Cover Photo : The Philippine Chamber Singers-LA (PCS-LA) will perform at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on Friday, August 17. 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
The only thing that makes life worth living is the possibility of experiencing now and then a perfect moment. And perhaps even more than that, it’s having the ability to recall such moments in their totality, to contemplate them like jewels.
Paul Bowles, The Spider’s House
In two series, I will be writing about the founders of the Philippine Chamber Singers-LA (PCS-LA), their immigrants’ journey of survival, their courage to pursue their dreams and their boldness to sing in world-class stages, their inner self-worth to believe that they are worthy of those perfect moments of being a harmonious vocal group. When I asked what propelled them to seek spaces at Carnegie Hall, Hollywood Bowl and Disney Hall, their collective refrain is “Why not?”
Ana Burog, Gelo Francisco, Dino Padallan, Emman Miranda and Dale Francisco, all founding members, came one summer to this writer’s home. What was planned as an hour interview stretched to six and half hours, with this writer making dinner for all to share and rehearsal for three hours at a West Hollywood Church, a few days later.
Founding members of PCS-LA during from their first wedding gig: (From L-R, back row) Gelo Francisco, Dale Francisco, Dino Padallan); (From L-R front row): Anna Hurn, Marivic Belo Francisco, Ana Burog. Photo courtesy of Ana Burog
“Pangit ka na, pangit pa ang boses mo (You are so ugly, so ugly is your voice too),” said Dino Padallan’s third-grade teacher. Would you be able to sing again, after these wounding words? Would you be traumatized at a tender age of 9 years old, with yet-to-come emotional intelligence?
Padallan suffered trauma from this teacher’s cruel words that it took two mentors to build his confidence and hone his musicality, along with his youthful efforts.
Gloria Aldana, a teacher declared: “You will be the cantor for every mass,” and a cantor was valiantly born.
Rodel Bugarin, a geometry teacher, offered to mentor Padallan, after he saw him win a Yamaha singing competition. He mentored Padallan while at Don Bosco Makati during his high school years. Padallan became Makati’s representative to the Don Bosco singing contest and won.
As karma would have it, one of the judges was the erstwhile third-grade teacher. Padallan mustered his nerve to approach this judge and said, “Do you recall saying how ugly I was and even uglier, my voice?” It made for quite a redemptive moment as the teacher-judge cried while looking at a winner, now standing up to this trauma-inflicting, mean bully, aka a teacher.
Padallan overcame that challenge, only to be tested some more. Just as his work authorization visa was about to be approved, he was laid off. With no savings to fall back on, and without an employer to sponsor him, he relied on his faith in God and the goodness of his fellow kababayans (countrymates), Ana Burog and Gelo Francisco.
Burog helped him secure a part-time job, while Francisco sustained him with lodging and food. It took working six part-time jobs, seven days a week, subsisting on only five hours of sleep to survive and reapply for his green card, which cost $2,500 per application.
Today, he is grateful he has a green card and works full-time, and even more grateful for the PCS-LA’s members who became his safety net.
Los Angeles is the quintessential La-La Land
Folks dream big to perform in Hollywood. You will find here a beautiful waitress waiting for a callback from an audition. As you converse with her, she hands your food, and perhaps even sing a few verses for you. Impressed?
Equally impressive are PCS-LA’ s members who overcame their obstacles as immigrants and are now full-time professionals, with some holding jobs unrelated to music, while caring for their families, but quite focused in creating musical spaces to share their musical talents. They believe that these gifts are God-given and must be shared with others for God’s glory.
LAPhil.com described the group as a “dynamic, diverse, and decorated group of Filipino singers,” which performs 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 and now, Walt Disney Concert Hall for their Hibang Sa Awit (Mad About Songs) Concert on August 17.
As you know, Disney Hall is reserved for masterful artists; the last Filipino artist to grace this stage was Lea Salonga in July 2008. Lea , if you recall, created the role of Erzulie (goddess of love) in the latest Tony Award-winning play, “Once on This Island,” a role that she performed from Dec. 2017 to June 2018 in New York.
PCS-LA performed their first Disney Concert Hall concert in 2014, marking their 10th anniversary to almost two thousand-strong audiences.
With “iconic silver sails” in its exterior, a beautiful garden designed by LA’s finest landscape architects, one of whom is Larry Moline, including a mosaic rose cup in ceramic, its interior boasts of a “transparent, light-filled living room for the city opening onto the sidewalk,” and its website reveals, “its fir-lined Douglas interior are 2,265 seats in a vineyard seating style, with a sound amplification and sound distribution technology costing $2.2 million.
This time, PCS-LA’s Friday, August 17, concert at Disney Concert Hall is dedicated to Original Pilipino Music (OPM).
“OPM refers to the popular music from [the] 1960s to the present, [which includes] Kundiman, an art song, [sung] more in the classical genre. They share a similar element – works by a Filipino composer,” Emman Miranda, PCS-LA’s resident conductor, explained. The August 17 concert will include composers like Ryan Cayabyab, Willy Cruz, George Canseco, Ruben Federizon and Robert Delgado.
The mere mention of Ryan Cayabyab has become synonymous to excellence brought about by two decades of teaching musical theory at the University of the Philippines and more than a decade of mentoring students to harness their talents in songwriting, composing and performing. His name parallels the growth of the OPM industry in the Philippines, with much of his compositions sung by celebrities and featured in commercials, film scores and television shows. He has performed flawlessly for King Hassan II of Morocco, King Fahd of Saudi Arabia, King Juan Carlos and Queen Sophia of Spain, Queen Beatrix of the Netherlands and U.S. President Bill Clinton. In 2013, he was bestowed the Papal Award, Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice for his compositions of religious music.
George Canseco composed songs that were sung by Basil Valdez, Zsa Zsa Padilla, Martin Nievera and Pilita Corrales. A popular composition was “Child,” the English version of Freddie Aguilar’s signature song “Anak.” You will hear a Basil Valdez medley in this August 17 concert.
It takes a village and family to nurture musicality
Just about everybody in the Francisco family is a musician. 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.
Francisco related how his father, Gerardo, was born into his own family of means, that his father took piano lessons. He sang at the Mandaluyong Polyphonic Society (MPS-top choir of the city), performing at exclusive Cardinal’s events. At MPS, he met Herminia and they became a couple, giving birth to the youngest, Gelo, who has four older siblings, all with gifts of musicality.
As the youngest, Gelo had years of listening to three of his four siblings perform in MPS’ events, while Gerry, another sibling, performed as part of the De La Salle Greenhills’ Kundiranan group.
“I watched my two other siblings join intercollegiate competitions and perform while at UST,” he said.
Francisco was steered away from music and instead, persuaded to take up nursing to follow in the footsteps of a sibling who is a doctor. Francisco learned music by osmosis, ouido, and acquired his innate talent by ear.
After two years of nursing, music became compelling. Gelo auditioned at the UP College of Music and became part of the famed UP Madrigal Singers, where he met Emman, who became a founding member of PCS-LA.
UP Madrigal Singers was founded in 1963 by the National Artist Prof. Andrea Veneracion. The group has been to several countries to participate in international competitions and brought home the top prizes from global competitions. To this day, they continue to reap global awards.
Gelo and Emman credit Veneracion as their mentor who taught them self-discipline, how to sing and produce good music in harmony, and how to be respectful and respectable citizens of the world.
She inculcated in them the group discipline that rehearsals are a must, as that is where they would learn how to make music as a group, how to make music together and become harmonious voices.
As part of UP Madrigals, Emman and Gelo not only brought home the prized awards but also learned the art of pakikisama. the Filipino concept of hospitality and fellowship, a shared feeling of solidarity and trust that imparts a sense of warmth, and an abiding feeling that we are linked in human heart and spirit. The term comes from the words paki, meaning “please” and sama, meaning “coming together for the sake of harmony.
It is a cultural trait of finding oneself in harmony with others, by offering to do chores, to exercise self-restraint not to simply do “what I want” but to do “what is right” by all members.
“I learned to cut someone’s hair, or do laundry and even cook,” Francisco shared.
“I learned self-discipline,” Miranda added.
Gelo, PCS-LA’s creative music director, sings exceptionally well, both with his voice and his hand. He is a tenor, sometimes a baritone, frequently at consulate’s events, the cathedral’s, and choice community events. He performed the lead role in The Romance of Magno Rubio’s play staged in Singapore and also at the Ford Amphitheater in Los Angeles.
I asked the founding members what are PCS-LA’s code of conduct and their acquired lessons in life. In their own words, they appear below:
If there is a challenge, that is personal character development. Keep moving forward with faith in God.
Put the group’s interests first: grupo muna bago ang sarili ang mananaig. (Group first, before one’s self-interests prevails.) The organization is bigger than the individual endeavors, although the organization is made up of individuals.
Commitment is key. Individuals decide if our group’s reputation is good or bad – it is not so much that the individual singer is good as it takes a lot for a choral group to sound well. Commitment is the deciding factor, as all are welcome, provided each person commits.
Respect for each other – many of us are good, but we all respect one another, we even finish each other’s sentences.
Every member believes we are here to promote our Filipino culture, we as Filipino-Americans also contribute to our heritage of music.
Rehearsals are sacred grounds. It is where the magic happens. Sometimes we are students, too, not just teachers. When we dissect the music – this is where we are making music together. This is where we get the sound, and as a choral group, it is imperative that we sing together, this is how we attain our highest level of standard or even surpassed it.
There is no sight-reading, for when we do, there is no emotional investment and no nuances in the way we sing. If with more rehearsals, the clarity of sound is achieved, along with the timbre, style and pitch.
Even if one is the best singer that we have, it does not exempt that singer from rehearsals, because nobody is indispensable.
A professional singer gives life to the song. There is no competition in the choral group, we make music together, we are here to make the sounds together, not to pound our notes, “hindi buga ng buga” (not to simply sound off the highest volume), but to achieve together the body, the texture, the dynamics, the tone, and timbre.
In solo practice, you learn the music by yourself. In rehearsals, we discover more what the music is about, we get to explore what the music can offer us, but first, a basic commitment is a must from all of us.
Gelo — aka “Tatay”, the father of the group — synthesized the group’s wisdom: “If it takes a village to raise a child, the same with a community; it takes a country to raise a choral group. In California, this state is a good nurturing ground for communities to come together. When we sing, we represent our country, our family, and our community. We assert our identities through these projects. That’s why we can do this and we are not held back by how difficult it is, but how possible it could be. It is a testament of how [to be] positive, how giving is, and through our faith, our commitment to our craft becomes a test of character of each individual. Gaano ka katatag? How tenacious are you? How determined are you? Ganito ang tunog diyan – kaya iyan, mas mag-enjoy kami this second time. (This is the sound. We can do this. This time, this second time around, we would enjoy it more.) Why? These are gifts of the Holy Spirit and we are here to share these gifts.”
“Love is who you are. When you don’t live according to love, you are outside of being. You’re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity.”- Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico, 2018.
“Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented” – Elie Wiesel
“Stop pretending your racism is white nationalism.” “It is un-American and grossly inhumane, brutal and unconscionable.” “It is unspeakable, gratuitous cruelty, that even animals in the wild or domesticated are not capable of doing.” “Take a look at young birds, do you see them nurtured?” “As part of a pack, cared for by God?”
These were some of the broadcasted messages from news programs’ coverages of rallies to resist the family separation of over 2,300 children.
On Saturday, June 30, over 700 rallies were held in 50 states, and photos were shared on social media and publicized by major newspapers.
Take a look at “Unaccompanied: Alone in America” by Linda Freedman, a short video clip of four minutes and 20 seconds that depicts young children appearing before an immigration judge.
When asked if they know a lawyer, they simply say no. Even the face of the judge changes, formal to empathetic and seemingly teary.
And why not? These are very young children whose important work is to play and who in their right mind would compel them to court hearings? They have no mental capacity to understand the court proceedings. How absurd can our present federal government be to require unrepresented, young children to appear in courts?
These children’s experiences would forever be marked by gratuitous cruelty and trauma, permanently scarring them for life.
It is even made more difficult as some of these children speak in indigenous languages, and not the mainstream version of the Spanish language, spoken by most.
NBC broadcasted a border supervisor, in conversation with a reporter on June 30, that there is a policy to separate the children from their parents when they get to Southern Border. He said, “It is to make the parents afraid and not to cross the border to America.”
A reactive move, isn’t it? When in fact, he also said that border crossings have decreased, whereas, during President Bill Clinton’s time, NBC reported 500,000 crossed this border a year to now, 26,000. It has been decreasing since Pres. Barack Obama’s tenure that the crossings have averted, but a new humanitarian crisis of separating children was created by Trump’s zero tolerance policy towards migrants at the border seeking asylum.
A U.S. president with no moral center
The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot wrote: “The policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern Border was the purest distillation yet of what it means to be governed by a President with no moral center.”
On June 19, over 600 Methodists accused Attorney General Jeff Sessions of child abuse, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the United Methodist Church and filed a canon law complaint.
Talk to relatives, neighbors, community friends, and the reported news of toddlers and small children in foil blankets inside cages will likely raise their blood pressures, as yours. “God please take care of this president. His evil actions exceed our human capacities,” a friend said.
She is not alone; four living former first ladies have the same outcry.
On June 19, the New York Times reported that four living former first ladies condemned the Trump border policy.
Laura Bush wrote, “Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tents cities. These images are reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of WW II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
“Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged,” Hillary Clinton wrote. “We should be a better country than one that tears families apart, turns a blind eye to women fleeing domestic violence, and treats frightened children as a means to a political end.”
What makes this unprecedented is we have had four living former first ladies join their voices as one, to speak against separating children from their families. Even Melania Trump tweeted that she believes that the rule of law should be followed, but governance must be done with the heart.
Yet, Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued to lie in her official capacity, and claimed falsely: “Frankly, this law was actually signed into effect in 2008,” to which the New York Times reported: ”No law actually requires that families be separated at the border. Pres. Trump ordered the stiffer effort last month.”
Still unconvinced that there is a White House policy of family separation?
A community member shared that parents are at fault, kidnapping their children to travel to the borders. Can you imagine what mentality and heartlessness one has to believe these lies? He was not joking.
Sessions claimed it is biblical to take actions to protect the American borders, prompting this response from Fr. James Martin, “It is not biblical to treat migrant and refugees like animals. It is not biblical to take children away from their parents. It is not biblical to ignore the needs of the strangers. It is not biblical to enforce unjust laws. Do not use the bible to justify sin.”
Nearly 750 resistance rallies in 50 states
USA Today on June 30 had reported: “Hundreds of thousands of people turned out from coast-to-coast Saturday in ‘Families Belong Together’ rallies to protest the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy and implore their fellow citizens to turn out to vote in November’s midterm elections. While the thrust of the near 750 marches and rallies was to defend the 2,000 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, the tone was decidedly political.”
David Bacon, a photographer posted on Facebook: “A demonstration of 3,000 people outside the Richmond Detention Center, where immigrants are incarcerated before being deported. Part of a national day of protest, called Families Belong Together – Let Our People Go, people called for ending the separation of immigrant mothers and children, and the detention of immigrants in centers like that in Richmond.”
I asked his permission to publish the photo for this column, as it captures the national sentiments of non-separation of families. He agreed.
Separation of families, intentionally done with callousness and mercilessly, have created these visceral reactions.
The New Yorker wrote on June 30, “Protests, like Saturday’s against Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, allow a person’s individual croak to melt into a collective scream.”
In that collective scream, we reclaim our human dignities and we hear our spirits alive and understand the yearning for the same freedoms as those refugees who come to the U.S. borders.
They simply want to feel safe, as gangs have made it impossible to live their daily lives. One Honduran friend of mine, whose mom and sister still live in the country, described that the gangs pester folks daily: “You are in a bus, they take your watch, or if you own a small store, they impose a $5 fee on you, and that is your whole day’s earnings. Life in the land has become dangerous, that anything outside of the land presents a hopeful, brighter future for families.”
Their lives on land have become dangerous that they dare to cross the borders, the waters, ride the trains, and go to the U.S.-Mexico border, as in Texas, so they can apply for asylum.
Instead, their children are taken from them, many of whom are under 6 years old. After they are separated from their parents, the latter are detained or deported back to countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
Parents and children travel using human coyotes (smugglers) to whom they pay their life savings to be transferred through a series of transports, taking three weeks and when they reach the Southern Border, they apply for legal asylum.
But instead of processing their asylum claims, they are apprehended, the kids are deemed unaccompanied minors, as their parents have not yet attained legal status.
Kids are then taken from their parents, on the pretext of giving these children a bath, but the children are shipped to places, 2,000 miles away from their parents like New York. Do you sense double or triple doses of cruelty here?
We are not this America: We are better than this
Nana, a 95½-year-old woman who has seen U.S. presidents change 15 times to this current one, wondered when will “The Law of Karmic Debt kick in for this 45th U.S. President?
She has seen Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt become presidents in her lifetime, since she was 10 years old.
She added two Kennedys have been assassinated in her lifetime. I wanted to add Martin Luther King and even Malcolm X, but she switched the conversation on how her heart bleeds for these children.
“We are not this America,” she added. She describes that her heart is for the migrants, as she and her family had to wait for their resettlement into America, when no countries would accept Jews as immigrants in the late 1920’s.
How did we get here, America?
In his interview with Chris Matthews, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins said, “Families are fundamental blocks to a society, when the state intervenes, it strikes at our values. The rhetoric about these people is demeaning and treats them as animals. You can think what you want about immigration reform but you have to start at decency, you have to treat them with decency!”
But, who stands to benefit from detaining these children? Are foster parents who are paid handsomely per month when these children are placed in their homes by the government? The immigration lawyers? The federal government in imposing hefty bond fees to claim their children?
The New York Times reported on June 19 that $458,000,000 would be spent to detain these children.
“Currently Southwest Key has nearly 5,100 children in 26 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, accounting for nearly half the unaccompanied minors being held in facilities all over the country. Most of them are older children who weren’t taken from their parents but instead tried to cross the border on their own,” The Associated Press reported on June 27.
The report added, “The nonprofit organization has booked $458 million in federal contracts during the current budget year — half of what is being handed out by HHS for placing immigrant children who came to the U.S. unaccompanied or were separated from their families after arriving.”
Humanitarian initiatives
The American people responded swiftly with mercy and compassion.
On June 28, a 6-year-old Atlanta boy sold lemonade and made $13,000 to benefit these separated children, CBS.com reported.
Here in Los Angeles, Keep Families Together Rally & Toy Drive was organized on June 23 at the Federal Bldg. in Westwood; Christine Oshima agreed to share a photo she took. Thousands attended.
As of 7:15 p.m. on July 1, a fundraiser initiated by Charlotte Willner and Dave Willner on Facebook weeks ago has raised $20, 578,199 from 533,587 folks to reunite an immigrant parent with their child, which included nearly a hundred Filipino-Americans donating.
As of 7:36pm, it grew to $20,578,724 from 533,594 folks, an increase of $525 from seven new donors in 21 minutes. The funds raised would benefit RAICES, which “will directly fund bonds to allow parents to reclaim their detained children. This group will ensure legal representation for every separated family and every unaccompanied child in Texas’ immigration courts.” Their current goal is $25,000,000.
Janne Martin-Godinez, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl was reunited with her mother after nearly a two-month separation.
“She and her father were detained at the Arizona border in mid-May, a week after her mother had arrived with her baby brother. The family fled their home in western Guatemala because they were threatened by gang members demanding money from them. Martin-Godinez, 29, a nurse, said she was also threatened by a supervisor at the clinic where she worked,” The Washington Post wrote on July 2.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration changed its zero tolerance policy to the indefinite detention of families while their asylum claims are processed.
The 45th president’s administration has yet to demonstrate its respect to human beings regardless of national origins. After all, he took an oath,with his hand over a Bible, to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which provides equal protection to citizens, resid ents and immigrants, as all are deemed “persons,” entitled to a full measure of human rights and should not be presumed to be criminals.
Perhaps, Mr. Trump needs to learn lessons from 8-year-old Diego, “who came up with his own signs for his first public protest: 1) Don’t separate families 2) Don’t make kids cry, make kids happy 3) Broken Families = Broken World 4) We all need = rights 5) Free children and the world will be happy and 6) Help free kids.” Thanks to Cheryl, his mom, who allowed his messages to be shared.
Love is who you are. When you don’t live according to love, you are outside of being. You’re not being real. When you love, you are acting according to your deepest being, your deepest truth. You are operating according to your dignity.
Richard Rohr, founder of the Center for Contemplation and Action in New Mexico, 2018
Always take sides. Neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim. Silence encourages the tormentor, never the tormented
Elie Wiesel
Stop pretending your racism is white nationalism. “It is un-American and grossly inhumane, brutal and unconscionable.” “It is unspeakable, gratuitous cruelty, that even animals in the wild or domesticated are not capable of doing.” “Take a look at young birds, do you see them nurtured?” “As part of a pack, cared for by God?” These were some of the broadcasted messages from news programs’ coverages of rallies to resist the family separation of over 2,300 children.
On Saturday, June 30, over 700 rallies were held in 50 states, and photos were shared on social media and publicized by major newspapers.
Take a look at “Unaccompanied: Alone in America” by Linda Freedman, a short video clip of four minutes and 20 seconds that depicts young children appearing before an immigration judge.
When asked if they know a lawyer, they simply say no. Even the face of the judge changes, formal to empathetic and seemingly teary.
And why not? These are very young children whose important work is to play and who in their right mind would compel them to court hearings? They have no mental capacity to understand the court proceedings. How absurd can our present federal government be to require unrepresented, young children to appear in courts?
These children’s experiences would forever be marked by gratuitous cruelty and trauma, permanently scarring them for life.
It is even made more difficult as some of these children speak in indigenous languages, and not the mainstream version of the Spanish language, spoken by most.
NBC broadcasted a border supervisor, in conversation with a reporter on June 30, that there is a policy to separate the children from their parents when they get to Southern Border. He said, “It is to make the parents afraid and not to cross the border to America.”
A reactive move, isn’t it? When in fact, he also said that border crossings have decreased, whereas, during President Bill Clinton’s time, NBC reported 500,000 crossed this border a year to now, 26,000. It has been decreasing since Pres. Barack Obama’s tenure that the crossings have averted, but a new humanitarian crisis of separating children was created by Trump’s zero tolerance policy towards migrants at the border seeking asylum.
A U.S. president with no moral center
The New Yorker’s Margaret Talbot wrote: “The policy of separating children from their parents at the Southern Border was the purest distillation yet of what it means to be governed by a President with no moral center.”
On June 19, over 600 Methodists accused Attorney General Jeff Sessions of child abuse, racial discrimination and dissemination of doctrines contrary to the United Methodist Church and filed a canon law complaint.
Talk to relatives, neighbors, community friends, and the reported news of toddlers and small children in foil blankets inside cages will likely raise their blood pressures, as yours. “God please take care of this president. His evil actions exceed our human capacities,” a friend said.
She is not alone; four living former first ladies have the same outcry.
On June 19, the New York Times reported that four living former first ladies condemned the Trump border policy.
Laura Bush wrote, “Our government should not be in the business of warehousing children in converted box stores or making plans to place them in tents cities. These images are reminiscent of the Japanese American internment camps of WW II, now considered to have been one of the most shameful episodes in U.S. history.”
“Every parent who has ever held a child in their arms, every human being with a sense of compassion and decency, should be outraged,” Hillary Clinton wrote. “We should be a better country than one that tears families apart, turns a blind eye to women fleeing domestic violence, and treats frightened children as a means to a political end.”
What makes this unprecedented is we have had four living former first ladies join their voices as one, to speak against separating children from their families. Even Melania Trump tweeted that she believes that the rule of law should be followed, but governance must be done with the heart.
Yet, Sarah Huckabee Sanders continued to lie in her official capacity, and claimed falsely: “Frankly, this law was actually signed into effect in 2008,” to which the New York Times reported: ”No law actually requires that families be separated at the border. Pres. Trump ordered the stiffer effort last month.”
Still unconvinced that there is a White House policy of family separation?
A community member shared that parents are at fault, kidnapping their children to travel to the borders. Can you imagine what mentality and heartlessness one has to believe these lies? He was not joking.
Sessions claimed it is biblical to take actions to protect the American borders, prompting this response from Fr. James Martin, “It is not biblical to treat migrant and refugees like animals. It is not biblical to take children away from their parents. It is not biblical to ignore the needs of the strangers. It is not biblical to enforce unjust laws. Do not use the bible to justify sin.”
Nearly 750 resistance rallies in 50 states
USA Today on June 30 had reported: “Hundreds of thousands of people turned out from coast-to-coast Saturday in ‘Families Belong Together’ rallies to protest the Trump administration’s ‘zero tolerance’ immigration policy and implore their fellow citizens to turn out to vote in November’s midterm elections. While the thrust of the near 750 marches and rallies was to defend the 2,000 children separated from their parents at the U.S.-Mexico border, the tone was decidedly political.”
An estimated 70,000 people gathered in Downtown LA on Saturday, June 30 as part of the nationwide immigration protests. Photo courtesy of LA Mayor Eric Garcetti’s Facebook page
David Bacon, a photographer posted on Facebook: “A demonstration of 3,000 people outside the Richmond Detention Center, where immigrants are incarcerated before being deported. Part of a national day of protest, called Families Belong Together – Let Our People Go, people called for ending the separation of immigrant mothers and children, and the detention of immigrants in centers like that in Richmond.”
Mom and daughter hold up signs at an immigration rally
I asked his permission to publish the photo for this column, as it captures the national sentiments of non-separation of families. He agreed.
Separation of families, intentionally done with callousness and mercilessly, have created these visceral reactions.
The New Yorker wrote on June 30, “Protests, like Saturday’s against Trump’s zero-tolerance immigration policy, allow a person’s individual croak to melt into a collective scream.”
In that collective scream, we reclaim our human dignities and we hear our spirits alive and understand the yearning for the same freedoms as those refugees who come to the U.S. borders.
They simply want to feel safe, as gangs have made it impossible to live their daily lives. One Honduran friend of mine, whose mom and sister still live in the country, described that the gangs pester folks daily: “You are in a bus, they take your watch, or if you own a small store, they impose a $5 fee on you, and that is your whole day’s earnings. Life in the land has become dangerous, that anything outside of the land presents a hopeful, brighter future for families.”
Their lives on land have become dangerous that they dare to cross the borders, the waters, ride the trains, and go to the U.S.-Mexico border, as in Texas, so they can apply for asylum.
Instead, their children are taken from them, many of whom are under 6 years old. After they are separated from their parents, the latter are detained or deported back to countries like Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador.
Parents and children travel using human coyotes (smugglers) to whom they pay their life savings to be transferred through a series of transports, taking three weeks and when they reach the Southern Border, they apply for legal asylum.
But instead of processing their asylum claims, they are apprehended, the kids are deemed unaccompanied minors, as their parents have not yet attained legal status.
Kids are then taken from their parents, on the pretext of giving these children a bath, but the children are shipped to places, 2,000 miles away from their parents like New York. Do you sense double or triple doses of cruelty here?
We are not this America: We are better than this
Nana, a 95½-year-old woman who has seen U.S. presidents change 15 times to this current one, wondered when will “The Law of Karmic Debt kick in for this 45th U.S. President?
She has seen Barack Obama, George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, George Bush, Ronald Reagan, Jimmy Carter, Gerald Ford, Richard Nixon, Lyndon B. Johnson, John F. Kennedy, Dwight Eisenhower, Harry Truman, Franklin D. Roosevelt become presidents in her lifetime, since she was 10 years old.
She added two Kennedys have been assassinated in her lifetime. I wanted to add Martin Luther King and even Malcolm X, but she switched the conversation on how her heart bleeds for these children.
“We are not this America,” she added. She describes that her heart is for the migrants, as she and her family had to wait for their resettlement into America, when no countries would accept Jews as immigrants in the late 1920’s.
How did we get here, America?
In his interview with Chris Matthews, University of Notre Dame President Rev. John Jenkins said, “Families are fundamental blocks to a society, when the state intervenes, it strikes at our values. The rhetoric about these people is demeaning and treats them as animals. You can think what you want about immigration reform but you have to start at decency, you have to treat them with decency!”
But, who stands to benefit from detaining these children? Are foster parents who are paid handsomely per month when these children are placed in their homes by the government? The immigration lawyers? The federal government in imposing hefty bond fees to claim their children?
The New York Times reported on June 19 that $458,000,000 would be spent to detain these children.
“Currently Southwest Key has nearly 5,100 children in 26 shelters in Texas, Arizona and California, accounting for nearly half the unaccompanied minors being held in facilities all over the country. Most of them are older children who weren’t taken from their parents but instead tried to cross the border on their own,” The Associated Press reported on June 27.
The report added, “The nonprofit organization has booked $458 million in federal contracts during the current budget year — half of what is being handed out by HHS for placing immigrant children who came to the U.S. unaccompanied or were separated from their families after arriving.”
Humanitarian initiatives
The American people responded swiftly with mercy and compassion.
On June 28, a 6-year-old Atlanta boy sold lemonade and made $13,000 to benefit these separated children, CBS.com reported.
Here in Los Angeles, Keep Families Together Rally & Toy Drive was organized on June 23 at the Federal Bldg. in Westwood; Christine Oshima agreed to share a photo she took. Thousands attended.
As of 7:15 p.m. on July 1, a fundraiser initiated by Charlotte Willner and Dave Willner on Facebook weeks ago has raised $20, 578,199 from 533,587 folks to reunite an immigrant parent with their child, which included nearly a hundred Filipino-Americans donating.
As of 7:36pm, it grew to $20,578,724 from 533,594 folks, an increase of $525 from seven new donors in 21 minutes. The funds raised would benefit RAICES, which “will directly fund bonds to allow parents to reclaim their detained children. This group will ensure legal representation for every separated family and every unaccompanied child in Texas’ immigration courts.” Their current goal is $25,000,000.
Janne Martin-Godinez, a 7-year-old Guatemalan girl was reunited with her mother after nearly a two-month separation.
“She and her father were detained at the Arizona border in mid-May, a week after her mother had arrived with her baby brother. The family fled their home in western Guatemala because they were threatened by gang members demanding money from them. Martin-Godinez, 29, a nurse, said she was also threatened by a supervisor at the clinic where she worked,” The Washington Post wrote on July 2.
Meanwhile, the Trump administration changed its zero tolerance policy to the indefinite detention of families while their asylum claims are processed.
The 45th president’s administration has yet to demonstrate its respect to human beings regardless of national origins. After all, he took an oath,with his hand over a Bible, to uphold the U.S. Constitution, which provides equal protection to citizens, resid ents and immigrants, as all are deemed “persons,” entitled to a full measure of human rights and should not be presumed to be criminals.
Perhaps, Mr. Trump needs to learn lessons from 8-year-old Diego, “who came up with his own signs for his first public protest:
Don’t separate families
Don’t make kids cry, make kids happy
Broken Families = Broken World
We all need = rights
Free children and the world will be happy and
Help free kids
Thanks to Cheryl, his mom, who allowed his messages to be shared.
Run to see this exhibit at the San Francisco Consulate Office, soft opening today, grand opening on June 26 at 6pm, exhibit till July 6, 2018
#Viajeros#MasterfulArtists, some are self-taught; some are university-trained, some are multi-awardees, some are commissioned artists by the Philippine government, some were discovered abroad, some are commissioned by bankers, politicians and now, by building developers to fill up their new spaces. @ San Francisco, Ca
Anthony Bourdain on Pier 57 in New York in 2015. Alex Welsh / The New York Times / Redux Pictures
The Oprah Winfrey Show on Channel 7, KABC was the last television show I developed an attachment for, which lasted 25 years. On her shows, she had a way of looking at her guests’ eyes, to which she would describe “lighting up,” when she would bring up something dear to their hearts or in tears, when her question triggered a sad experience or even transcending a struggle within themselves.
Once, in LA, at the party for the film, “Precious,” I told Oprah in passing: “Thanks for bringing the light,” while she was being ushered out by her female bodyguards.
“Yes, we all need the light,” she glanced and looked at me over her shoulder.
Last Friday, June 8, 2018, her exhibit opened at the National African American Museum that will continue until June 2019.
June 8 was the same day that Anthony Bourdain, at age 61, was found dead from an apparent suicide, by chef Eric Ripert, his best friend. They were working on an episode for “Parts Unknown,” Bourdain’s CNN television show.
Word of his death traveled fast, through social media, and fans left flowers, love letters and notes of gratitude on the windows and doors of Brasserie Les Halles, a New York restaurant, where he was the executive chef.
In 1999, he wrote an essay, “Don’t Eat Before Reading This,” and his mother suggested he submit it to The New Yorker, which he did, and got a call back offering him $50,000 to write a book.
At that time, he was dunking French fries, and writing this book gave him a better alternative. “Kitchen Confidential” became a bestseller as it was “pulling back the curtain on the restaurant industry,” wrote Sarah Berger of CNBC.com.
That big break from “Kitchen Confidential” led to shows on the Food Network, Travel Channel and for 11 seasons now, on CNN.
“Parts Unknown,” streaming on Netflix, would have ended June 16, but fans clamored after his death and now, the streaming continues.
Many binge-watched past episodes, and posted their grief and shock on social media, while many others wrote about meeting him.
Angela Dimayuga wrote a piece on BonAppeetit.com which made me cry.
She wrote, “We talked about my new position at The Standard, and he said, ‘That’s a perfect job for you, and suits you. They are lucky to have you. It will be a place you can grow your vision.’
“He had noticed all the collaborative work I had been doing, and he said that my work with artists was especially intriguing to him. He told me that my intersectional approach to work and craft was necessary to the food industry, and that what I’m doing for the future of the food world is important. I felt so seen: I knew he was keeping on eye on me, but I never thought he was looking this closely. Then he offered to become my mentor. He said there weren’t many people he’d be happy to pick up a call from at any hour of the day, but that I could call him at 2 a.m. and he’d answer. I came home that night feeling transformed. I had an instinct, an excited stirring in my belly that told me that something important was happening and my life was about to change drastically. I was excited for our intertwined futures.”
Personally, I have since re-watched six episodes of “Parts Unknown.” In these episodes, one senses his intense passion for good food, equally curious about folks he meets, spending time to discern their personal and cultural strengths, as much as absorbing their wisdom.
His people-centered sensibilities were particularly obvious in his episode in Manila, where he opens with the balikbayan box and follows a matriarch of the family who cooks kare-kare. Bourdain finds the time to share a letter from a man, raised by this matriarch in the U.S., whom she cared for 30 years before coming home to retire.
One wonders if his boundless energy would ever run out.
In Myanmar, he rode the train to Bagan, where thousands of the oldest Buddhist temples were built centuries ago. The grueling train ride of ten hours became nineteen hours. He realized that he was either “getting back on the train or a coffin,” given “derailment and rail slips.”
After 75 stops, samosas and a bouquet of fish bought from street vendors at train stops, beers, and a nap, he arrived at his destination.
Built by artisans, Bourdain sadly narrates that slave labor made these temples possible. He climbed the temple steps, paused long enough to appreciate the landscape with red steeples sprouting as if trees in the verdant background, with thousands more red brick temples, as far as the eyes can see.
In Quebec, he traveled by train with two chefs, in “wind-shipped streets where testicles shrink,” while his friend jokingly refers to the city “where the frigid cold keeps out EBOLA.”
They partake of their breakfasts of bagels with cream cheese and caviar; “serviceable omelettes, foie gras, and garnished with truffle shavings.”
Where did the black truffles come from, one might ask, as they are not a staple of rail service? His chefs-friends came prepared with their own supply of expensive truffles, and a grater.
A chef joked that their “food is feces in the making,” while Bourdain gives the cuisine a rating of beyond excellent, and appreciated flambé dinners that were served in Quebec’s continental restaurants.
He has a unique sense of wonder, delightful at times, childlike in tasting ingredients foreign to him, but with an openness to try them all, and while he knew about politics in the countries he visited, he noticed the incremental changes, especially with his multiple visits to Vietnam. He treated each country he visited with respect, as its people.
In Myanmar, ruled by the military for five decades, he sought interviews with previously jailed publishers of newspapers and the absurdity of the censored press. There, the military leaders would cut and paste news from foreign sources and even chose musical lyrics for composed songs.
One wonders what happened to Bourdain — the curious, lively, joyful person that was transparently conveyed in these episodes. He often said that his travels affected him, as much as he left his footprints in these countries.
Especially poignant was his trip to Vietnam when his tour guide showed him an earlier photo of Bourdain, with black hair, next to the tour guide’s young boy. The metamorphosis is obvious for both – Bourdain now has silver hair and the once young boy is now an adult.
In Vietnam, Bourdain shared a meal with former President Barack Obama and asked him: “Would my daughter be able to come here and eat, bun cha?”
Bourdain acknowledged the diplomacy inroads that the president has made, including reaching out to Iran and Cuba. Cuba has had sanctions imposed on them for decades, which were lifted, while Iran had sanctions lifted by Obama, only to be reimposed by Trump.
Obama reassured Bourdain that progress is not linear, that while at times we might not see the changes, yet there has been a lot. And yes, his daughter can travel to Vietnam and enjoy her bun cha one day.
I wondered even then as he put the question to the president why he did not include himself as part of this future trip to Vietnam, a favorite country of his to visit? Did he have a premonition, as his casual references to death in some of his episodes or the bodies lost to war and conflicts’ casualties?
Psychologists say that suicide leaves a permanent shadow on the surviving family members, much like Ernest Hemingway — that even after several generations have passed, his descendants worry about their genetic predisposition to suicide.
In Bourdain’s case, his 11-year-old daughter, Ariane, was “strong and brave” performing at a concert, two days after her father’s apparent suicide at a hotel in France.
Bourdain, as you travel to the pearly gates, may you be surrounded by God’s angels and may you find your peace.
It is appropriate that you once wrote about how people in a country performed good acts, their form of “merit accumulations” as a way of increasing karma, and I dare say you too, increased your karma, by helping folks anonymously reach their dreams. We are just too sad that you slipped away so fast and too soon!
PEACE is not the product of terror or fear. Peace is not the silence of cemeteries. Peace is not the silent result of violent repression. Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution of all to the good of all. Peace is dynamism. Peace is generosity. It is right and it is duty.
Bishop Oscar Romero
A reproduction of an archival photo of the author’s late father, Eleazar A. Abarquez
Peace is choosing love and generosity
My father, Eleazar Abarquez died on April 24, 2000. Three years after his death, I found out from my mother, Asuncion, that he lost three family members (his parents and a brother) during World War II. My fraternal grandparents, who were both Filipino soldiers, were lured into the woods to look for their missing son. Apparently, it was a trap as the Japanese Imperial Army killed them. Vigan Church’s pastor refused to bury them, afraid of retaliation. After my father’s persistence and tenacity, my fraternal grandparents finally got the Catholic blessing and were buried.
Orphaned at a young age, my father moved to Manila. Instead of despairing over the loss of his parents, he nurtured hope and resorted to higher education as a way out of poverty. He would walk, barefoot for miles, to get to school and back. Sometimes he had food, other times hunger. He wore pants made from recycled rice sacks.
Senator Daniel Ken Inouye, who represented Hawaii from 1963 until his death in 2012. Photo courtesy of U.S. Congress
He persisted, until his law degree was interrupted by an early marriage, when he met the love of his life, Asuncion. Theirs became a bond of love, which defied all sorts of financial odds, and both managed to build a home for their children. He became a labor inspector, tasked with enforcing the labor codes of the Philippines. My mother was a science and math teacher at a public school.
But, their dreams were larger than what their careers offered. My mother took the initiative to immigrate first with my eldest sister, Rose, to Los Angeles, and then, the rest of us joined them.
My father was tasked with selling the fruits of their community labor: the car, house and lot. Months before martial law was imposed, he got a promotion to become the Southern Regional Administrator, appointed by then-Director of Labor Blas Ople.
He was faced with his own dilemma, should he pursue his new promotion in his career and be away from his family or be reunited with family to start anew? Much like choosing love in marrying my mom, he chose family reunification.
Choosing new beginnings, he got a job as a counselor at the Veterans Counseling Center in Los Angeles. He counseled Vietnam veterans and as he did his work, he found healing from his loss. After retiring from his job as a counselor, he became the primary caregiver to his grandchildren born in America – Jennifer, Brian, Michael, Paul, Jason, and Jessica. He would pick them up from school, cook dinners and supervise their homework.
Even with persistent arthritis, he endured his physical pain to care for them. To pay tribute to his nurturing, Jessica wrote a poem about his daily heroic deeds.
From my father, I learned a code of conduct — contributing to the good of all and serving others, before myself.
At Christmas, my father would give generously to Catholic nuns who came to sing Christmas carols. Even if it meant giving away his last cent, he provided for their medical needs. At times, I heard my mom complain about their limited government salaries in the Philippines, and that he should limit giving away their resources. As my dad believed that God provides, he remained generous to every sampaguita vendor that we would come across when our car was stalled in Manila traffic.
It was from my father, Eleazar, that I learned acceptance of what life hands to you. Instead of negativity, he taught me to transcend challenges. How – by being generous. Year after year, I watched him give away what little he had. And it seemed he never ran out of resources to share. The biggest beneficiaries became us, his children. Long after he died, his example still inspires and guides me. My reward is a deeper feeling of satisfaction – a blessing of peace in one’s heart.
Peace is patriotism and bravery in war
I met someone who was a dead ringer for my dad. I thought for a brief moment that my father was alive when I was introduced to Senator Daniel Inouye at a UCLA event. He was kind enough to stop and get our photos taken. I told him how I learned about his bravery when I visited the Price of Freedom Exhibit in Washington, D.C.
I was listening to an audio recording at this Smithsonian’s exhibit about Inouye’s bravery. It was also reported by Robert Asahina in “Just Americans: The Story of the 100th Battalion/442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II.”
“And later he found out he had been shot in the stomach, but he kept climbing up the hill. A machine gun nest was firing at him. He threw a grenade, knocked out that machine gun nest, another machine gun nest opened up on him. A German soldier stood up with a grenade launcher, launched a grenade straight at Inouye.”
Inouye was carrying a live grenade in his right hand when the German grenade hit him, nearly severing his right arm. [Inouye] grabbed the live grenade out of his right hand with his left hand, threw it into the machine gun nest, blew up that machine gun nest, fell to the ground, crawled up the ground, then got hit a third time by another rifleman before he was knocked out.
For four days and nights they fought their way through these very dense mountains,” says Asahina, who has visited the site. “The canopy is so dense that when you are in there in the middle of the day, it’s dark. And they were fighting there in the dark, climbing hills with the Germans firing down on them. It was one of the most heroic battles of the French campaign.”
He was the first successful senator to have accomplished for our Filipino WWII veterans, a provision in H.R. 1, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5), signed by President Barack Obama, providing for 18,000 living Filipino WWII veterans, a one-time payment of $15,000 to American citizens of Filipino descent and $9,000 to Filipino veterans of WWII who are non-citizens – a total of $198 million.
Peace is the generous, tranquil contribution for the good of all
Recall the internment of over 120,000 Japanese Americans, 65 percent of whom were American citizens, that was made possible by Executive Order 4066, signed by President Franklin Roosevelt, after WWII was declared?
Yet, with all these injustices that these Japanese-Americans faced in internment camps, they were the most decorated batallion who fought in World War II. Daniel Inouye became one of the most decorated WWII hero. The 442nd combat unit garnered over 18,000 individual decorations for bravery, 9,500 Purple Hearts for casualties, and seven Presidential Distinguished Unit citations.
While in camp, they lived in barracks, that were 20 x 120 ft, divided into four to six tiny apartments, with sheetrock walls, sometimes covered, sometimes not, with tar paper on the roof. These wood shacks had gaps on the walls and on the floors, allowing heat and blistering cold to come in. They had common bathrooms that they had to walk to, traversing mud with their wooden sandals. In some parts of the West Coast, they were housed in barns where horses were kept.
These interned Japanese-Americans taught their families acceptance and a code of behavior, called shushin, giving their lives in camp, a sense of dignity.
They recognized that shushin (perseverance, hard work and respect for authority) can now be their code of behavior to pass on. Instead of bitterness, they passed on giri, (strong sense of duty or obligation to others) or a profound obligation to family, especially parents, a generational duty to do good to others, to look after generations to come. From their collective decision, they served others before themselves.
Instead of anger, the value of gaman (to endure adversity and to persevere) was taught by example. At times, it felt like they were passive, but while in the camps, they taught their children watercolor paintings. The art of woodmaking was also passed on. Even games of baseball were played. Dances and songs were taught. They centered on arts, spirituality and cultural values in the camps.
In Toyo Miyatake’s exhibit from October to December 2017, his black and white photos of that period showed how the Japanese Americans grew foliage and flowering plants to surround their barracks and made their living conditions bearable.
Another photo showed how they created inside the barracks, a community market of fresh fish, supplied twice a month by a Caucasian friend who sent the fresh fish from Port of San Pedro. The photo’s caption conveyed the fact that Japanese did not like the taste of the fish supplied in the camp that they made arrangements for other varieties of fish to be delivered.
The cultural values of gaman and giri empowered the succeeding generations of Japanese – Americans – it is their way of remembering the sacrifices of their ancestors, not for themselves, but for the next generations. It marked the birth of the Japanese American National Museum that is mostly funded by federal funds, army financial resources, and private donations.
At the Japanese American Museum in Little Tokyo, I saw desert sand of various colors that are encased in acrylic boxes, with artifacts such as boots, sandals, books, accessories of clothing, etc. With one’ s imagination, one might relive what the Issei (the first generation Japanese – Americans) experienced — harsh conditions which moved Pres. George H.W. Bush to say, ” No nation can fully understand itself or find its place in the world if it does not look with clear eyes all the glories and the disgraces of its past. We in the United States acknowledge such an injustice in our history. The internment of the Americans of Japanese ancestry was a grave injustice, and it will never be repeated.”
The community has, since that period of internment, worked for decades to achieve redress and reparation, just like how the Filipino veterans struggled for equity. It was a movement made up of cumulative depths and levels of contributions, including solidarity campaigns from many sectors. It led to the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, authored by Inouye, authorizing redress payments to “surviving internees, and which created a public education fund to ensure that similar violations of civil liberties will not be repeated against any other group based on race, religion or national origin.”
As for the interned Japanese-Americans, David Mas Matsumoto wrote ” We live with ghosts or spirits all around us, they are a sense of history that bonds all of us. Culture is alive and evolving. The facts are not as important as the process of change and acceptance…For we too are simply ordinary people with a universe passing by us and through us.”
I was fortunate to have met all these men, my father who raised me and taught me the value of generosity; Senator Daniel Inouye who taught me the value of bravery and courage; and David Mas Matsumoto who taught me the value of culture and community.
I am most grateful this Father’s Day, for having them as life examples which spoke loudly of peace!
