I submitted 52 pieces for my weekly Rhizomes column in the Asian Journal. These pieces, excerpted below, resonated with AJ’s readers and also on social media.
It is interesting to observe that months after I spotlight an author, a musician or an artist, many more good things happen to them. It is a testament that God rewards those who put effort into their craft, with the best intentions of sharing their talents.
May you all have a peaceful, truth-filled, just and prosperous 2019! God makes miracles daily – we must be still to claim them all! We are all His anointed beloveds!
Part II: Philippine Chamber Singers-LA give their all to OPM at the Walt Disney Hall
Nagbubungkal, nagtatanim, kumikinang (shoveling, planting, healthy vibrance) are features of hard work in growing crops.
But, what if those activities were applied in nurturing families and growing communities?
If one is born into music, what if someone aligned with that luck, applied himself in that path, keeping in mind the law of favorability, and that the Universe conspires to give us more favors to grow our luck?
Much like Andrea Morricone — an Italian composer-son of Ennio Morricone, who speaks with a sense of certainty, in sharing himself “as perhaps already swimming in music,” while in the womb of his mother, Maria and listening to his father, Ennio who played the trumpet — Anthony Angelo “Gelo” Francisco has similar roots of “swimming in the musically-gifted womb” of Herminia, a coloratura (soprano skilled in opera), his mother, and listening to Gerardo, his father, a singer.
They became part of an erstwhile Mandaluyong Polyphonic Society’s (MPS) and as the photo accompanying this article shows, Francisco’s dad (bass) and mom (soprano), encircled in white, who with their group, performed at exclusive Cardinal’s events in the Philippines. At MPS, Gerardo met Herminia and they became a couple, giving birth to the youngest Gelo Francisco with four elder siblings, all with gifts of musicality. A similar PCS-LA gathering with their families are in another photo.
Fast forward to this Music Center’s Disney Hall event and we find Gelo Francisco’s family integrated into PCS-LA as well, with wife Marivic (a soprano), in a featured solo, while their son, Joaquim Antonio Belo Francisco, (college-bound on his gap year) strummed the kalatong, a bamboo percussion instrument with Gelo. Both Joaquim and his father (Gelo) played the kalatong bamboo drums to a fast rhythm that provided the background to “TINIG NG LUPA,” which earned a chorus of audience’s bravos. We celebrated that we saw how the Francisco family rose as one, passing on the legacy inherited from Gelo’s father and mother, and now Gelo and Marivic passing on their gifts of musicality to their first born, Joaquim, another professional artist born that night.
The integrity of passion and conviction to good music shows
Equally outstanding was the rendition of “ANAK,” a popular song of Freddie Aguilar, with new arrangements from John Pamintuan. It was a solo featuring alto Lisa Ulanday, accompanied by Malaya Filipino-American Dance Arts and of course, PCS-LA.
Many Filipinos can sing “ANAK” as the tune is almost instinctive, having been born in the Philippines, a place where this song is heard in the plazas, musical halls, academic stages, television, and movies and like a prodigal son, one breaks off from family to grow independence and returns to home again.
To have a Filipina-American like Ulanday sing this in Tagalog, which is not her primary language, took a lot of preparations from her as to style, enunciating the words and vowels with the punctuated emotions, and of course, the sound dynamics.
She said, “I never thought simple words like ‘gatas’ (milk) could sound too aristocratic when I applied traditional choral singing vowels. I had to consciously add more ‘y’ in kamay (hand), so I didn’t sound hoitey toitey.”
“How did you prepare for this?” I asked her, one evening, after putting her own anak to sleep.
Abraham Ferrer: Using art to influence culture and building communities
The festival he managed for 32+ years will now be on its 35th year in 2019. The workshops continue to be well-attended as Asians are cast in center stages talking about diversity issues while providing forums to discover, to incubate and to showcase the community’s emerging artistic talents.
The festival is a “home,” a reliable cultural space for artists, a “major tastemaking event,” such that the Academy has qualified this festival as a pipeline for short films and a reunion of past to present Asian Pacifics involved in community building using the arts and social awareness.
“Festival No. 34 maintains our spirit of producing this annual showcase through the process of creating our ideal communities,” states VC Executive Director Francis Cullado on 2018’s LAAPFF, “Our programmers and staff imagine our ideal communities to be inclusive while striving towards equity and change. And with regards to the ongoing discourse about diversity, we aim to have a space that engages intra-diversity amongst AAPIs and inter-diversity with other communities and groups. We at Visual Communications (VC) and this Festival proudly present a slate of artists and creators who continue to shift narratives and challenge perspectives.”
2018 gave festival attendees an early chance to see John Cho and Debra Messing in “Searching” via Sony Green Gems, which was co-written and directed by Aneesh Chaganty, a first-time feature filmmaker.
Abe’s programming and cultural acumen have now switched to digital management of VC’s archives. His articulation of their dynamic programming committee’s criteria converged with what I read: “Has my involvement in the process, of which this particular art object [film] is part, raised my consciousness in any way?” Whatever the answer to that question, the fact that we can ask it gives art [film] a new life. With the full emancipation of art, we must also allow it the freedom to do anything and, more to the point, to say anything: to have free speech, if you like but also to have freedom of expression in the languages beyond speech,” Hugh Moss, one of London’s leading 20th century dealers in Asian art who represented the best Chinese artists in Hong Kong, and who wrote “The Art of Understanding Art: A New Perspective” (2015).
Immigrants are pieces of American history
Desirree Delacruz shared this: “I am a millennial American citizen who was born in Westminster, CA whose father, Cesar hailed from Bulacan province. He is the second of eleven siblings who migrated by first becoming a seaman and who now works at USPS. He is credited with helping seven of his siblings migrate. I can only imagine what my dad had to endure: depression, loneliness and in those tears, he had to be so strong to have a vision, larger than his situation then. He met my mother, Imelda who worked alongside my dad at a technology company until she was laid off. For six years, she cared for Juanita Lopez, my grandmother, who had a stroke. I believe if I had to face what they went through, to live lives for others, I would not have the emotional and psychological capacity to transcend their struggles and sufferings. Why? Because everything was given to me. I did not experience those difficulties and I would not know how to respond. Immigrants are a piece of history. They are pieces of American history that built our ancestry, that built our family, that built everything.”
First, Desirree’s smile was my red carpet welcome. Before the ritual of facials started, she held both of my hands, and we both got still, in meditation. As we held hands, I sobbed uncontrollably inside O Skin Care in Cerritos.
After meditating, she asked what happened. I cried and could not help but think about the pain and suffering of toddlers in diapers, imagining what they went through when U.S. border agents tear gassed them. This act was supposedly done according to Pres. Trump on behalf of our national security interests. As Americans, we were not consulted nor did we agree to these despicable acts of cruelty propagated by heartless, yet professionally trained federal agents.
I cried imagining the irritants that caused burning to these toddlers’ eyes, mucous membranes, throat, lungs and skin. Kim Kyung Hoon snapped a moving image that was published in the Washington Post. It catalyzed a discussion about who came to America’s shores and who were allowed in.
The “red” stories of martyrs’ sacrifice of one’s life so others might live (This book garnered the Best Book of Nonfiction in Prose in English award at the 37th National Book Awards on Nov. 25, 2018. I wrote this piece on September 8, 2018, following U.S.’ book launches of the author.)
“With such robust capacity of observation and memory recall, the blood pouring out of the carabao’s jugular vein in his neck, makes for a visual sensory metaphor for how the women and men were arrested, tortured in prison and how women were raped wantonly by a gang of military men, leaving red blood stains all over the place.
Lahoz describes these incidents of torture with precision and specificity, yet with such respect for the women and the reader as to spare us the gory details of the criminal acts, and leaving us to imagine the atrocity, while describing the details after the gory incident. We came to know the various methods of torture, including the use of flat iron to sear the soles of the prisoners, the grabbing of hair until they are torn off one’s scalp with brute force.
Many good deeds are equally described, including soldiers who give a hand to the tortured prisoners, or how Abra farmers were supported by construction of irrigation systems funded by the Catholic Lenten Fund of Germany, enabling the farmers to have two croppings a year.
You could sense the tedious verification that the book went through, as he writes about ordinary people in these chapters and then, through a series of circumstances and the decisions they made, we sense how noble they are, through the words that Manny used in writing this book, not flamboyantly, but precise enough for a person to appreciate how a pregnant woman was helped by movement allies to give birth to her child and even a lesson on how to make spaghetti by her host only to cook it using sardines with canned tomato sauce, and a separate red sauce for Manny.
It was a gift from her heart to Manny, appreciating how she and her child were sheltered from harm. What is the big deal, as the book asks? Spaghetti is not something you can simply buy at the country store in that period; imagine eating this at a remote village where one has to walk by foot for miles to reach the highway. So, one is left wondering? How did she make the spaghetti? The woman thought of keeping the spaghetti noodles she got from her host family and kept it with her for months, on the mere chance she would see Manny and thank him for what he did for her.
Olivia Quido-Co’s journey of humility
She was determined. She analyzed how the network of connections was formed and offered facials to key folks, building her clientele through trust.
Trust is an elusive intangible to acquire. It is not just given to anyone who is still new in the business. It is acquired through repeated quality service, and personal “kabaitan” — personal goodwill, where one will always treat the other in an honorable way.
“Relying on my own intelligence, relying on my own strength, [skills, reputation and experience], I distributed flyers in different supermarkets to build my client base,” Olivia recounted.
She offered facial service for $45, at times even giving $10-discounts to clients who request for it. Once she increased her clientele, she had the promise of return business.
After being a solo entrepreneur for two years at her first business location, she decided that it was not sustainable. She felt disheartened and thought of giving up.
But Jeremiah 29:11 made her realize that God is in charge of her business. “‘For I know the plans I have for you,’ declares the Lord, ‘plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.’ “
“Si God naman ang magpapasweldo (It is God who will give me the salary),” she said.
Olivia changed direction from personal power and self-reliance, and asked a Higher Being to be her Universal Partner, whom she calls Father God.
“Once I claimed that promise, I realized that the Lord was giving me a lesson through the trials I was going through. You don’t learn everything [when you’re successful], you learn more when you are down, kakailanganin mo ‘yon, ang pagbangon (You need the trials so you know how to recover),” she continued.
She kept cultivating trust, an intangible that was not easy to build. It was difficult to find the clients that it took her five years to build a reliable base. In the meantime, she was restless.
“I wanted this, I wanted that, I kept chasing worldly things, using my own strength. Then, I learned 10 percent tithing to the Church where I receive God’s word, and that if I turn my back on worldly things, and turn towards the Lord, blessing after blessing [would come.] It was truly overwhelming. Sobrang galing talaga ni Lord (God is all omnipotent).”
“For two years, I kept up my tithing, but my take-home income was still at $500 a week. So I asked the Lord – did you not promise an overflowing abundance if I do tithing?”
It turns out, as she recounted, “I was not a consistent giver, I even had a poor attitude in tithing, sometimes I would give $50 a week, other times, I would change it to $30,” she said, then “I turned to the Bible and it gave me this response – The Lord loves a cheerful giver, from then on, my income of $500 became $1000 and then $1,500. Today, I tell my accountant that 10 percent tithing is an absolute expense for my business. Only then did the tremendous blessings pour out that we are so overwhelmed.”
Jose Antonio Vargas: From Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist to an American author and immigration reform advocate
How is it that a piece of paper has become a permanent symbol of labeling American citizens as less than, and even making them unworthy except as chattel or slave properties up until the era of Jim Crow?
How is it that a piece of paper is presently being denied to eleven million undocumented immigrants because they are labeled falsely as unworthy of becoming American citizens, even if they have led lives more patriotic than others, like serving in the U.S. military to defend American democracy abroad?
Who determines who is worthy or unworthy of being called Americans? The guy in the White House who is now un-indicted co-conspirator of two felonies of paying off two women to hide his affairs and defrauded American citizens as to alter the outcome of the U.S. presidential elections? No wonder the book is entitled Dear America: Notes of An Undocumented Citizen by Jose Antonio Vargas.
America, we have been a nation of absurdities. It is time to make our country more wholesome and correct what is wrong and make everyone who is already here — those who have proven themselves as productive citizens for several years apply to get their legal U.S. work permits and ultimately, after several more years, a permanent green card.
It might take them two decades to qualify until becoming U.S. citizens, but in the meantime, they can operate without being cut up into pieces daily, because of their fears. Just as American chattel owners of slaves terrorize these slaves to remain as properties, today, our American government continues to terrorize these undocumented immigrants and even the asylum seekers at the Southern border fleeing persecution from gangs in their countries.
These undocumented immigrants have been indefatigable, tireless defenders of the American dream and what is right about it; we now have to do what is right by them. America is after all an ideal, an amalgamation of many million immigrants’ dreams who dared cross the shores and oceans seeking better lives, from the Greeks, to the Italians, to the British, to the Irish, to the Spaniards, to the Chinese, to the Japanese, to the Filipinos and over 188 countries now in its borders.
Vargas asserts, “Home is not something I have to earn. Humanity is not some box I should have to check. It occurred to me that I’d been in an intimate, long-term relationship all along. I was in a toxic, abusive, codependent relationship with America, and there was no getting out.”
For these eleven million undocumented immigrants, America has become their cage, a huge jail they cannot seem to get out from, a jail they cannot leave to even visit their loved ones overseas and to some, a jail where they will die from, away from their birth nations.
Luchie San Luis Quemuel: Her reflections of God’s gilded miracles in her life
Luchie met the love of her life, Rod Quemuel and together, they have built several businesses, the last one was a caregiving facility with six beds, and their last client was Julia Roth, Mayor Eric Garcetti’s maternal grandmother, whom he visited regularly and was close to.
When Rod and Luchie got married on Dec. 23, 1971, they went on a 37-day honeymoon. Rod asked her to buy boots and coat and she questioned the added expense, thinking they were just going to San Francisco, but off they went to Europe.
In the Quemuel family, kids are born after 13 years of marriage. Luchie got married at 30 years old. To have a kid after 13 years meant being pregnant at 43 years old, so she prayed for a miracle and wanted to go to Our Lady of Fatima.
But, Rod got sick and was feverish the night before. Not knowing how both of them could proceed to visit Our Lady of Fatima the next day, she prayed fervently. That entire evening, it rained hard, with thunder and lightning. Could it be the coming of the Holy Spirit at this point?
The next day, Rod miraculously got well and even got up early. Luchie kept asking the tour driver if the tour to the Fatima should proceed, given the heavy rains. While inside the tour bus, the rains kept up. But, the moment they alighted the bus, the rains stopped. The sun was bright and the streets were dry. Then and there, she knew she would get the miracle that she prayed for.
When they got home, she felt queasy and indeed, the miracle happened, as she became pregnant with Rowell. One more son was to be born five years later, Reggie.
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Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D. writes a weekly column for Asian Journal, called “Rhizomes.” She has been writing for AJ Press for 10 years. She also contributes to Balikbayan Magazine. Her training and experiences are in science, food technology, law and community volunteerism for 4 decades. She holds a B.S. degree from the University of the Philippines, a law degree from Whittier College School of Law in California and a certificate on 21st Century Leadership from Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government. She has been a participant in NVM Writing Workshops taught by Prof. Peter Bacho for 4 years and Prof. Russell Leong. She has travelled to France, Holland, Belgium, Japan, Costa Rica, Mexico and over 22 national parks in the US, in her pursuit of love for nature and the arts.
