The Journey Begins with Community
Kumusta, friends!
If you’re reading this, you’ve accessed my blog and have likely supported my upcoming field study with indigenous tribes in the Philippines. First of all, thank you so much for helping me make this a reality. For the last two weeks I’ve been waking up in disbelief that it’s actually happening and trying to shake off the imposter syndrome, but support from friends like you has helped me really start to embrace everything!
I’m still less than two months away from setting foot on the islands again, but I have already started an emotional journey on the way there. And I guess you’re in for this ride now! I know, it’s fast—and I didn’t think we’d get here so quickly, but I’m not one for small talk.
Most of my close friends know that my dad’s health has been in decline, and I’ve been taking time over the last year to take care of him whenever my mom needs a break. I’ve learned the hard truth that the actual work isn’t so much in the physical caretaking, but the emotional labor of constantly grieving a person that I have had a complicated relationship with. Sometimes the waves of grief are small and sometimes they envelop me completely, but no matter the size they are continuous. These days I have been feeling less anger and depression about it all, and have found myself more contemplative and reflective about the life that he had lived. As I continue to grow as an adult, I’m finding more parallels in our lives that I’m learning to embrace.
Before leaving the Philippines for the United States, my dad was a lawyer and special prosecutor for the ombudsman, fighting corruption in the government. His mother, my Lola Eppie, had moved to the US around the time the dictator President Marcos had enacted martial law in the 1970s. My parents had come out to visit years later, and ended up staying for good.
When my parents had first moved to Los Angeles (Tongva) from Manila, my dad had started one of the first shipping company for Pilipinx immigrants to send goods back home at a time before the internet was easily accessible. It became a tradition for us to go shopping for mass goods at Costco to fill up these cardboard boxes so that my lolas, lolos, titos, titas, and pinsans could have clothes, toiletries, canned goods like SPAM and corned beef, and American staples like Ritz Crackers and Oreos. These boxes were known as balikbayan boxes, and ended up becoming enduring symbols of the Pilipinx diaspora. My dad found more and more community among fellow immigrants, and continued to connect them by creating a ticketing agency for Philippine Airlines, and Tribune U.S.A., a newspaper for Pilipinx immigrants to stay connected with what was happening back home. He also helped many people with getting their papers sorted to immigrate here.
My dad with my younger sister at the Tribune U.S.A. newspaper office
Growing up, all of this meant nothing to me. I thought it was normal to have a jungle gym of balikbayan boxes in the backyard, or to have learned how to type by re-typing news articles from the Philippines. I thought it was normal to have community around 24/7. Little did I know that what my dad was doing was all centered around creating a community within the diaspora here on Tongva land, and keeping us connected to the homeland.
Unfortunately, by the time I could have processed this, I watched it all fall apart instead. By the time I was twelve years old, all of these businesses had shuttered for multiple reasons—the economic recession, the rise of the internet, etc. I of course was not aware of all of the details, but could only observe the changes going on. We sold our house and moved in with my Lola, we started grocery shopping at the 99 cents store, and arguments about money came up with frequency. We went from being on our way to wealth to being on food stamps in a short span of time.
To this day I am coming to terms with how this upbringing has affected my relationship with my parents and money [and that might need to be an entirely different blog post]. No one ever sat me down and explained why big changes were happening. I remember a falling out with one of my friends because I couldn’t afford the same things, and feeling deep shame about my knock-off Converse sneakers. My dad started to drink more and was on the couch all the time. I didn’t know that was depression, and instead made jokes about it when my friends would come over. It took me a decade to understand how tough things were.
Eventually, with the support of community, my dad was able to pull himself back together and go back to the Philippines for a few years to take on a few cases as a lawyer again. The first time we Skyped, I was shocked at how different he looked, not just physically, but emotionally. I almost didn’t recognize him, until I remembered that he had actually returned back to his old self, bursting with vim and vigor. It was refreshing to see him in that way, and I’m glad that he was able to experience that before coming back to the US.
It used to annoy me how my dad would basically interview all of my friends anytime they’d come over (sometimes his questioning would go on for almost twenty minutes). What I didn’t realize at the time was that he truly took an interest because he cared and wanted to build more community. I think that was his life’s purpose, and I understand that comes from our culture. Because of my dad the value of community has been a large part of who I have become, and I often put my efforts into making the communities I’m a part of better.
The Pilipinx value of kapwa is based on seeing the self in the other, embracing our shared identity, and caring for our fellow beings. Being in the diaspora can make embodying this value difficult, as surviving capitalism often requires us to focus on ourselves individually, valuing competition more than collaboration. It took a lot for me to seek support from those around me in making this field study happen, and unlearning the shame in asking for help was a huge step for me. While I’m usually one to give to others easily, receiving is something that I’m still rusty with. I’m re-learning that we are all here to support each other, and the journey begins with community.
I’ll leave you with a beautiful example of community care in indigenous Pilipinx culture: a Bontoc wedding. The Bontoc people are in the Cordillera mountains of the northern Philippines, and in their tradition a wedding, much like most aspects of their culture, is based on the spirit of ug-ugfo—a collective community effort from start to finish. While I won’t be meeting the Bontoc people on this field study, I will have an opportunity to meet the Kalinga, another tribe in the Cordilleras.
I’m not exactly sure what the shape of this blog will be moving forward. I can’t promise that what I share here will be refined or revelatory, but I will definitely be sharing what I’m processing as I go. Thank you again for your support, and I look forward to sharing this journey with you. Maraming salamat, kapwa.
