Scandal and Good Deeds

When regular contributor Myles A. Garcia, a history buff, caught a whiff of the scandal from Down Under involving one of the biggest family fortunes in Australia, he immediately drew on his Internet sleuthing skills and trained his sights on the Filipina that was in the midst of it all. "How To Marry A Millionaire Aussie/Pinoy Style" dishes on the legal battle that had all the elements of a sordid telenovela, and includes a list of online information sources for those who want more of the story.

In New York in the meantime, the musicale "Here Lies Love" which focuses on Imelda Marcos, is creating waves and has branched out to London and will soon tour major American cities. Tricia J. Capistrano writes about the long-dormant emotions that the show resurrected for her.

Remember Carl and Clarence Aguirre, the conjoined twins from Negros Occidental who were successfully separated in 2004? It took more than a village to bring them to New York for their operation, and first-time contributor Carmen Sarmiento tells us the story of the men and women who worked together to make their journey possible. Read "The Aguirre Twins -- A Back Story Paid Forward."

In this week's blog, I write about growing up in UP, in "Childhood Reveries."

For "Video of the Week," pop singer Gary Valenciano surprises balikbayans on a flight home.

Hope your autumn is as colorful as the changing leaves.

Todos Los Santos

Growing up in the Philippines, I never experienced the fun and hassle of clan reunions and feasts in cemeteries on All Saints Day because our dead relatives were all buried in Cebu while we lived in Quezon City. Thus my take of Todos los Santos was  more geared towards the supernatural: the onset of darkness on October 31 and November 1 were white-knuckle times, when I would keep the light on all night to ward off the ghosts and goblins, the aswang and the maligno that were roaming the earth. Of course, I never really encountered anything remotely paranormal, but I'm one of the millions who-- if psychological studies are to be taken seriously -- actually take pleasure in being scared, for whatever escape or expiation it may relieve my psyche from.

In keeping with the spirit of Halloween, we hope you enjoy three stories of the supernatural contributed by our writer-friends: Elizabeth Ann Quirino writes about "The Old Lady and the Balete Tree," first-time contributor Kathleen Joaquin Burkhalter tells us the story of her childhood encounters of a different kind in "Supernatural Memories of a Tropical Childhood," and  Pete Sandoval relates a childhood story, "How My Cousin Jimmy Became a Butterfly."

Back to the real world, another first-time contributor Carolina Esguerra Colborn introduces us to an RV (recreational vehicle) lifestyle in "Cruising to An American Dream," a treat for seniors considering options for their retirement years. 

To cap our Filipino American History Month celebration, we go back in time with Helen Ragsac Sanchez's story of her brief appearance in a 1943 documentary called "Filipino Sports Parade" when she was 15 years old, as well as introduce to you the current roster of "Fil-Am Media Makers To Watch." It has been a long, storied journey to the American mainstream but we can proudly proclaim that Filipinos are not [just] in the farmlands anymore. 

For those who belong to the over-50 set, please click on the AARP button below and take advantage of the benefits that the organization offers. Our Partner post this week: "Filipino Americans Struggle with Caring for Aging Loved Ones."

And our Video of the Week transports us to Hong Kong: "The Evolution of Hong Kong's Maids"

A meaningful Todos los Santos to everyone.

In Our Hearts

If Carlos Sampayan Bulosan were alive today, how would he write about Filipinos in America now? 

The best-known Filipino American writer of his generation, Bulosan was a manong who came to United States from his native Pangasinan to work the fields of the US West Coast and in the canneries of Alaska, just like the large majority of his kababayans (compatriots) in the early- to mid-1900s. And just like all of them, he experienced first-hand the ugly face of racism that targeted non-whites in general and the Filipino laborers in particular. The frustrations and the heartbreaks that gnawed at his soul ironically made Bulosan a writer, a calling that he discovered accidentally. 

In a letter to his brother, Macario, (as quoted by Epifanio San Juan, Jr. in his book Balikbayang Sinta: An E. San Juan Reader), Carlos wrote in 1946: "Then it came to me, like a revelation, that I could actually write understandable English. I was seized with happiness. When the long letter was finished, a letter that was actually a story of my life, I jumped to my feet and shouted through my tears: 'They can't silence me any more! I'll tell the world what they have done to me!"

Carlos Bulosan went on to write his now-classic semi-autobiography, America Is In the Heart, which has since become required reading for anyone who wants to understand what it meant to be a Filipino in a country that both welcomed and shunned him. We who came after Bulosan are so much richer in history and in spirit because of his legacy. 

In this issue, we honor this great novelist/poet/labor organizer/lover, whose piercing words were actually paeans to the America of his dreams. If he were alive today, would he write about us with as much passion?

"America is also the nameless foreigner, the homeless refugee,
the hungry boy begging for a job and the black body dangling on a tree.
America is the illiterate immigrant who is ashamed that the world
of books and intellectual opportunities is closed to him.
We are all that nameless foreigner, that homeless refugee, that hungry boy,
that illiterate immigrant and that lynched black body. All of us, from the first Adam
to the last Filipino, native born or alien, educated or illiterate
—We are America!"