned 10 percent tithing to the Church where I receive God’s word, and that if I turn my back on worldly things, and turn towards the Lord, blessing after blessing [would come.] It was truly overwhelming. Sobrang galing talaga ni Lord (God is all omnipotent).”
“For two years, I kept up my tithing, but my take-home income was still at $500 a week. So I asked the Lord – did you not promise an overflowing abundance if I do tithing?”
It turns out, as she recounted, “I was not a consistent giver, I even had a poor attitude in tithing, sometimes I would give $50 a week, other times, I would change it to $30,” she said, then “I turned to the Bible and it gave me this response – The Lord loves a cheerful giver, from then on, my income of $500 became $1000 and then $1,500. Today, I tell my accountant that 10 percent tithing is an absolute expense for my business. Only then did the tremendous blessings pour out that we are so overwhelmed.”
Jose Antonio Vargas in conversation with Prof. Viet Thanh Nguyen, another Pulitzer Prize winning author, at USC Bovard Hall during the book launch of “Dear America” on Sept. 25, 2018. Photos taken by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
Jose Antonio Vargas: From Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist to an American author and immigration reform advocate
How is it that a piece of paper has become a permanent symbol of labeling American citizens as less than, and even making them unworthy except as chattel or slave properties up until the era of Jim Crow?
How is it that a piece of paper is presently being denied to eleven million undocumented immigrants because they are labeled falsely as unworthy of becoming American citizens, even if they have led lives more patriotic than others, like serving in the U.S. military to defend American democracy abroad?
Who determines who is worthy or unworthy of being called Americans? The guy in the White House who is now un-indicted co-conspirator of two felonies of paying off two women to hide his affairs and defrauded American citizens as to alter the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections? No wonder the book is entitled Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas.
America, we have been a nation of absurdities. It is time to make our country more wholesome and correct what is wrong and make everyone who is already here — those who have proven themselves as productive citizens for several years apply to get their legal U.S. work permits and ultimately, after several more years, a permanent green card.
It might take them two decades to qualify until becoming U.S. citizens, but in the meantime, they can operate without being cut up into pieces daily, because of their fears. Just as American chattel owners of slaves terrorize these slaves to remain as properties, today, our American government continues to terrorize these undocumented immigrants and even the asylum seekers at the Southern border fleeing persecution from gangs in their countries.
These undocumented immigrants have been indefatigable, tireless defenders of the American dream and what is right about it; we now have to do what is right by them. America is after all an ideal, an amalgamation of many million immigrants’ dreams who dared cross the shores and oceans seeking better lives, from the Greeks, to the Italians, to the British, to the Irish, to the Spaniards, to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the Filipinos and over 188 countries now in its borders.
Vargas asserts, “Home is not something I have to earn. Humanity is not some box I should have to check. It occurred to me that I’d been in an intimate, long-term relationship all along. I was in a toxic, abusive, codependent relationship with America, and there was no getting out.”
For these eleven million undocumented immigrants, America has become their cage, a huge jail they cannot seem to get out from, a jail they cannot leave to even visit their loved ones overseas and to some, a jail where they will die from, away from their birth nations.
Luchie San Luis Quemuel: Her reflections of God’s gilded miracles in her life
Luchie met the love of her life, Rod Quemuel and together, they have built several businesses, the last one was a caregiving facility with six beds, and their last client was Julia Roth, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s maternal grandmother, whom he visited regularly and was close to.
When Rod and Luchie got married on Dec. 23, 1971, they went on a 37-day honeymoon. Rod asked her to buy boots and coat and she questioned the added expense, thinking they were just going to San Francisco, but off they went to Europe.
In the Quemuel family, kids are born after 13 years of marriage. Luchie got married at 30 years old. To have a kid after 13 years meant being pregnant at 43 years old, so she prayed for a miracle and wanted to go to Our Lady of Fatima.
But, Rod got sick and was feverish the night before. Not knowing how both of them could proceed to visit Our Lady of Fatima the next day, she prayed fervently. That entire evening, it rained hard, with thunder and lightning. Could it be the coming of the Holy Spirit at this point?
The next day, Rod miraculously got well and even got up early. Luchie kept asking the tour driver if the tour to the Fatima should proceed, given the heavy rains. While inside the tour bus, the rains kept up. But, the moment they alighted the bus, the rains stopped. The sun was bright and the streets were dry. Then and there, she knew she would get the miracle that she prayed for.
When they got home, she felt queasy and indeed, the miracle happened, as she became pregnant with Rowell. One more son was to be born five years later, Reggie.
Life is a battle – you must enter into it fully, and do what needs to be done. You cannot shrink from your duty. Life presents difficult, sometimes horrendous situations, unwelcome tasks, and obstacles of every sort. Despite this harsh reality, you must resolutely go forward.
- Pierro Ferrucci
I have wrongly believed life for years that life is a battle, in which I have to face all the challenges every day by myself. It was much later in life that I realized that my Universal Partner is always with me and that I have the capacity to create my own life of privilege.
I have often wondered what it is like to sit in “The Chair of Privilege,” wherein one’s checkbook is freely accessible towards a donation to a church project or a non-profit cause. Or perhaps where one’s circle already includes the ‘sifted and the centrifuged’ crème de la crème of society. They can be folks who have endured their own life’s challenges, embraced them, and now are at a point of coming to their privileged time, harvesting the fruits of their labor.
Or simply folks who are children of elites, who have no financial barriers yet still, have interior challenges of living a life of purpose, fulfilling their own goals using motivation and determination that we all must have to reach ours.
When I was going to the University of the Philippines’ College of Home Economics to pursue a science degree in food technology, I was part of a different universe. Some of my classmates were children of elites, chauffeured by their own drivers, to the university campus. At the end of the day, the drivers were prompt in picking them up.
Unlike them, I was trained by my working parents and my elder sister to take the bus and to ride the “ikot jeepney” to reach one end of the campus, and back to the dorm. It was a sheltered life: go to classes, go to mass, go to the cafeteria, do laboratory experiments and sleep in the dorm. Our weekends were spent at Ma Mon Luk for siopao and mami and the movies. Anything more than that is not within our allowances, unless I prevail on my mother to give me extra to get an ice cream sundae at Magnolia.
Though I lived a sheltered campus life, I felt discontented. I kept comparing myself to the children of elites, as if I had much less. My mindset was quite wrong. Somehow, I expected a rich person to reorient my life to work for me. I did not educate myself to look at my parents as my role models. Not having that secure belief in my family and myself hindered me.
Was it my Christian education in the early sixties, wherein the nuns emphasized a life centered on academics and prayers, but not quite service to the country and its poor? Now they do emphasize service to the poor.
Was it my university education which emphasized having the skills to work abroad, but not quite the skills and mindset to improve the industries in the Philippines? Though my core college education gave me skills, I did not have the inner fortitude of staying put in my country and not aspiring to go abroad. Then, the industries to apply one’s degree in science and food technology were limited.
It was not until I got to the United States, away from my birth country, that I came to realize how much my father, Eleazar, sacrificed to get his higher education in law. He was an orphan, and without financial means of support from his parents, he befriended hunger. It was his daily companion. He walked barefoot several miles to go to school. He had water but no food. He believed that his higher education was his ticket out of poverty. And it was by divine providence that he got to eat.
His active imagination helped him visualize a better life for himself. He then met my mother, Asuncion, who herself was determined to have a better life. She burned the midnight oil to get her master’s degree in science, while teaching full-time and raising us, all five girls. She showed me by example how to work hard to reach our goals. When the youngest girl was five, my mother’s adventurous spirit served her well and she went abroad to give us a much better future.
While both those parental examples were rich ones to learn from, I took them for granted. I incorrectly viewed myself as poor, yet I was richly endowed with their examples of patience, perseverance, true grit and imagination.
Because of what they showed me, I instinctively knew I should and I can pursue higher education. Because of how my dad and my mom sacrificed, I knew I can achieve, with sacrifice and hard work.
Life of gratitude with God’s grace showering
My life turned around when I became grateful for what God gave me: my own skills, talents and knowledge. It even became a life of meaning, of purpose when I served others, mentoring them to reach their own life’s goals. I continue to do that to today, four decades later.
I realized that my own poverty of imagination and good spirits stopped me from having a life of privilege: one that is connected to the Higher Source of imagination and creativity.
I also stopped desiring what others have. I started cultivating my own gifts of imagination and creativity, and have been writing a column for ten years now.
So here goes now, my life begins with an ambitious climb of 282 steps. This overlook trail was created by the collective foresight of the community and the state government’s good governance principles of land conservation and benefitting the public good.
It took over a decade for the community to gain this public victory. How? The Baldwin Hills’ African American community persisted, and sustained their community efforts not to fall apart to division. They solidified their ranks, through social ties, and with their own creative skills of coming together through coffee klatches, movie nights and dinner potlucks. With their solidified ranks, they succeeded in stopping the development of 241 homes over 50 acres of private land.
It was not till the land was bought, and state rangers became part of this park and nurtured its development, did the community finally recognize they preserved 50 acres of land for public good, through their organizing efforts.
Today, this overlook scenic trail is enjoyed by folks of diverse ethnicities, of different ages, of families persisting to have their own lives rich in imagination, rich in creativity, but mostly, rich in connections with their Universal Partner.
Here is where I found a 78-year-old poet, running up the stairs and working through her own issues of poverty, unbeknownst to her, utilizing her own writing skills, as she is presently stumped by her own grief, and expecting folks to like her. I was glad to have struck a conversation with her and even if for a moment, lightened the load in her heart.
Here is where I also found a couple, almost a century old, yes, almost a hundred, with their walking canes, holding hands and whose formula for life is not about viewing challenges, but to take a step at a time, by loving one another for 64 years and smiling while they walk together. They appear to have of privileges, connected to their Universal Partner, the source of all Goodness.
This Christmas Season, I have a lot to be grateful for, starting with my precious almost four-year-old granddaughter. The other day, she corrected me, “Grandma, I am not a baby,” she said, as I mistakenly referred to her as my grandbaby and then, with a smile, she acknowledged it when I called her my granddaughter.
Then, her questions – “Grandma, did my mommy come from your tummy? What about my Uncle Carlo – did he come from your tummy too? Grandma, what about me – did I come from your tummy?”
I said, “yes, your mama and your uncle came from my tummy but you my precious granddaughter came from your mom’s tummy.” She smiled and then she said, “You are my family, Grandma!” That made my day and I felt like I hit the jackpot, in my own virtual chair of privilege!
Merry Christmas to all of you! As every Christmas for 11 years now, I hit the jackpot when I finish all nine novena masses at Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, at 5 a.m. By the morning of Dec. 24th, I feel like I hit the lotto, with a heart so open to accept the divinity of Jesus!
Cover Photo: Jose Antonio Vargas speaks at a stop on his book tour at USC on Sept. 25, 2018.AJPress photo by Klarize Medenilla
[Editor’s note: This column was originally published in 2014 but has been updated and republished in light of recent immigration conversations in the U.S.]
Immigration is by definition a gesture of faith in social mobility. It is the expression in action of a positive belief in the possibility of a better life. It has thus contributed greatly to developing the spirit of personal betterment in American society and to strengthening the national confidence in change and the future. Such confidence, when shared, sets the national tone. The opportunities that America offered made the dream real, at least for a good many; but the dream itself was in large part the product of millions of plain people beginning a new life in the conviction that life could indeed be better, and each new wave of immigration rekindled the dream. It gave every old American a standard by which to judge how far he had come and every new American, a realization of how far he might go. It reminded every American, old and new, that change is the essence of life, and that American society is a process, not a conclusion.
Pres. John F. Kennedy, “A Nation of Immigrants,” 1964, reissued in 2008.
In America, if we believe Fox News and ethnic cable televisions, the discussion to consider “the other, ” is effectively closed. We label them as if they do not matter.
“Get your papers or get out, or worse, go back to Mexico.” They also come from India, China, Philippines, El Salvador, Vietnam, Cuba, Korea, Dominican Republic and Guatemala. And before, Ireland, Italy, Greece, Poland, and America excluded them.
They are our nannies and caretakers to our children, caregivers to ailing relatives, chefs and waiters who serve us our restaurant food, gardeners in our yards, all significant aspects of our American lives, yet, we cast them aside to the margins, to the shadows.
In 2010, these Americans, with no documents, supported the mainstream, paying $11.2 billion in state and federal taxes, yet remained isolated, until a face came forward.
Jose Antonio Vargas (JAV) wrote his essay on being undocumented, in June 2011 in the New York Times. A year earlier, Gaby Pacheco and three friends walked 1,500 miles from Miami to DC to bring awareness to this issue.
JAV is gay, Filipino-American, without documents, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist, who had written for Washington Post, the Huffington Post, the New Yorker and Rolling Stone. He discovered he was undocumented when he tried applying for his driver’s license at the DMV at age 16.
In his essay, he wrote, “I decided then that I could never give anyone reason to doubt I was an American. I convinced myself that if I worked enough, if I achieved enough, I would be rewarded with citizenship. I felt I could earn it. I’ve tried. Over the past 14 years, I’ve graduated from high school and college and built a career as a journalist, interviewing some of the most famous people in the country. On the surface, I’ve created a good life. I’ve lived the American dream. But I am still an undocumented immigrant. And that means living a different kind of reality. It means going about my day in fear of being found out. It means rarely trusting people, even those closest to me, with who I really am. It means keeping my family photos in a shoebox rather than displaying them on shelves in my home, so friends don’t ask about them. It means reluctantly, even painfully, doing things I know are wrong and unlawful. And it has meant relying on a sort of 21st-century underground railroad of supporters, people who took an interest in my future and took risks for me.”
“I would write my way right into America, “ he optimistically planned his life.
Watching “Documented,” a film
Filled with empathy for JAV, so many faces were streaked with tears from crying, while others wiped them off, after watching “Documented,” a jointly sponsored screening by The Asia Society and the Museum of Tolerance in 2014. It is not a teleserye ala Maalala Mo Kaya’s over the top emoting style. It is a credible documentary that effectively threads conversations and dialogue from those who believe immigrants do not belong here, and if they do, they must go back to the end of the line and apply. JAV wrote and directed the film.
There is no line to wait in when you are an American, undocumented. There are no categories to apply for, to get a green card, even for those who have been here for years, even for those who have paid taxes. Families continue to be broken, not one year, not two years, in some cases, 20 years.
By the time they are reunited, in JAV’s case, he wants to have his green card by his next birthday to visit his mom. His fantasy is that at the airport, there will be two of them, Emelia and Jose, and after they hug, chat, a five-hour drive to Zambales, more chats, eating, and she will take him to the beach, where he spent time with his cousins.
On June 15, 2012, a memorandum authored by the Obama Administration called Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) qualified folks who came here as children, and only if they are under 29 years old. JAV was 30 and he didn’t qualify. At the time, he also asserted that 2,000,000 have now been deported by the Obama administration, a number that has to be substantiated.
Separation is a common thread. JAV was four when his grandparents left for the U.S. His grandfather was a security guard and his grandmother was a food server. They both earned minimum wage, but remitted dollars to support Emelia and JAV, until 12-year-old JAV joined his grandparents in California.
“Mother and I slept in the same bed, inseparable,” JAV narrates in the film.
“I joined Facebook. Three years he would not accept me. Such a simple thing. It’s just Facebook. Last letter he sent was 11/1997. It’s like we don’t know each other. It’s really hard. The son that used to tell me Mama, I love you. Like any mother, [I want to] embrace my child, and just want to hug him, touch his face,” Emelia says, as she breaks down and cries, and with her, the audience watching the film, including this writer.
“I guess I hadn’t realized how broken I had felt until I saw how broken she was. I mean, we talk on the phone. Like many immigrant families, I’ve been supporting her and my half-siblings since I was in my early 20s. I helped financially support them, and then that’s it. I don’t want to have to think beyond that because I couldn’t handle beyond that. You know, there was so much geographical and emotional separation. In many ways she had been a part of me that I don’t really like talking about, you know? I was going through two journeys: There was the public journey; there was the private journey. And the public face was, I was going to try to go toe to toe with everybody, may it be Lou Dobbs or Bill O’Reilly or Michelle Malkin. But talking about my mom and allowing myself to be vulnerable like that was just not something that I do, “ as JAV confides to Mother Jones’ Ian Gordon.
The audience was riveted by the Q and A, a conversation between Jonathan Karp, the executive director of the Asia Society, and JAV.
In a one-on-one conversation with this writer, post-screening, JAV shared his intentions: “It is a film, it is to occupy a cultural space and to take immigration out of the political realm. I am for immigrants and the film is intended to change perception and to move and to shift culture in the media.”
Would you believe a friend of mine, Lillian has already seen this in Hawaii, but opted to brave the traffic to see it a second time?
Considering this was shown while Pres. Barack Obama was visiting USC, to accept the Shoal Foundation’s award from Steven Spielberg at the Ambassadors for Humanity gala, tying up traffic in LA, the room was full. Lillian wants to contribute to the debate on immigration reform by taking her children to see this film this week.
This is what happens when a film moves someone’s heart. Hearts get moved, until the tipping point of action, and when there is a massive desire from so many people, as in a democracy wherein citizens are engaged, “We will keep moving forward, until it gets done.”
[Writer’s note: This was published in May 2018 in the Asian Journal’s Los Angeles weekend edition, but the recently concluded, controversial associate justice confirmation hearings on Brett Kavanaugh makes this essay reprint appropriate.]
Dear Mama,
I remembered that Saturday morning in late August in 2015 when I first told you that I was sexually assaulted. I remembered sitting on the couch and I couldn’t look at you, dad, or Andrew in the eye. It felt like the entire room froze, and no one ever expected those words to come out of my mouth. Andrew kept switching glances between the three of us, Papa had his head in his hands with tears in his eyes, and you rushed over to comfort me. I remembered bracing myself for the “I told you so” that would follow. I remembered the streamline of questions you sent my way, and I think it’s because you never prepared yourself to have this conversation with me. You wanted to avenge the pain I was in by trying to pry any information you could get your hands on and put my perpetrator away. But at the same time, I prayed that I wouldn’t see the disappointed look in your eye when I told you. I always felt like I knew exactly what I was doing, and this was the first time that I just didn’t know how to move forward.
Sometimes I found it hard to explain what I really did at school. As an Asian American studies major, I felt like you just nodded your head and trusted that I knew what I was doing. Progressive leadership to some might seem like a very radical term to describe my work as an ethnic studies student in this polarized day and age. But to others, progressive leadership is helping evolve their campus community in more than just a project that benefits themselves. I would like to think that my work at CSUN is an example of progressive leadership in higher education. I believe activism starts in many corners of campus. From the times when I called to tell you about the conferences I was going to, to the non-profit work I was doing, or when I started crying because I felt that my world was pulling me in five different directions. I just need to be comforted by you, and to be reminded that it was all a part of a process. I have learned that progressive leadership is not necessarily the end goal, but it is the never-ending journey of selfless work needed to help someone who might one day walk in the same shoes I did.
I was not sure when I realized that I was not alone in my journey, but when I took my AAS 311 – Research Methods class, I found institutional support from Dr. Tracy Lachica- Buenavista to pursue a qualitative research study on the experiences of Filipina American and Chinese American women’s experience with sexual harassment. From that research, I found that so many other Asian American women had been silently suffering from their experiences from sexual harassment and to some extent, incomplete rape. After the paper, I knew that many Asian American women did not have someone who looked like them, are open about their experiences, and knew about resources on campus to help them get through their trauma.
I knew that my experience was not an isolated case and that finding support was key to my recovery. From that point on, I realized that I had to become a model for other women and become knowledgeable about resources and support on campus in a moment’s notice. When I found Project D.A.T.E., I knew that advocating for survivors and educating the campus community about sexual assault awareness and rape prevention was going to be mentally challenging and emotionally draining, but the work would be necessary. It took me two years to gain the courage to speak to others about a serious and heavy topic, but I wanted to show other Asian American folks on campus that there are resources on campus that can be cathartic and healing for survivors. Some days I would walk out of presentations on a high, feeling like my words affected people. And then there were some days that I would leave the presentation hitting the autopilot button because I would get flashbacks from my assault, and just mechanically walk home, curl up into a ball, and avoid every single thought that ran through my brain. This was the part of my journey that I realized that sacrifices had to be made. But if I knew that I was helping someone else find support, it made the bad days worth it.
It was always been my habit to not give you full details about the trips I went on or the things I did off campus. I remembered calling you a couple of days before my first trip to Sacramento, when I lobbied with CSUN’s Student Government, Associated Students, to advocate for a fully funded CSU system. I remembered trying to explain to you what CHESS (California Higher Education Student Summit) was and what I was doing there. I did not know how I was going to explain to you that I was going to use my story in order to push assemblymembers and senators to convince Governor Jerry Brown to fully fund the CSUs. I did not know when I walked away from CHESS, it was going to a new skill to my toolbelt. I did not know that advocating for survivors and on-campus support services was crucial to my recovery, but it could be the defining moment when the next survivor needs resources and support, and I hoped that support will still be there. I never believed that I, an Asian American woman, survivor, student leader, but most importantly your daughter, could do something beyond the campus community and directly going into California government spaces to promote and actively create change.
Sometimes, I could hear your voice in the back of my head, bragging to everyone around you of how proud you are of me. I am grateful for you being so supportive of my wish to vocalize my experience when it was the norm to either remain silent or internally handle my situation within our family. I am forever grateful that you never turned me away. I am grateful for the days when you are more compassionate and understanding when I snapped for being extra sensitive around the month of August, the time when I am the mostly broken. I am blessed that you were proud of my work as I am fortunate to have an amazing supportive mother. This journey has not been an easy one, nor is progressive leadership tackled without a strong backbone of allies, friends, comrades, fellow survivors, but most importantly family. Not everyone is as fortunate as I am to have my mother pick up me from such a hard fall. I can only hope we can become an example of the change in our community, to open up a dialogue with more compassion and understanding when it comes to topics about recovering survivors. I believe that change starts with us as we continue to take steps forward together.
Love always,
Your daughter, Abigail
Abigail Garcia is a recent CSUN graduate who majored in Asian American Studies. She advocates for resources for Asian American survivors and hopes to one day change the dynamics of internalized silence within Asian American communities.
Footnote: Once a year, an essay competition is held at CSUN, amongst Asian American Studies and Education majors, as part of an endowment set up by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz for her deceased mother, Asuncion Castro Abarquez and her deceased sister, Rosalinda Abarquez Alcantara to provide a scholarship grant to deserving students. The essays are then reviewed and carefully vetted by a committee headed by Dr. Teresa Williams-Leon, Dr. Philip Hutchinson and Kimberly Teaman Carroll with oversight from Dept. Chair Gina Masequesmay this 2018. This year’s winning essay is from Abigail Garcia on Progressive Leadership, Asian American Studies and Education.
TRUST is a tower built stone by stone. Lies remove stones from the base and can topple the highest tower. When trust is important there are no little lies. – Michael Josephson
Michael Josephson is a former law professor and attorney who founded the non-profit Joseph and Edna Institute of Ethics from which he operates as a speaker and lecturer on ethics. He speaks on six pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, citizenship, responsibility, caring and fairness.
At St. Genevieve High School in Panorama City, the students learn about and behave towards caring, respect, trustworthiness, citizenship, kindness and responsibility. Since 1999-2003, St. Genevieve pursued character education. On October 17, 2003, it became “the first high school in California and the first Catholic school in the nation designated as National School of Character from the Character Education Partnership based in Washington, D.C.” These lessons on what constitutes good character are practiced by all: parking lot attendants, students, teachers, principal and pastor that this high school proudly displays a banner on its front door, “National School of Character.” It also proudly has undertaken this cultural change by the legacy left behind by the Class of 2000, “who decided that instead of bullying the incoming strangers, they would make them feel welcome in their new home, “ Principal Dan Horn wrote in his book, “Anointed Moments.” Character education continues to the present with inspirational speakers that come regularly to impart their knowledge and wisdom.
Perhaps our revered Catholic Church, headed by Pope Francis can rebuild the Church from these simple pillars of character: trustworthiness, respect, citizenship, responsibility, caring and fairness.
I write this not to be sanctimonious but to embrace the darkness that has plagued the stewards of God with cases of sexual abuse. Sexual abuse by the way is not about abuse of sex, but abuse of power. This abuse of power from the priests, enabled by hiding of the bishops and higher up administrators has cost the U.S. Catholic Church, according to National Catholic Reporter’s Jack and Diane Ruhl on Nov. 2, 2015, “The U.S. Catholic Church has incurred nearly $4 billion in costs related to the priest sex abuse crisis during the past 65 years, according to an extensive NCR investigation of media reports, databases, and church documents.” The meter of financial exposure is still ticking as Brooklyn diocese reached a record settlement of $27.5 million with four victims of abuse by lay educator as reported by New York Times on Sept. 18, 2018 by Sharon Otterman.
The Vatican owes it to its 1.2 billion Catholic parishioners to come clean, to fully account for all these crimes. Yes, these are crimes that should not be enabled nor should have been facilitated by secrecy. Instead, a full accounting of all the predators who were hiding inside the institution, and pretending still to be God’s servants, when they have in fact dislodged themselves from being aligned with God and have embraced darkness as to perpetuate the abuse on these young men who are now grown up and can speak of their trauma. We must fully make an accounting, and display the names of these men, some of whom got imprisoned and died while in prison. But more than names, their methods of luring the children and young adults, like Fr. Brendan McGuire, so called “grooming” must be exposed.
Do you recall reading California priest, Fr. Brendan McGuire, who shared his trauma of being a victim of abuse he suffered at the hands of a priest when he was 18? It was a secret he held for 35 years, according to Mark Pattison of the Catholic News Service of Sept. 20, 2018. His verboten story was finally shared to his congregation, at five weekend masses Sept. 8-9 at Holy Spirit Church in San Jose, where he is pastor, Pattison continued.
In an interview with Catholic News Service, Fr. McGuire related, “he has heard from 45 men who told him they also had been abused. Five of the men were priests, he added, and four of those had been abused while they were seminarians. ‘One man was 95 years old. He’d been holding it for 60-plus years, 70-plus years,’ the priest said. ‘I thought 35 was a lot.”
By the way, this incident of sexual abuse started in Bray, Ireland when he was just 14 years old and he did not recognize the “grooming” by the priest for his final play until he was 18 so “it wouldn’t be child abuse,” Pattison reported.
Truth over power
I write this not to dampen your enthusiasm as a Catholic churchgoer but to hold this as an example of healing. By embracing this systematic darkness where upon the Holy Spirit has not been illuminating parts of the Catholic Church, we need even more so now before the scheduled summit called by the Vatican in 2019 to implore its presence to heal the Catholic Church under Pope Francis. It is not an accident that Pope Benedict resigned, given this litany of sexual abuses by hundreds and perhaps thousands of priests, that must be fully accounted for and be dealt with numerous candles lit, candles lit to exorcise the darkness of abuse of power of these church leaders and lay workers.
Until Fr. McGuire shared his personal truth to his congregation, he felt imprisoned by the abuse of power that he suffered. Until he spoke, 45 other men could not start living a life of truth as they hid their lives of trauma from their families. Until Fr. McGuire spoke, the memory of ‘’illicit grooming” by this Irish priest could not be expunged from his being. Abuse lives in this priest’s molecular cells and he needs to talk about the trauma in order to fully heal. He said that his healing starts when his trauma is acknowledged and when he is heard.
So now we also find that it is not just the institution of the Catholic Church, it is also the executive branch of the United States, personified by the thousands of lies coming from the mouth of the 45th U.S. President. One mainstream newspaper has employed fact checkers and as of Sept 4, 2018, Fact Checker has reported Mr. Trump has made 4, 713 false or misleading claims in 592 days in office. It is now Sept. 22, 2018, he has had 18 days more that he has lied while in the august halls of the White House, once revered as the seat of power, where truth is the currency.
This same president has just nominated Federal Judge Brett Kavanaugh, whose court opinions have been withheld by the National Archives, once a neutral body of source of information, which now claims they report to the National Executive, meaning the President and released 7% of this judge’s past records.
Do you recall a similar withholding of information from this President, who did not disclose his federal tax returns? We now know why, as it would reveal his many entanglements with Russian banks and Dutch banks who loaned him their currencies to keep his businesses running.
But we are not simply talking of the U.S. President’s duty to tell the truth at all times, nor of the U.S. bishops to tell the truth of 65 years, even 68 years of sexual abuse.
We are now faced with this judge who is accused when he was at his drunken 17 year old condition, of attempted rape of then a 15 year old minor.
This minor is now Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, a professor of psychology and statistics, a holder of four degrees from four different universities, including Stanford University and the author of at least 50 scientific journals, who called for an FBI investigation of this incident. This is not a case of “he said, she said,” like Anita Hill who came forward to testify about Judge Clarence Thomas’ sexual harassment actions towards her.
My point is that trauma has a far-reaching impact and effect. That the victims are never really liberated from the harm and that they get to relive their “dark episodes” even 35 years, even 60 years, even 70 years later, when the national news turns on the light on another victim in the past, just like Dr. Ford and Fr. McBride.
The male U.S. Senators are now mistreating her with comments like, “she is confused and mixed up,” and Judge Kavanaugh has offered a bait that there might be another person responsible for the incident, and even shared a photo of someone like him, except that someone like him is known to Dr. Ford and she asserted it is not him, but Judge Kavanaugh.
The U.S. Senate, an august body known to be the conscience of the nation, has placed an arbitrary deadline of Monday, Sept. 24 for both Kavanaugh and Ford to testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee, all eleven white male in their winter years. Why do I bring this up? Can you imagine if you are Dr. Ford being questioned by eleven white males, with no woman in the committee? It speaks loudly of the lack of diversity and even the silencing of women’s voices in this once august institution that Americans respected? What has happened that the leadership in the Republican Party’s hands has concentrated power in only one gender? Is this not abuse of power as well?
Why is this U.S. Senate showing presumption of bias: “Unfazed and determined. We will confirm Judge Kavanaugh.
#ConfirmKavanaugh#SCOTUS,” Mike Davis, the confirmation panel’s top staffer for judicial nominations, tweeted late Wednesday, as reported by “Roll Call” and “The Rachel Maddow Show”.
Mike Davis wrote, as reported by New York Post’s Bob Fredericks on Sept. 20, 2018, “I personally questioned Judge Kavanaugh under penalty of felony and 5 years of imprisonment, if he lies. I ‘m still waiting to hear back from the accuser’s attorneys, who can’t find time between TV appearances to get back to me.” In the first place, Mike Davis is not a skilled FBI investigator, he is Chuck Grassley’s lawyer who should show neutrality and perhaps even a semblance of professionalism as to not reveal his bias and instead, his commitment and conviction to get at the truth.
It elicited a tweet from Brian Fallon, a former aide to Sen. Chuck Schumer, “Does he sound unbiased to you?” as reported by New York Post.
It also elicited an enlightened response from Fr. Christopher J. Devron, S.J. who wrote on Sept. 19, 2018 about Brett Kavanaugh and Toxic Masculinity: lessons from another all-male Jesuit high school. At first, his nomination to the U.S. Supreme Court was a high point, particularly when he said that the motto of his Jesuit high school was ‘men for others,’ and claimed he has tried to live that creed, Fr. Devron wrote.
They have then descended that roller coaster with the revelation that in one speech, Judge Kavanaugh quipped: “What happens at Georgetown Prep stays at Georgetown Prep,” alluding to the weekend drinking, boozing, partying that happens in this suburban school in North Bethesda, Maryland.
Fr. Devron writes that their euphoric feelings about this nomination have changed since these new revelations. He writes that he is the president of Fordham Prep, a 177-year old all male Jesuit secondary school in Bronx, N.Y. with nearly 1,000 current students and 12,000 living alumni and “been privileged to witness the mission of all-male Jesuit education — to develop men for others, who dedicate their lives to God’s greater glory — as a powerful and transforming force. I believe this force can challenge the prevailing cultural forces that pressure young men to adopt values that reflect a vastly different posture toward the more vulnerable members of our society and those who are different than themselves. God’s spirit helps our students see and know the dignity that resides within each person. In the wake of the #MeToo movement, the term “toxic masculinity” has entered the popular lexicon. Toxic masculinity, we are told, springs from a society that inculcates young men with a “bro mentality,” leaving them devoid of empathy, sensitivity and compassion and leading them –especially when they are together—to objectify and disrespect girls and women.”
Is it any surprising that after 35 years Dr. Ford is now just coming out to reveal her trauma? You, our readers, are at the best vantage point to make your own conclusions.
For me, I believe Dr. Ford as she has revealed her trauma to her therapist in 2012, even passed a polygraph test and told her husband decades before, as Francey Youngberg, a former federal employee and lawyer, posted in her Facebook page.
But more than that, I believe Dr. Ford, as she is the first one to ask for an FBI investigation knowing that lying to the FBI is a felony. She has put herself at a disadvantage, and chose to speak up as a citizen to ensure only a judge to the U.S. Supreme Court has good character, for example, trustworthiness and his ability to tell the truth is displayed at all times.
Even the trait of good citizenship as in not preying on minors, even if that happened in his teenage years, and of course, responsibility, Judge Kavanaugh can now stand up before the U.S. Senate and admit to what he did then, when he was stone drunk and what he did then so as to pin Dr. Ford to the bed and to control her, and placed his hands over her mouth and started to undress her and grope her. Hardly the mannerisms we expect from a jurist that will be in lifetime position of public trust. In fact, as a federal judge of the appeals court, he does not deserve to be in this lifetime position of power as well.
* * *
Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 10 years. She also contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico and over 22 national parks in the US, in her pursuit of love for nature and the arts.
THERE’S music in the air, waving, whistling. Whispering to me, backwards, giving it a chase. And if you turn it you couldn’t even sing it. Maybe this tune is going mad in my head. There’s a poem in the air, shouting, roaring. Dancing, rolling. But when you go together with your heart, you can’t really catch the tune. Maybe this is how falling in love feels like, singing like crazy. What is happening to me? I’m stuttering, can’t seem to speak.
I ‘m trying hard to sing. But, I am tongue-tied, but, if you put sense to it, you can’t really catch it. Maybe this is how falling in love feels like, That I want it so bad to make it a song.
“HIBANG SA AWIT,” originally composed for the UP Concert Chorus in the ‘80’s, rearranged for the San Miguel Master Chorale and Philharmonic Orchestra and newly arranged by Ryan Cayabyab.
The Philippine Chamber Singers-LA (PCS-LA) concert on Friday, August 17 at the Walt Disney Concert Hall, had a theme, “HIBANG SA AWIT (Mad about Songs),” with a comprehensive program of 22 songs of Original Pilipino Music. It was PCS-LA’s second concert at this well-acclaimed venue.
The concert featured 87 singers and musicians, which included Mon David, Kit Navarro, Ana Burog, Edward Granadosin, Marivic Francisco, and Noel Anzures in featured solos.
Song arrangements were commissioned from towering-in-reputation gifted composers from the Philippines: Ryan Cayabyab (whose name is synonymous to the growth of Original Pilipino Music Industry for 50+ years), Robert Delgado, Ruben Federizon, Monet Silvestre, John Pamintuan, Jude Roldan and Teresa Vizconde-Roldan, the latter two have developed children’s choirs and taken them to tours abroad.
Much like the Roldans, Pete Avendaño has taken the Immaculate Heart of Mary’s Children’s (IHM) Choir that has won medals in acclaimed competitions in Glendale, California, Oregon and Ohio. The IHM choir has performed in Carnegie Hall in New York and joined choirs around the U.S. to sing for Pope Francis in Rome and will be in London in 2019.
During the Christmas season, IHM’s choir has been featured on PBS, and has since been delighting audiences in LA. This year, they joined forces with the Precious Blood School’s Choir to form a 50-strong choral group that took our hearts away with cute frontline voices, three feet in height, yet bold articulate voices which introduced the songs, having practiced them in a limited time after school, singing with gusto as one.
The diverse, over two thousand member audience at Disney Hall underscored the loyal base of Sopranos: Kit Buhion, Anne Jeanette Dwight, Marivic Francisco, Anna Hurn, Maria Christina Navarro, and Charmaine Normandia; Altos: Kim Bautista, Ana Burog, Judith Guerrero, Melissa Eugenio Gutierrez, Jennifer Morelos, Apple Nestle Nazareno and Lisa Ulanday; Tenors: Noel Anzures, Aristotle Canlapan, Hero Emolaga, Gerry Francisco, Oscar Pantaleon, Jr. and Louie Ulanday; and Bass: Novem Cabios, Dale Francisco, Gelo Francisco, Emmanuel Miranda, Medard Obida, Dino Padallan and Dennis Quiambao.
Gelo Francisco is their artistic director and co-founder along with Burog, Dale Francisco, Hurn, Padallan and Miranda, who is also its resident conductor.
Grace Mercado Ouano, an author, was impressed: “I have had the pleasure of sponsoring Philippine Chamber Singers – Los Angeles’ [two] concerts now at the Music Center’s Walt Disney Concert Hall. They are the Pilipino community’s pride when it comes to representing Pilipino culture and arts in the mainstream scene. It is my first time to attend their event at this magnificent concert hall. And what better way to watch my first concert than by a Pilipino choir with an all Pilipino repertoire. I am really proud and happy that our community came out in full support for these talented performers. I thoroughly enjoyed the program that evening and judging by the warm and thunderous applause (not to mention standing ovations), the audience really loved the concert. They are a representation of what the Pilipino community in Los Angeles can offer – quality and a balance of culture and art in a melting pot that is LA, much like healthy, balanced and quality recipes that one can find in Foodtrients [a book I authored]. I salute PCS-LA in their endeavor to bringing out the best of Philippine music. Mabuhay!”
PCS-LA’s program included Madz Men Alumni (Gerry Francisco, Oscar Pantaleon, Jr. Bong Imperial, Aris Canlapan, Edward Granadosin, Saunder Choi and Emmanuel Miranda), the Malaya Filipino Dance Arts and musicians Paul Concepcion (piano), Elson Trinidad (bass), Leonne Castellas (drums), Jonathan Frias (double bass), and Kendro Calica (pianist for Children’s Choir.) The well-amplified male voices of Madz Men came through and were much appreciated, and one cannot miss Edward Granadosin’s solo.
“Since its inception in 2004, PCS-LA has been at the forefront of celebrating the joy and pride in Filipino musical talents in the midst of Southern California’s multicultural and ethnically diverse tapestry. PCS highlights a century of classic and modern Filipino music created by some of the greatest and most accomplished Filipino composers,” Consul General Adelio Angelito Cruz wrote in his program message. “PCS-LA is heir to a long tradition of Filipino university and church-based choirs wowing and moving audiences in almost every continent.”
LAPhil.com described PCS-LA as a “dynamic, diverse, and decorated group of Filipino singers,” that has performed at the Cathedral of Angels in Los Angeles, bishops’ special events, and even invited by LA Philharmonic’s preeminent conductor, Gustavo Dudamel to perform with LA’s musicians at the Hollywood Bowl.
Cynthia Bonta, the mother of state Assemblymember Rob Bonta, who traveled from Northern California, raved about how “Gelo is a people’s artist – one that acknowledges and showcases people’s art. The children’s choir and Mon David have arisen from the masses – nothing is elitist about them – their art is people’s art as it connects with ease to a people’s sensitivities. By sharing the stage, [Gelo] uplifts our Filipino identity and culture. The ease of delivery of such difficult music left us in awe. The transitional speeches personally connected with the audience in their simplicity and warmth of expression. With singers, conductors, instrumentalists showing their enjoyment as they performed truly deepened the audience’s appreciation of the evening, [as mine].”
Music is their heritage and priceless inheritance
Nagbubungkal, nagtatanim, kumikinang (shoveling, planting, healthy vibrance) are features of hard work in growing crops.
But, what if those activities were applied in nurturing families and growing communities?
If one is born into music, what if someone aligned with that luck, applied himself in that path, keeping in mind the law of favorability, and that the Universe conspires to give us more favors to grow our luck?
Much like Andrea Morricone — an Italian composer-son of Ennio Morricone, who speaks with a sense of certainty, in sharing himself “as perhaps already swimming in music,” while in the womb of his mother, Maria and listening to his father, Ennio who played the trumpet — Anthony Angelo “Gelo” Francisco has similar roots of “swimming in the musically-gifted womb” of Herminia, a coloratura (soprano skilled in opera), his mother, and listening to Gerardo, his father, a singer.
They became part of an erstwhile Mandaluyong Polyphonic Society’s (MPS) and as the photo accompanying this article shows, Francisco’s dad (bass) and mom (soprano), encircled in white, who with their group, performed at exclusive Cardinal’s events in the Philippines. At MPS, Gerardo met Herminia and they became a couple, giving birth to the youngest Gelo Francisco with 4 elder siblings, all with gifts of musicality. A similar PCS-LA gathering with their families are in another photo.
Fast forward to this Music Center’s Disney Hall event and we find Gelo Francisco’s family integrated into PCS-LA as well, with wife Marivic (a soprano), in a featured solo, while their son, Joaquim Antonio Belo Francisco, (college-bound on his gap year) strummed the kalatong, a bamboo percussion instrument with Gelo. Both Joaquim and his father (Gelo) played the kalatong bamboo drums to a fast rhythm that provided the background to “TINIG NG LUPA,” which earned a chorus of audience’s bravos. We celebrated that we saw how the Francisco family rose as one, passing on the legacy inherited from Gelo’s father and mother, and now Gelo and Marivic passing on their gifts of musicality to their first born, Joaquim, another professional artist born that night.
The integrity of passion and conviction to good music shows
Equally outstanding was the rendition of “ANAK,” a popular song of Freddie Aguilar, with new arrangements from John Pamintuan. It was a solo featuring alto Lisa Ulanday, accompanied by Malaya Filipino-American Dance Arts and of course, PCS-LA.
Many Filipinos can sing “ANAK” as the tune is almost instinctive, having been born in the Philippines, a place where this song is heard in the plazas, musical halls, academic stages, television, and movies and like a prodigal son, one breaks off from family to grow independence and returns to home again.
To have a Filipina-American like Ulanday sing this in Tagalog, which is not her primary language, took a lot of preparations from her as to style, enunciating the words and vowels with the punctuated emotions, and of course, the sound dynamics.
She said, “I never thought simple words like ‘gatas’ (milk) could sound too aristocratic when I applied traditional choral singing vowels. I had to consciously add more ‘y’ in kamay (hand), so I didn’t sound hoitey toitey.”
“How did you prepare for this?” I asked her, one evening, after putting her own anak to sleep.
“First, I had to look up the translation for every single word as I only speak English and Ilocano. I probably know Spanish better than Tagalog because of four years of Spanish in high school. Next, I listened to Freddie Aguilar’s original and it struck me as folk sounding, melancholic and really relied on the lyrics to get the message and the emotions out of the song. I looked at Pamintuan’s arrangement next.”
Note that she is describing knowing first the original, the traditional base of the song, before the new arrangement that is born out of the original with new twists.
“The new arrangement is more staged, it could easily be a song for a musical. I thought half of these folks wouldn’t understand or hear the lyrics I am singing either because of a language barrier or distance from stage. I worked on performing as I would in a musical like Les Miserables, like Aida, like Miss Saigon. When the female lead sings her heart, her angst and anguish alone overtook the stage with that spot. I looked at it from that angle since I would not have the concert with microphones to help me get the message across.
And of course, the message is universal, I have been the child and now I am the mother. I totally get it,” she reflected on her artistic process.
Indeed, Lisa got it as the audience, who gave her a resounding chorus of bravos. We got it that she communicated why ANAK has become “arguably one of the most popular songs in the world, translated into several languages, generated hundreds of cover versions, and sold millions of copies,” Emmanuel Miranda wrote in the program notes.
As PCS-LA’s resident conductor, Miranda’s prowess came to the fore, as this writer observed a July’s practice session, wherein the choral group had yet to gel as one, with some trailing sounds that piqued the sharp ear of Miranda. He stopped them and could not take the off sounding notes. Like a father to a child, he said: “Did you practice? Please do not waste my time.”
To this writer, the perceived harshness was unnecessary. Yet, all that harshness is in the past, forgotten and now all we see is that the hard work paid off, as the concert showed the beauty of a choral group singing as one. It called to mind the language used by Gustavo Dudamel and Andrea Morricone who practiced and conducted professional members of their orchestras and through their exasperation, had this to say, “Almost perfect,” motivating them to reach that summit of perfection, if there was one.
The audience appreciated the ‘70s Rock Medley sang by Ana Burog, Lisa Ulanday, Kim Bautista and Apple Nazareno. It signaled to the audience that this is the fun part. But also, the “TSISMISAN,” where the audience was pleasantly surprised.
Noel Anzures sang the solo of “HANGGANG SA MULI,” composed by Ryan Cayabyab and arranged by Moi Ortiz. It was dedicated to Alec Bao, an erstwhile PCS-LA member, who received a heartwarming applause and perhaps equally moved by Noel’s heartfelt rendition, and also Alec’s presence,“So many songs sang coming for the heart/Hoping we’ve made you smile just for a moment.”
HIBANG SA AWIT did not disappoint, it lived up to the audience’s expectations from their first Disney Hall concert of four years ago.
“I enjoyed this concert more than their first, I dare say,” Cynthia Bonta added.
“Rosa Parks took her stand with clarity and courage. I took mine by diversion and default.
Some journeys are direct, and some are circuitous; some are heroic, and some are fearful and muddled. But, every journey, honestly undertaken, stands a chance of taking us toward the place where our deep gladness meets the world’s deep need,” Parker Palmer wrote in Let Your Life Speak.
PCS-LA took their paths to Disney Hall with courage, boldness, community support and the audacity of being people’s artists, showcasing talented artists like themselves, and collaborating with gifted musicians from the Philippines, here in Los Angeles, and wherever Filipinos-mad-about-songs are. It was as I wrote in Part I, magical, warm, and tender!
Footnote: This writer wrote about Mon David, Ana Burog, Kit Navarro and Edward Granadosin in Part I published in the Asian Journal – Los Angeles Weekend edition on August 25, 2018.
