A thought transfixed me: for the first time in my life I saw the truth as it is set into song by so many poets, proclaimed as the final wisdom by so many thinkers. The truth—which love is the ultimate and the highest goal to which man can aspire. Then I grasped the meaning of the greatest secret that human poetry and human thought and belief have to impart: The salvation of man is through love and in love. I understood how a man who has nothing left in this world still may know bliss, be it only for a brief moment, in the contemplation of his beloved.
“Man’s Search for Meaning” by Holocaust survivor Viktor E. Frankl, as displayed at the Holocaust Memorial in Berlin, Germany.
Truth entices us there on the frontier between fact and interpretation, and we strive for honesty in representing what is entrusted to us. We combine that honesty with a humility that comes from knowing beyond all doubt that whatever we believe, whatever we claim, whatever we know, the next generation will surely say, “That’s not good enough! We need to know more and we need to know better!
Sander M. Goldberg, distinguished research professor of Classics at UCLA, 2018.
The real work of the poem is the education of the emotions. Poems are like dreams: in them you put what you don’t know you know. They are roadmaps of our humanity. Nothing is too wonderful to be true.
Amber West, Asst. Director, UCLA Undergraduate Writing Center, synthesizing David Yezzi, Adrienne Rich and Michael Faraday.
The current White House is illustrating to us by its presidential actions that facts and evidence do not matter. The truth is daily bent and called “alternative facts.” Mainstream media go along by keeping an inventory of the presidential lies, 6,000+ now since he assumed office.
But, we know from science that the earth is round, not square, and certainly not by any stretch of the imagination, that the earth is a triangle.
We also know from our lives in the 21st century that our climate change has been erratic and wild. To deny global warming makes us all complicit in passive destruction of Mother Earth.
Truth of undeniable global warming
Agriculture is one of the foremost industries in Switzerland. Much of its agricultural farms, situated below the mountains, receive their water from thawing snowmelts that cover these mountains during winter.
On Switzerland’s website about climate, the country’s winters are now described as “The winters were formerly generally cold and snowy, but now freezing temperatures and snow are no longer the rule, especially in the lowlands. Nowadays, many ski resorts could hardly survive without artificial snow. In spring (March to May) the trees blossom and the meadows turn green. Sometimes in April the winter returns for a short period and sometimes there are summer conditions as early as May.”
Should we insist there is no global warming?
Florida, once considered the summer capital for retirees, given its warm weather for most of the year, now experiences more hurricanes, and even snow flurries. “December 8–9, 2017: Tallahassee received 0.10-0.20 in of snow, which was the first measurable snowfall in the city since December 1989 (it sees flurries every few years). The Tallahassee snowfall followed a couple hours of freezing rain,” according to Wikipedia.com. The Weather Channel also reported, “It’s the first time in 28 years that snow has fallen in Tallahassee, The Weather Channel reported. It was a day that no one could have imagined. And even when it happened, some people had a hard time believing it. On Jan. 19, 1977 — 40 years ago Thursday — it snowed in South Florida.”
Should we insist on no global warming?
Exercising one’s free will
So, one can say, if it snows in Florida, one can choose to wear perhaps a down jacket or multiple layers of clothing for protection.
And to the more adventurous, they still insist on wearing their shorts that they usually wear for Florida’s summer weather. Yet, that would not endanger anyone else, but for the person choosing to wear only shorts and a t-shirt, when it is snowing. That is their exercise of free will choosing what they want to do.
But, for the White House and Republicans in both chambers of Congress to deny climate change, their wrongful beliefs become moral irresponsibility. Granted that they have the discretion to act on what they believe, their elective roles are to make laws for the larger public good, given so, they must do so based on scientific facts and evidence. We seem to allow them to forget why they are voted in the first place, to serve the public interests, not their party’s and certainly not their friends’ interests.
In the early 1990s, I attended a conference at UC Berkeley whose speaker included Josefino Comiso, a senior research scientist at the Cryospheric Sciences Laboratory of the Goddard Space Flight Center. He was the chief scientist in many NASA aircraft missions in the Arctic and Antarctic and he showed us photos he took showing the “feasibility of measuring sea ice thickness from space.”
Each year, that he has conducted the studies, the glaciers covering earth mass were decreasing. Over two decades ago, the meltdown was barely evident. Twenty-nine years later, we see Facebook posts of folks on National Geographic ocean cruises and others witnessing the actual meltdown of these ice glaciers.
Should we still insist on denying there is global warming?
NASA on its website has indicators for climate change: 12.8 percent decrease per decade on arctic ice minimum (In 2012, Arctic summer sea ice shrank to the lowest extent on record); 413 gigatonnes ice sheets are decreasing per year (Earth’s polar ice sheets are losing mass); global temperatures are rising 1.8 degrees Fahrenheit since 1880 (17 of the warmest years records have occurred since 2001) and carbon dioxide is increasing 410 parts per million (its highest levels in the air since 650,000 years ago). From a low of 380 parts per million of carbon dioxide in 2005, we are, by our human behavioral practices, increasing the levels of carbon dioxide, measured now at 410 parts per million.
Their glaring conclusion of studying temperatures since 400,000 years ago show that atmospheric carbon dioxide never exceeded 300 parts per million for centuries and only in the last 650,000 years there have been fluctuations that NASA’s Intergovernmental panel concludes, “scientific evidence for warming of the climate system is unequivocal.”
What factors contribute to global warming?
How do we stay morally responsible in the face of our global warming realities, primarily a rise in carbon dioxide?
Moral responsibility
Moral responsibility refers to a “one-way guidance control.” It means, whether one is watched by a regulatory agency or not, one does the right thing and one considers the consequences and impact of one’s actions as much as to contribute to the larger public good.
“The 50,000 sq. km of the Central Valley play an essential role in American life: some 250 crops grow here, about one-quarter of the nation’s food supply. Agriculture on this scale requires an enormous amount of water, especially as water-hungry crops like almonds have gained popularity. And since the area’s river and rainfall levels fluctuate widely even month to month, farmers say they have no choice but to drill wells and draw aggressively on aquifers,” The Guardian reported in July 2018.
In the Central Valley where most of our winegrowers were burdened by the drought, they explored getting new sources of water, digging deeper – sourced wells. Another factor is high-value crops that are being planted, like water-hungry crops, almonds. So as we eat more almonds, we impact the water table in Central Valley, as well as earth sinking. With extensive water extraction, earth subsided in certain areas. Should we give up our wine supplied by big wineries to give a dent in their water extraction and wine production?
The Guardian reports “subsequent changes in water pressure alter underground architectures, leading to a sometimes-surreal slumping of land by as much as 10 meters.”
Where else in our lifestyle can we become morally responsible to Mother Earth? What about the cars we drive? Can we reduce carbon emissions by going hybrid or driving electric cars and reduce the use of gasoline? What about using more solar panels to reduce our power consumption by drawing energy from a renewable source, the sun? Can we help educate our relatives in the Philippines, for example, who continue to burn garbage in their backyards, a practice that increases the amount of polluting gases in the air?
It is important we look at facts that affect the larger whole. How much of our daily lifestyle activities unconsciously contribute to the degradation of Mother Earth?
In Switzerland, the Swiss Army was called five times to bring water to the high mountains’ starving cattle due to drought in summer 2018. They knew that the short-term practice of water transport from Lake Geneva gave relief temporarily to the cattle and saved that animal industry, but it was not sustainable. They are now looking into how farmers can stop nitrate pollution in their water sources from farming practices, which reduced access to nearby water sources.
How much of our daily lifestyles consciously contribute to the earth’s preservation? Do we know which political candidates to vote for, who are those in denial of global warming? Will we reject them at the next election?
Our informed understanding of truth and its connection to our free will and moral responsibility also informs our daily existence and ultimately survival on earth.
The next time you toast an anniversary, as you lift those champagne flutes, know the water wells they came from which irrigated the grape vineyards, know how much of that well water depleted the water tables during the drought and know how perhaps they may have even caused earth subsiding in the Central Valley. It makes us all conscious that a simple act of drinking champagne affects someone beyond our borders and our collective salvation lies in truth and love for humanity.
God is good all the time! I am grateful at 2018’s showers of grace with my hubby on roadtrips; with my classmates exploring waterfalls and enjoying each other’s quirks with laughter; with my long-time friends who make life worth living and livable and folks who said thank you to my banana chocolate growing tree of 38 loaves, 26 granola jars, and three bottles of raspberries, blueberries and strawberry preserves.
I thought that was it, but God showered thoughtfulness on my only favorite daughter and her big girl (she calls herself now) and son-in-law who keeps them all happy and brought some more gifts of my favorites and the karma mochi that starts it all from a dear friend.
Thank you God for all your gifts and the Immaculate Heart of Mary Church’s congregation that makes the most vibrant, beautiful and loving to God’s Simbang Gabi Celebration, solidified by Fr. Rodel G.Balagtas and continued on by spiritually enlightened priests after, until presently done by Fr. Rolly Clarin. Thank you to the indefatigable, vibrant, giving to God’s choir led by Pete Avendano.
May this continue long after for generations to come. May we all exude the Holy Spirit’s truth, grace and love to one another this 2019! Maraming Salamat po!!-Prosy Delacruz
Our last day in the park for 2018, at 3 years old. She was just an infant 3 years ago. At 3 months old, she already comforted me when my mother died. She was about to fall asleep while feeding from her bottle yet her little finger held mine. During the funeral mass, she only wanted me to hold her. Her presence was enough.
At 3 years old, she is bouldering, jumping, rides a tandem bike with her grandpa and now rides her scooter. She takes risks but she determines the conditions she is comfortable with. Today, she determined the pace, what to play with in the park and determined the slope that she is comfortable with, and while she considers what her grandpa is telling her, she independently decides what is good for her.
She could have gone more distance but her helmet was not fitted well and several adjustments later, she felt at ease and moved swiftly, but at the speed she is okay at. #princess2015la
May you have all that you need, because the sharing of gifts is our exercise of security in the abundance the Almighty gives us constantly. May you constantly find reasons to feel joy, and to share that joy, thus making it grow exponentially. We were all created to find joy, and share that joy with our Maker and the communities in which we dwell. May you always find peace, that grain of truth that holds the heart of you together through good times and bad times. That is the spark of the divine that can grow into the most glorious flame when you nurse it and allow it growth. It is where you find the space and time to listen – to God, to yourself, to those around you. May you always be surrounded by people who love you and care for you, and may you reciprocate that loving and caring well so that the good cycle continues.
Alma Anonas-Carpio, Dec. 24, 2018.
Alma Anonas-Carpio’s Christmas Eve Facebook post became my source of light. I wondered what it might be like to be in the dark, during the Japanese bombing of the Philippines? What if you were Rosa, 9 months pregnant?
Do you recall Mary, a young teenager, who travelled with Joseph, on a donkey, in the cold desert, climbing mountains, and looking for a place to give birth, yet no one would let them in, until they had to stop at a trough, where animals were fed? It was a feeding trough for animals where Jesus was born over 2,000 years ago.
An infant born in a dugout during the Japanese bombing of the Philippines
“I was 17, a student in Manila, when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor on Dec. 8, 1941. That same day, the airfield in Manila and other military installations in the Philippines were also bombed. Schools were immediately closed,” F. Sionil Jose wrote in the New York Times on August 13, 2010.
That same fateful day, Gregorio San Luis and his 9-months pregnant wife Rosa Licauco left for Santa Rita, Pampanga — 18 miles from Clark Air Base — where the Japanese Imperial Army destroyed parked fighter planes.
They made their risky travel from Manila. Thinking Pampanga would be safer than Manila, they were not aware that Clark was also being bombed. Gen. Douglas MacArthur had convinced Pres. Franklin D. Roosevelt that he could contain the Japanese Army, if he had more fighter planes and 8,000 more soldiers and be the defensive shield in the Far East.
Gen. MacArthur got the increased resources, but failed to give the command for the pilots in their fighter planes and soldiers to be deployed. Consequently, the biggest error of this General resulted in destroyed fighter planes in Clark, and U.S. soldiers marching to their deaths in Bataan, when MacArthur ordered their retreat to Bataan.
More than 76,000 prisoners of war (66,000 Filipinos and 10,000 Americans) were force-marched and 2,500 Filipinos and 500 Americans died during the march.
Hardships, pain, and suffering marked the San Luis journey to Pampanga. By some miracle, Gregorio and Rosa reached Sta. Rita. They travelled different ways: kalesa (horse-drawn carriage) and jeepneys, as buses were not available, until the couple ultimately reached Sta. Rita, 49 miles from Manila.
In Pampanga, they got to the house of Grandma Silvina Valencia San Luis, who instantly looked for a midwife. She sent for her niece, Nurse Remy, who lived in nearby Barangay San Matias. With no phones to reach her, Gregorio walked to Remy’s house and back again, to get to Rosa, who was now in labor.
The family stayed fearless, even as they heard the sounds of the bombs dropping in nearby Clark, destroying fighter planes, and kept their focus on getting this baby born.
They went into a dugout with a flashlight covered with cloth, to mute the spray of beams, so as not to attract the Japanese soldiers, who were holed up in a nearby bridge, lest all will perish.
At 4 a.m., infant Luchie, (luces meaning lights) was born on Dec. 13, 1941. She was swaddled in a saya (overskirt) worn by her grandmother.
In the dugout, her newborn skin was kept warm by the soil on the ground, as their only way of protection without being killed by the Japanese Imperial Army Soldiers.
For a year, she was covered with galis (scabies), and her grandma was worried that she might not outgrow it, but she did.
Those were her first two miracles, imprinted on her, as memories that she was blessed and cherished, by her grandmother who related to her the story, helped raise her, as well as her parents who travelled to protect her from the dangers of bombing.
Luchie was second in the family, the eldest is Mel, and other siblings include Tess, Rosemarie, Celedonia, Tony and Jun.
When the war ended, Luchie was 7 years old. The family moved to Manila. Her father opened up a drug store, which became an on-the-job-training (unpaid) place for future pharmacists who went to the University of Santo Tomas. One of his distributors became the owner of Mercury Drug, which swallowed up the smaller drugstores, to eventually become the biggest pharmacy.
It also meant family adjustment to subsist on only one income of her mother, Rosa, a paper flower maker for carosas (festival floats). To help out her mother to fill up orders whose specialty was legendary for roses and orchids, Luchie made a pact with Mel for her to stay in school, while she dropped out to become a flower entrepreneur, like her mother. After she finished, it would be her turn to go to school.
Festival float organizers who wanted good roses and orchids would order from Rosa, including large flower distributors like El Carlos and El Arte Filipino. El Carlos would order 20 dozens orchids and Luchie and her mother would frantically work all night to fill up those orders.
One day, May 22, feast of Saint Rita, namesake of the province wherein she was born, Santa Rita, Pampanga, the source of delicious turones de casoy, and the province that popularizes St. Rita de Cassia, the Saint of the Impossible, Luchie witnessed another miracle.
She went to mass with her mother, Rosa. They saw Mother Carmen of SRC who asked what happened to the San Luis children, who went to Saint Rita for their schooling.
Rosa shared their economic plight that their pharmacy was swallowed up by the bigger company, Mercury Drug, and that now, her family subsisted on just her seasonal flower business.
Mother Carmen asked all of the San Luis children to come back to SRC. Three of the children became SRC teachers. SRC was run by the Augustinian Recollect Missionaries (ARM), and at its peak, operated 31 schools, all over the Philippines in 1967.
Luchie additionally obtained her Bachelor’s in Science in Education at SRC, and while training to be a teacher, an opportunity came up to become a trainee-instructor, replacing the critic teacher who got sick in mid-semester.
She became the high school’s teacher in home economics, English and Literature including mythology, for four years. Batch 1967 became memorable for her as 20 of them became loyalist-followers of the Legion of Mary and three tightly vied for Valedictorian.
My classmates and I also formed a singing group, Ritzeeners, and practiced a lot. Our voices harmonized that Luchie suggested we join an intercultural high school competition. She became our official chaperone. Against all odds, SRC’s Ritzeeners won first place and as a reward, Sor Esperanza, the directress, gave us a day’s field trip to Luneta.
But, Luchie had a bigger vision for the Ritzeeners and she shared it with Sor Esperanza that we join the Student Canteen’s competition on television. That would have put the school on the map. But, the principal, Sor Josefa, blocked the idea. She reasoned that the high school girls would prematurely meet high school boys, a forbidden cultural practice at that time.
Luchie challenged the ultra-conservatism in 1967, and countered that a better practice would be to expose the girls, now seniors, to the boys, in a supervised environment, like a high school prom, to promote healthy social skills.
Sor Josefa would not budge and Luchie believed that to have this conflict meant a premature career dead-end. That became the push factor for her to go abroad, as well as her desire to help the family economically, since Php 400 a month of a teacher’s salary was insufficient to help her siblings.
“I want to be a light: I want to bring joy”
She applied for a visa to go abroad and when she got her approval on a Wednesday, by Saturday of that week, she was on her way to America. Her spiritual mentor, Fr. Manalili, advised her to go ahead with her plans. Fr. Barquin heard about her plans and quickly wrote a letter to Fr. Iros of San Vicente Church in Los Angeles. In that letter were Fr. Barquin’s instructions to assist her to get to a bank, to get a social security card, and with that letter, was also a $25 gift. Fr. Iros was even asked to help her find a job.
As luck would have it, a telegram was also sent to Fr. Barquin’s friends, the Paez sisters, to meet Luchie at the airport. They did and even fed her at their apartment. But their two-bedroom apartment was max’d out with four residents.
That same evening, they asked if she had a hotel to go to. She had none and her dollars would not be enough. She remembered Lucy Godoyo and the Paez sisters gave her a ride to Godoyo’s place. Days later, another roommate joined them.
She applied for work on a Monday, and by Thursday, she had a job and Josie Villa, her supervisor, gave her rides to and from work at the California Credit Union. She worked long hours, 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., as a filing clerk, until her promotions.
One day, a Japanese colleague saw her crying. She was going through a bout of self-pity, while she recalled her life in the Philippines, with an assistant.
But, she persisted and soon, her Japanese colleague became her friend, and started to invite her for breaks.
Every Wednesday, her father, Gregorio wrote a letter, which kept her connected to her birth home. That Wednesday letter became her life link, which kept her spirits up. She recalled with pride how much love she felt when her father would send her a birthday telegram when he missed her birthday, as he travelled for work.
At the airport, she recalled her dad’s anger, who shook her, touching her shoulders, “Is this what you want?” He felt despair that he would not be able to help her, if something bad happened. He was quite protective of her, having witnessed her birth under war conditions.
Her miracles kept manifesting. Within the first month of leaving the Philippines, she was able to send dollars to her parents and regularly thereafter, every end of the month.
In the credit union, she was sent to three summers of continuing education to become a manager and attended the Credit Union National Association (CUNA) School. Her supervisor liked her work, how she filed, and how she handwrote the deposits accurately. She rose through the ranks and got four promotions: file clerk, payroll clerk which put her in touch with the people, assistant manager and assistant vice president, until her retirement after 32 years.
During her management tenure, her leadership exploded their business volume. How? She visited schools and talked to school principals and persuaded them that the credit union can help the teachers secure car loans, house loans and student loans for their continuing education, until these schools transferred their funds to the California Credit Union’s portfolio, outcompeting the bigger banks.
A Luchie San Luis Quemuel Award existed at this credit union for exemplary leadership in financial growth and teamwork. Her team garnered the highest volume of $4,000,000 in loans and income, yet it was the smallest branch.
Today, the California Credit Union has 20+ branches, with its 2017 financial report “concluded another strong year for California Credit Union with net income totaling $15.4 million, return on assets of 0.52 percent. These results include the impact of merging with North Island Credit Union on March 1, 2017. The regulatory net worth ratio is 10.51 percent.” Their declared mission is “California Credit Union puts our members first; through accessibility and convenience, we offer the service, security and stability they will always rely on, and the solutions and education they need to secure a stronger financial future.”
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.
In her stay in the U.S., her high school students are still integrated in her life, joining them for mini-reunions in Long Beach, San Diego, Manila, Chicago, Temecula, and at times, organizing them to get together in her own home, as other SRC Batches in Las Vegas.
Group photo of Batch ‘67 with Luchie San Luis Quemuel (fourth on the left)Photo by Enrique Delacruz
For her 77th birthday, Batch 67’s Natimarie Pagayucan, a laboratory technologist in Chicago; Patty Ramsey, a nurse in Arizona; Nancy Walber, a nurse in Chicago; Elsa Azote, a nurse in Oceanside; Carol Arcelo, a retired communications manager in San Francisco; Elizabeth Cortez, a bank trust officer in Toronto; Linda Rozales, a realtor in Orange County and this writer all joined her for her celebration of 77 years of God-centered life in Los Angeles. My sister, Asuncion Ferrer, who also was her student, joined us too.
Special thanks to Mon and Carlo David who serenaded her in Kapampangan and sang Christmas carols. Mike Zuñiga lovingly prepared the arroz caldo bar while Elaine Quadra had her flair for artistry on display as a tablescape. Fr. Camilo Pacanza led the group in prayers and a special thanks goes to Hydee Ursolino for curating a special photo album to remind us all that caring is in how someone makes you feel: their kindness, their concern and their consistent, positive and joyful actions.
They may forget what you said but they will not forget how you made them feel.
Carl W. Buechner
Alma’s Christmas greetings captured it well, as her post coincidentally described the hand of God in Luchie’s 77 years of life: gratitude is a prelude for grace and even more so when one lives a life of hope, love, joy and peace.
Happy New Year to you all! May we all have peace from a safe, prosperous, just and truthful America!
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 | Photo taken by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz
My mother wanted to give me a better life, so she sent me thousands of miles away to live with her parents in America — my grandfather (Lolo in Tagalog) and grandmother (Lola). After I arrived in Mountain View, Calif., in the San Francisco Bay Area, I entered sixth grade and quickly grew to love my new home, family and culture. I discovered a passion for language, though it was hard to learn the difference between formal English and American slang. One of my early memories is of a freckled kid in middle school asking me, ‘What’s up?’ I replied, ‘The sky,’ and he and a couple of other kids laughed. I won the eighth-grade spelling bee by memorizing words I couldn’t properly pronounce. (The winning word was ‘indefatigable.’)
Jose Antonio Vargas, 2011.
Two weeks ago, I wrote about how my heart was broken in reading about toddlers in diapers being tear-gassed, along with their fleeing mothers, at the southern border and how I cried inconsolably, while in meditation.
I felt this inhumanity was un-American and does not reflect what is America, but rather the hatred of White House’s incumbent policies that keeps corroding his “inner vessel,” — his heart. These were families seeking better lives and immigrants seeking asylum based on claims of persecution from homeland gangs or persecution from the failure of their own governments protecting them.
One week ago, I wrote about the struggles of Olivia Quido-Co rising from being an immigrant student in cosmetology, cleaning windows and learning eyebrow threading, to an American citizen-entrepreneur, owning two businesses: a med spa and a storefront for cosmetic products shipped worldwide. She depended on the power of God and the power of tithing, as well as the generosity of her early mentor who helped her with her first business, catapulting her to the current status of looking forward to ‘sky-up’ success.
This week, the focus is on Jose Antonio Vargas, an undocumented immigrant, a Pulitzer-prize winning journalist who wrote a Virginia Tech piece that was collaboratively worked on by the Post Team, published in 2007.
Four years later, he wrote a heart-wrenching piece, “My Life as an Undocumented Immigrant,” published in the New York Times Magazine on June 22, 2011. To some of his friends, it was considered legal suicide. But, it was to reconcile the different slices of his selves separated by lies and lies and now the truth, the unvarnished truth of who he is.
He recently had three book launches in Los Angeles in Fall 2018 for his Harper Collins-published-book, “Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen,” with a Pulitzer Prize-winning novelist Viet Thanh Nguyen in September at USC; with Robert K. Ross, M.D. at the California Endowment in October; and with Anthony Ocampo, Ph.D. at the Philippine Expressions Bookshop in November.
How they feel, cut up into pieces
These book launches created a resonance in the community and empathy as to the psychological states immigrants go through — how they feel, cut up into pieces.
First, they must earn a living, like Mr. Vargas. He felt strongly and committed to writing about facts and was careful that his work reflected what was true: “One way I reconciled the lies I told myself was by taking my work very seriously: getting every fact right, insisting on context, telling the truth as much as the truth could be ascertained. I may lie about my status as an undocumented worker, but my work is true.”
Second, they must be careful when they drive lest they are discovered without a valid driver’s license.
In Vargas’ book, he wrote about his encounter with a sheriff in during the 2008 presidential campaign, when he drove 30 miles above the speed limit and was stopped: “As he [the sheriff] walked away from my car to answer the call, I felt something wet trickling down in my pants. I peed myself.”
Luckily for California’s undocumented immigrants, more than a million are now licensed to drive in California, when Assembly Bill 60 became law in 2015. I wonder if Vargas’ coming out as an immigrant without documents had anything to do with it, as for million others?
Third, as lies and lies are told, the inequities become more flagrant as these undocumented immigrants end up paying state and local taxes while residing in the United States, yet reap no benefits, because of their undocumented status.
In “Dear America,” Vargas documents that out of an estimated three million undocumented immigrants in California, more than $3.1 billion are paid by them as state and local taxes.
He cites the nonpartisan Institute of Taxation and Economic Policy, and writes, “undocumented immigrants in the U.S. pay an estimated 8 percent of their incomes in state and local taxes, while the top 1 percent of taxpayers pay an average nationwide effective tax rate of just 5.4 percent. According to the Social Security Administration (SSA itself, unauthorized workers have paid $100 billion into the fund over the past decade. An estimated seven million people are currently working in the U.S. illegally, of whom 3.1 million are using fake or expired Social Security numbers and also paying automatic payroll taxes.”
Yet the false narrative continues that immigrants without documents result in hemorrhaging of the economy as they even take jobs from American citizens. They do not.
What is real, according to Vargas’ research is “undocumented workers pay $12 billion to the Social Security Trust Fund.” It is a trust fund, which the Republicans are eyeing for privatization, or outright conversion as profit centers for investment firms, if at all. It is a trust fund wherein working Americans pay into, documented or undocumented, as an upfront deduction of their take-home salaries.
Vargas makes a powerful argument for intersecting race, class and immigration. He traces the origins of European immigration that were favored and compared them to today’s immigrants who come from Asia and Latin America because of the 1965 Immigration and Nationality Act.
Vargas cites John F. Kennedy who wrote, in “A Nation of Immigrants, “All told more than 42 million immigrants have come to our shores since the beginning of our history as a nation.” Vargas then learned from his research that “because of a 1965 immigration law that Kennedy and his brothers, Robert and Ted, championed, more than forty-three million immigrants have moved to America since –let that sink in: forty-two million immigrants in 187 years, then forty-three million in fifty years. That’s a lot of change in a perpetually changing America forever resistant to change. It’s no wonder that we are where we are.”
What the book does not cover is how do we move to resolve these internal contradictions in America where racism is much more manifested since the 45th U.S. president was elected? How do we move from resolving trillion dollar federal deficits that this self-interested president approved – an income tax reform that reduces the income tax rate for couples earning $600,000 and above from 39.6 percent to 37 percent and reduces corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, the lowest since 1939, thereby reducing federal income by $1.5 trillion?
It also does not provide an answer to what this African American woman raised when Vargas spoke in Wilmington, North Carolina and wrote: ”I’m not an immigrant. Our people were brought here against our will.”
Vargas describes: “Then she pulled a piece of paper out of her purse and, in a thick southern drawl, continued, ‘Mr. Vargas, my great-great grandmother landed near Charleston, South Carolina, and was given this.’ She opened the yellowed and crumpled paper. It was a bill of sale. I’d never seen one before. ‘Can you connect the paper she got to the papers you and your people can’t seem to get?’
Ponder on that question for a while and allow it to sink into the molecules of your body, into the recesses of your DNA, into your hearts and in your minds.
Human beings are much more than pieces of paper
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 US 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.
This December, as we sit at our family table to celebrate Christmas, ponder for a moment the travelling Joseph and Mary, who were denied entry into several homes much like how we cast aside and mistreat the eleven million undocumented immigrants who serve us at restaurants, who care for our young children as nannies, who care for our seniors and our sick elderly as caregivers, who wash our cars in the car wash, who wash dishes in the restaurants, who arrange the flowers in the flower shop, who teach, who are scientists, who write newspaper articles, journal pieces and even books, much like Jose Antonio Vargas!
What are we afraid of, America, when we extend them a pathway to get this piece of paper when we have allowed them into the center of our lives already? It is time for comprehensive immigration reform and to treat these 11 million more reasonably and sensibly.
Bring the whole tithe into the storehouse, that there may be food in my house. Test me in this,’ says the Lord Almighty, ‘and see if I will not throw open the floodgates of heaven and pour out so much blessing that there will not be room enough to store it.‘
Malachi 3:10
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.
Jeremiah 29:11
Siksik. Liglig. Overflowing in Abundance.
That is how Olivia Quido-Co described her life, quite pregnant with miracles. Her face lights up speaking of God and His manifested goodness. It is as if she was describing falling in love for the first time, with her then-boyfriend, Jason, now her husband, Jason Co, with whom she has four children.
It was a cold morning as 1.9 inches of rain had fallen that one can only get warm with a down jacket, a scarf and windproof pants. A windblast gets one feeling like a refrigerator at 32°F. Streets were flooded and cars slowed down.
Yet, the rain did not dampen Ms. Quido-Co’s sunshine demeanor. She is a petite woman, made more beautiful with her big smile greeting you and an inescapable flawless, glowing skin and her signature warmth.
To start our conversation, we prayed to the Holy Spirit for guidance to achieve a collective sense of enlightenment and in turn, a story of hope and miracles to share with our Asian Journal’s readers.
It is the month of Christmas, 20 days to be exact as of this writing, before Christ is born. The First Sunday of Advent has started and most Christmas decorations are up. In the White House, a theme of patriotism is supposedly embodied in bloody red Christmas trees, but what I liked the most is the wreath of pencils to symbolize the First Lady’s theme of “be best.”
“Until I truly believed in the power of God and the power of tithing, I did not experience God’s overflowing abundance,” Olivia asserted.
“How have God’s miracles manifested in your life,” I asked?
“Siksik. Liglig. Overflowing in abundance,” she said, “My father was only 35 years old when he had a heart attack. He was a company driver then and my mother was a stay-at-home housewife. I remember going to the chapel where he was hospitalized, UST Chapel, so alone at 9 years old. I knelt down. I asked God for a complete cure for my father, who had several tubes attached to him. I asked for another opportunity to have him. God answered my prayers, as my dad is now 68 years old, alive and healthy.”
But the miracle did not stop there. She recalled her mother opening up her own business in Divisoria, selling children’s clothes and 35 years later, her retail business grew some more to now a wholesale distributor to department stores.
Imagine her mother was then a housewife who could have despaired and gone into depression, yet chose to be positive and created a business opportunity to support her family. In her challenge, she discovered she had business and people skills.
What lessons did you learn from your mother, I asked?
“Ang paghandle ng tao (how she took care of people). Laging may pagkain ang staff. Merienda, hapunan, ano mang oras. Iyong ipa pabahay pa niya ang staff. Tapos may pabahay showcase (Plenty of food for the staff. Merienda, dinner, whatever time. Others even had housing. And still housing showcase like end of the year prizes of microwave, television, radio and extra monies). She was so good with people and super generous. Those were her examples to me.”
“Siksik. Liglig. Business is overflowing in God’s unsolicited blessings.”
“Siksik. Liglig. Overflowing in grace,” she emphasized, “My pencils then were Sanrio, mechanical pencils and they were all matching up with Hello Kitty designs in my pencil box, handkerchief, notebook and notepad. At that time, I did not realize that my mother was giving me the “best of the best,” a standard that I now appreciate.”
A business thrives if three elements of people, process and products have converged with palpable excellence and moving with a unified mission of delivering the best quality product or services.
I experimented with getting my monthly facials from different aestheticians to test how rigorous the training is as well as the quality control standards.
How do you recruit, train and sustain your employees, I asked?
To which she answered, “I personally look at attitude and how they speak to me. I do not emphasize the resume. It is more of – does she smile? Her eye contact? Attitude cannot be taught, but skill can. Some get the skills in one month, some in six months. I am not bothered by how long it takes them to learn the skills because I am the ultimate customer that they will apply facials on. If I do not like the feel of their hands on my face, then I will teach them how to soap the face – sometimes it takes two eight-hour days of applying only soap to the face until they master the correct amount of pressure, the way their hands feel on my face, only then would I teach them the next skill.”
But while she might be patient in training, gruff and rough demeanor with poor attitude are non-negotiables.
“One time I had a dean’s lister with a well-rounded resume but I could not get her to smile nor connect with me, despite my efforts so I did not hire her,” she said.
I have tried six aestheticians now and all six have delivered the quality facial services with warmth, efficacy, and credible interaction, affirming the belief of Miss Quido-Co that “Attitude cannot be taught, but skill can.”
It is perhaps that quality and reliable royal treatment that ordinary folks look for, her reliable clients. One time, I talked to a casino worker, including a waitress who told me that they both saved up their month’s salary to get facials at O Skin Care.
To sustain her employees’ loyalty, “I treat them as family. I praise them publicly but I correct them privately.”
I interjected that all six of her staff speak highly of how they are treated well, how they get their pampering at an exclusive upscale hotel and their bonuses of additional income for zero absences in a whole month’s pay period, all on Ms. Quido-Co’ s expense account.
She owns two sites: O Skin Care in Eagle Rock that is a storefront to buy the skin products and O Skin MedSpa in Cerritos Mall, which employs professional nurses and aestheticians. The latter location underwent remodeling recently.
On one Saturday, I was a client having my facials. The front desk, looking like one of the storefronts in Beverly Hills with appointed chandeliers, woodblock covered walls and gold-rimmed designs on the wallpaper, was buzzing with customers. The Medspa’s Saturday appointments are filled up to May 2019.
That corner spot of Cerritos Mall was once an underachieving location and was vacant. Yet, it is now buzzing with customers who fly from all over the U.S., just to be pampered with facials and given a movie star’s royal treatment. Her online products are doing quite well, as they are now shipped to the United Arab Emirates, Japan, London, Belgium, Italy, Singapore, Hong Kong, France and all over the United States.
The power of tithing changed her
In 2003, Olivia came to the U.S. with a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration (major in Computer Applications) from De La Salle University-St. Benilde. However, computer applications were not her passion.
Back then, her heart was broken by a failed romance. She sought refuge and healing, and went to the U.S. on a student visa. She enrolled in Cerritos College and pursued cosmetology, but realized that she was more interested in researching different skin problems. Her teacher suggested that she focus on skin care, which she did.
On her free days, she would clean windows and storage rooms at Son A Chaandi, a retail store in Cerritos. She would use a squeegee to clean the windows – that became her first lesson in quality – to use a ladder and reach high, in order to be able to do a thorough job. She also learned eyebrow threading.
By humbling herself and exploring all facets of the business, she told herself she too would become an entrepreneur. That who is last shall become first, as the biblical saying goes.
To conserve her meager resources, she shared a room and a car with her cousin. They took turns using the car and there were days when it was her turn to take the bus.
After she graduated, Ms. Quido-Co applied for a job in Macy’s and JC Penney. But she could not land the job for lack of local experience.
With a college degree and an aesthetician’s license, Ms. Quido-Co applied to nursing school, but was not accepted.
Hope still alive in her, she opened up her own business and applied what she learned from Cerritos College.
With only $1,500 in savings, she moved forward. She met Lody Garcia, who became her mentor, surrogate mother and guardian angel.
Initially, Olivia saw an ad for a business space at Lody’s Styling Center at the Artesia Mall. However, she decided to go to Ludy’s Salon first, where the unimproved, unfurnished space was offered at $800/month.
Olivia knew that an $800/month rent would stretch her beyond capacity and that she won’t be able to afford it in the long run.
On the first floor, she saw that Lody’s Styling Center was offering a furnished space, a bed for facial services and inventory — all for only $200/month.
“Lody Garcia was an extraordinary, generous landlord, who to this day, supplies me with trays and trays of food. Back then, I paid $200 for monthly rent, but she also cooked meals and fed me daily. I must have eaten more than the $200 rent that I paid her. She is just generous,” Ms. Quido-Co continued.
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.”
A client had a severe case of acne. She provided facials but the condition did not improve. “I released the problem to the Lord and prayed for this client’s acne to heal: “Lord, I want your healing power, I cannot do this anymore,” Ms. Quido-Co said.
After a month, the client called and asked: “What did you do? My acne has cleared up.”
That’s when she realized that in all aspects of her work, she could rely on God’s healing powers and merciful grace.
Relying on her Universal Partner, her personal goodwill was transformed into a business asset.
God’s overflowing grace continues
She wanted more children. Within a year of wishing it, she got pregnant. In seven weeks and six days, she experienced the beginnings of a miracle. Her ultrasound technician told her that the baby is seven weeks and six days old. She then asked, “Is there more?” Her technician said there is one empty sac, while another sac has a heartbeat and a fetus in formation.
She kept asking – “why is it like that,” to which the technician said, “In my many years of experience, that is simply called “the vanishing twin,” where the twin or multiple disappears in the uterus during pregnancy.”
“This syndrome was first recognized in 1945 and the fetal tissue is absorbed by the other twin, multiple, placenta or mother,” according to American Pregnancy Association’s website.
Ms. Quido-Co fervently prayed and asked God to give her two viable twins. A week later, she saw the technician on a Saturday. Days later, on a Wednesday, she woke up from her sleep and declared, “I am having twins, “ and slept again.
By that next Saturday, the technician examined her again and declared, “You have twins, one is eight weeks and six days, another is eight weeks and five days.” The technician wondered – how could have that happened?
Ms. Quido-Co smiled – “God gave me a miracle.”
To which I reflected back to her: God has solidly given you miracles much like a four-legged table, or in all directions of the world: east, west, north and south. God is saying to you, He is solidly in your corner, and you are favored!
The rains poured out its strength and the streets were flooded, giving us a pause, as Malachi 3:10 – bring your tithing to the storehouse and you will experience siksik, liglig, and God’s overflowing bounty!
