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Exile dreams

2/25/2012

New York, San Francisco 1999

I have these dreams. I live and breathe under water like light green air. Or: our country is occupied. The enemy, hidden, is everywhere. We are resistance fighters who hide underground, moving and fighting. We live with the terror that we might be seen. Or: I have learned to fly, a highly technical skill that I learn in a series of dreams. It is a secret I hide.

As far back as I know, I have been white. Passing through the yard, they say, "ay manika!" (doll) and pinch our cheeks. Manika: fragile, pretty, pale, precious. By sixth grade, I am not manika enough, too clumsy, my nose was too high, a whiteness too bright like neon signs in Quiapo, Paco, everywhere. I

We grew up in limbo. Home, a American family island in the Philippine Sea. The world teemed with queasy odors and sweet aromas, Tagalog puns, wind, sun and music wilder than the middle American life of my grandmother's house. I learned how to be Filipina and that I was not; knew my U.S. passport's privilege but didn't know how to be one. My sisters and I were ex-manikas, "white monkeys," Manila girls in a world pummeled by typhoons, wildcat strikes, student riots, and then, in 1971, curfewed nights.

I live with the name, white monkey. It's the curse for white fright, colonial blight, American might.

There are fish adrift in their aquariums with whom I have more in common than some friends. I live under water again, open my mouth to unshaped sound. No one knows that I am utterly alien, that our world is occupied. No one knows this because I can't speak the language. I can't escape, though I can fly. And no one understands me when I speak. Neither do I.

Expatriate

2/25/2012

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Expatriate \Ex*pa"tri*ate\, v. t.

[imp. & p. p. Expatriated; p. pr. & vb. n. Expatriating.] [LL. expatriatus, p. p. of expatriare; L. ex out + patria fatherland, native land, fr. pater father. See Patriot.]

1. To banish; to drive or force (a person)from his own country; to make an exile of.

The expatriated landed interest of France. --Burke.

2. Reflexively, as To expatriate one's self: To withdraw from one's native country; to renounce the rights and liabilities of citizenship where one is born, and become a citizen of another country.

Source: Webster's Revised Unabridged Dictionary, © 1996, 1998 MICRA, Inc.

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The street ghosts, Malate 2003

2/25/2012

The digital clock blinks 3:23 a.m. in my fan-only room at Pension Natividad. But the fan doesn't work and after the 13 hour flight from SFO, can't sleep, counting number sheep - 3:24 - 3:25 - 3:26.  How can jeepneys rumble up Mabini and down del Pilar at this hour?  I curl up in my malong, wide awake in the thick pre-dawn.

Then, at the desk in the corner, a soft shift in the airless room. I grab the malong tight, heart lurching, hold my breath, invisible. Soft, like a fade-in, I see a man bent over writing something. When he rises, he's regal. He brushes something off -- is that a waistcoat? I stare hard, heart beating, still trying not to breathe. He absently brushing back his thick hair and turns his head to the door. I gasp, “Mabini?”

"Uh!" he lurches, jostles the papers. Some scatter to the floor. He peers at the bed as he scoops them up. I hoist up the malong, suddenly aware of my open, messy suitcase, my wet underwear on the bathroom rung. He tries a word of Latin, Spanish. Then tight with anger, he lapses into Tagalog, “Ano ang gagawin mo dito sa kwarto ko, American woman?”

His room? “It's Pension Natividad, sir. I paid!”   The architect of the Philippine revolution straightens up, pulls down his dark coat and turns his back. In English he hisses. “American saviors! Pft! What I learned about you in Guam. Umalis ka dyan!" He shoos me like a dog. But at this moment, a man in uniform materializes through the door. Mabini half-turns and murmurs in a low voice, “Kumusta General.” Distracted, they speak quietly. Who is that? Finally, I remember. It's Malvar, General Malvar.

The clock turns to 3:33. On cue, they materialize through the walls, the aparador, the mirror, the window. Luis ma Guerrero nods to M.Y. Orosa who greets Madre Ignacia with a sniff on the cheek. Bacobo arrives and takes up a quiet interchange with Nakpil who pulls out his copy of the anthem he composed for Bonifacio. Bacobo jokes, “ Ito nanaman, Nakpil?”

Marcelo del Pilar arrives with characteristic pomp. The first generation of balikbayan celebrities, he founded the nationalist magazine  la Solidaridad in Europe. The Filipino multo greet del Pilar with deference and nod imperceptibly at the Spaniard Herran who follows him in. Nobody invited his replacement Pedro Gil, so this at least is a sign that he’s welcome.
“Nandito ba lahat?”
“Dalawa pa,” says Gen Malvar slowly, checking the door.
Padre Faura the Jesuit astronomer and meterologist slips in through the dark window. A thick breeze follows in him. The bayani move to let the Spaniard through. He joins his countryman Herran on the edge of my bed. The padre sits with his hands clasped between his knees his profile tilting longingly towards the window and the city night.   Herran's back is tense.

Finally Dr. Vasquez arrives, antiseptic and bustling with friendly busyness. The Malate air in my room sparkles with delight. He is everyone’s favorite. “General, Padre, ah Luis …mi compare Apolinario” (No one else calls Mabini by his full first name, but he smiles back at the doctor affectionately). Dr. Vasquez greets the women, and suddenly stiffens. He sniffs. He looks in my direction, and then sees me, curled against the corner of the bed. The multo stop mid- sentence, turn in unison, and gasp. Their voices rumble “Ah! Aba, aba! ‘susmaryoseph!” "Infiltrator!" I cringe and look pleadingly at Mabini, who does not acknowledge me.

Then a small light brightens the Doctor’s aura.
“Ahhh… iha, iha…” he clears his throat and peers more quizzically.
“Kerry”
“O-o, near Ellinwood. A little girl then… When I was Wright Street…”

The others now gaze with keen interest. A kana who knew Malate streets when they were named American states. The thick air ruffles with ghostly laughter.

General Malvar booms, “Ahay, I lost the revolution but conquered Tennessee!” Everyone titters. “Vermont!” sings Nakpil. "Florida,” Mrs Orosa raises her hand, ”Carolina, Carolina!” the holy Ignacia covers her mouth and giggles like a girl.
“Georgia,” Luis adds his street with dignity. It’s the game, ‘Conquest of the Americas.’
[When did they change the street names in Malate from the American states of occupying troops to bayani of the Philippine- American war. I’m trying to remember all this as the bustle continues.]
“Bacobo?” “Nebraska.”
“Adriatico?” “Dakotas…”
“And who is not here?”
“Leon Ginto…”
“Pennsylvania.” Marcelo del Pilar knows all the street changes but doesn’t want to show off, especially since his street has been del Pilar since the 1950s.
“Sino pa?....”
“Colorado.”
“Sino, sino,”
“Agoncillo!” Marcelo can’t wait.
“Ahhhh,” the ghosts murmur in unison.
“Atchaka” adds the General who won’t be bested, “Admiral Dewey to President Roxas Boulevard!” His voice cracks; it’s a revolutionary memory that still bruises. All heads turn to Manila Bay, two blocks away. A grim, reflective quiet follows the levity.

Mabini watches this, bemused.

“Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen, but we must begin our meeting.” He speaks in English, as a kind of deference, but doesn’t look at me. I sigh and sit up, gather the top of my malong with one hand, feeling about for my chinellas in the dark.
“Permítame acompañarla,” offers Padre Faura quietly as he rises,
“I will teach her to pray a rosary of the constellations.”
Midst the general mumbling, as I push open the door into the humid night, a light cool sense of the Padre at my elbow.

See:
Mock Battle of Manila, 1898
Old Street Names of Manila, Traveler on Foot

We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

Handsome President Ramon Magsaysay is a friend of the common tao. He’s a “bare feet in the palace” president, writes an American author. He isn’t tisoy like Quezon, or a Japanese collaborator like Roxas, or corrupt like Quirino. He was a poor boy from Lubao, so he isn’t ashamed to visit the barrios. He invites peasants and laborers to tour Malacañang, the presidential residence, and encourages farmers to telegram him with their complaints. He understands the needs of a rural nation. Throughout the country, people see new bridges, roads, irrigation canals and artisan wells. He starts a land reform plan – mostly it means opening up Mindanao to settlers.

He crushes the Hukbalahap Communists with the help of the American General Lansdale. Some say he won, well, a "Lanslide" in 1953 with America’s assistance. He is America's man in Malacañang.

Cebu island is the domain of his arch-rival Sergio Osmeña, but his trip there is a great success. The president is eager to return to his bed at Malacañang. Past midnight, his plane lifts off from Cebu’s Lahug airport, skims the sea, and turns north towards Manila over the mountainous spine of the island. The night is clear, calm, even beneficent.

But the pilot aims low at the summit of Mount
Manung-gal.

Hrakk! A wing snaps an ibalos tree. With a sickening speed, the plane plunges into the ground, spewing passengers through the gaping metal. Fuselage explodes a glorious orange and the furious heat melts everything left in the plane, including the president. Marcelino Nuya, who lives on the slope, recalls how the raging fire spits like gunshots as he, his son and his dog scramble up the mountain towards the wreckage.

By mid morning on Sunday, March 17 1957, the entire country is filled with anxiety and dread. After a day of fruitless air search, the lone survivor—a journalist badly burned and in shock—is brought by hammock to a hospital in Cebu. Nuya had carried him down the steep slope on his shoulders, then in a hammock to the Balamban River, up and down ravines and slopes for 18 hours. The media praise the heroism of Nuya and his dog Serging. Since the dog was named for the dead president’s rival, its name is changed to Avance!. Both man and dog are honored for their heroism, the man in Cebu and the dog at Malacañang.

My parents learn the news in Tokyo en route to Manila. We arrive the next day at the Manila International Airport. Dick is 31, Eunice is 27, Scott is 3, I’m almost 2, and Johanna is 5 months old. I insist on my sweet blue wool coat, but at the first blast of thick hot air I whip it off.

We clear customs and are greeted by fellow fraternal workers: the Palms, Fern Grant, the Crawfords. The men help with luggage as mom holds Johanna in one arm and my hand in the other. “Move quickly!” says Ernie Frei the Swiss missionary with the car, "Vice President Garcia arrives from Australia in a few minutes.” He takes us past the waiting motorcade of state vehicles, and then rice fields. “Scotty, look,” says dad, pointing to a farmer steering his carabao.

As the car turns onto Dewey Boulevard that runs along Manila Bay, a hot salt-fish breeze rustles the palm trees. We pass gathering mourners and vendors at the Shrine of our Mother of Perpetual Help at Baclaran Church. “You’re looking out on the famed Manila Bay where Admiral Dewey defeated the Spanish fleet.” My parents nod. “See that island out there,” he points with one hand as he steers past jeepneys and buses, “see it? Corregidor, last stand of American troops during WWII where the Japanese beat the Americans.” Dick and Eunice peer. “See that white building on the left ahead of us? U.S. Embassy?” He winks, “We only get passes on the 4th of July.” Ernie Frei’s not only Swiss; he’s also American. His Swiss citizenship meant the Japanese couldn’t intern him during the war and he played a critical role as a courier for the resistance.

He swings right down Herran Avenue, and deposits our family at a second floor guest apartment across from an all-night auto shop. The next day, my parents register at City Hall, a large bullet-ridden building with a Quonset hut beside it. On the hottest March on record, Eunice writes in her first letter home:

"We got tied up in the traffic which was mixed up due to the arrival of the cars bringing Magsaysay and the others killed in the plane crash on Sunday. Thousands lined the streets. What a time to arrive here! The next few months are very crucial ones, to say the least. We don’t know what the people’s real feelings are about the loss of Magsaysay."

Two million attended the funeral of President Magsaysay. He was the third president of the new Republic.

Remembrance as a sacrament. First Sunday of Lent 1989, Richard Poethig

2/25/2012

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I am telling you this story to remember, the way my father remembers and retells his childhood crafting like God on the sixth day, humans from mud. Sometimes God must prefer the mud. Remembrance is a sacrament, my father the minister reminds us. I've posted his Lenten sermon below. It’s a sermon he preaches when he returns to the pulpit. This is years after we’ve returned to the States, and he loses his job in Chicago, my mother takes a job as Executive Presbyter of Western New York and they relocate to Buffalo, the first place they go after seminary where my father, a new minister, establishes a church. He preaches Remembrance four years my mother leaves her job at the PCUSA national office when her contract is not renewed due to some smoke-filled (more ghoul than spirit) backroom negotiation. After all that, he says Remembrance is a Sacrament.

Over the years I have wanted to indict someone -- Presbyterian mission staff for neglect, the "third world" nationalist critics of mission while asking for first world grants, the do-gooder missionaries so paternal, the culprits who betrayed my parents after all their years of service to the church. I have wanted to indict those who blend hypocrisy with piety. But Eric Chavez told me at my first Presbyterian General Assembly to choose my battle fields. “No different than the battles out there; just more manageable in the church.” It’s his voice I hear when I decide to return to the ordination process. Ordination, a holy conscription?

I have written patches of this story in Chicago, Minneapolis, New York City, Manila, Dumaguete, Phnom Penh, Berkeley and Watsonville. But like Penelope, who weaves and unravels nightly, I cannot finish. Can I speak of it all - the rage, sadness and quirky humor, a sweet smell of wet earth after the rains, an apologetic look at privilege and colonial ignorance, and yes, sacramental remembrance.

I was born in Buffalo, we left soon after for Manila.
I am writing this story to save the memory and then let go.

----
Remembrance as a Sacrament
Sermon at First Presbyterian Church, Buffalo New York
First Sunday in Lent 1989

Rev Richard Poethig

“My father was a homeless Aramean who went down to Egypt with a small company and lived there until they became a great, powerful and numerous nation.” Deuteronomy 26:3

People have a way of forgetting who they are and where they have come from. As the generations pass they get further away from the events which shaped them as people. The newborn do not know the struggles which others have gone through to win for them the benefits which they take for granted.

On my wall at home I have the marriage certificate of my grandfather Richard Alwin Poethig and my grandmother Pauline Roch. It is gold engraved with appropriate Scripture written in German and dated 1883 in the City of New York. Above the picture I have my grandfather’s hand carved pipe in which he smoked the ends of his cigars.

The certificate and pipe remind me of their struggles as newcomers to this land. My grandfather was a cigar maker and he was a strong union man. It was out of the cigar makers union that Samuel Gompers, who was also a cigarmaker from England, built the American Federation of Labor. One of the things that impressed me was that the union back 100 years ago had “Krankenkase” – that’s German for health insurance. They also had death benefits and social security.

When I look at that marriage certificate and the pipe I remember the heritage of my grandfather, who alongside many other working people, in their unions, fought hard so that we in this land could have social security, death benefits and health insurance. The man whose name is on those laws, the hours and wage act and social security is Robert Wagner, who knew the history and traditions of those unions.

So we need to be ever reminded of where we have come from and the struggles of those who have gone on before us. Forgetfulness is a problem for all of us. We forget that the fabric of the nation depends upon moral and ethical beliefs which remind us of our responsibility to a Creator.

We are not good at history in the United States, particularly religious history. The land was settled out of religious motivations and a good part of the driving force to survive in the wilderness and in the settling of the country was religiously inspired. Even the struggle for freedom against the crown – the revolution for independence—was fought by men and women who believed in a God who alone was sovereign and was the Lord of conscience.

Very early in their history, the Jews took care that they would never forget who they were and to whom they owed their existence. As soon as they settled in the land, after their struggles in the wilderness, it was required of the Jew to stand in the holy place, after he or she had presented the first fruits of the ground and recite: “My father was a homeless Arameaen who went down to Egypt with a small company and lived there until they became a great, powerful, and numerous nation.” It was a story of remembrance.

They were to remember from where they had come and how they had gotten to this place. It was the story of deliverance. The chief actor in the drama was never forgotten. “We cried unto the Lord and he heard our cry and delivered us out of the hand of the Egyptians and gave us this land.”

The land was a gift. It was not theirs to own. Only God owned the land. The Psalms told them that, “The earth is the Lords’ and the fullness thereof…” And when they thought that the land was theirs because of who they were, the prophets reminded them what God wanted was that they do justly. The Lord had given them the land in the first place.

This past week I read a moving remembrance written by a Native American. It was written upon his return to his birth place after many years. He told how deeply attached he felt to his town and to the land. It was not as an owner, since he owned nothing, but because it gave his life special meaning.

“The land is everything,” he writes, “not just the soil, the ground as a specific location. The landscape becomes a part of you, or more accurately, you are a part of the landscape, a living part of living creation.”

He went on to point out that the great difference between the American Indian and European when they came to this continent was that the Europeans were used to abstracting the land, making title for it, and buying and selling it like any other goods. For the Indian this could not be: "The landscape cannot be appropriated to individual ownership. It is there for all people alike, as a dimension in which we have existence with other creatures.”

The relationship of the American Indian to the land, which is close to this morning’s Scripture is summed up in the classic words of Chief Seattle, the 19th century Indian leader:
“How can you buy or sell the sky, the warmth of the land? The idea is strange to us.
“If you do not own the freshness of the air and the sparkle of the water, how can you buy them?

“Every part of this earth is sacred to my people. Every shining pine needle, every sandy shore, every mist in the dark woods, every clearing and humming insect is holy in the memory of my people. The sap which courses through the trees carries the memory of the red man”

Israel was told to remember from whence they had come. They were told that their very freedom was a gift from the God who had delivered them from the hands of those who had enslaved them. The land became Israel’s sign of deliverance. The land represented wholeness…joy…well being. Israel was reminded that the land could not be separated from God the Creator, whose it is.

This story is our story as well. We remember all those who have brought us to this place. We remember everything we have is only ours as we use it for the wellbeing of the earth. We remember that our greatest gift is the freedom which we have to believe. We guard even the right of those who choose not to believe. But even they have to be reminded of the sacrifices made by those that they could have this freedom.

Remembrance is a sacrament. When we engage in remembering we become a part of the history which has created us. We cannot remember without reenacting the sacrifices which have been made for us to bring us to this place.

Jesus knew that. That is why we have the Lord’s Supper. At our Agape Meal this past Ash Wednesday we reenacted the sacrifice – the giving without asking. So we would never forget…Jesus tells us: “This is my body…this is my blood…do this in remembering me. “

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arrival

2/25/2012

I was late; didn’t want to arrive on an even-numbered day. Better the 17th or 19th of April.

Juliet, my grandmother, asked Eunice her daughter to schedule my birth around her League of Women Voters meeting. "I'll take care of Scott, if you can arrange it." That's Scott, my hyper two-year-old brother. "I have to speak in Akron."

So Eunice packed for the hospital as if for PanAm. I was “induced” from her anesthetized body, a body she was never comfortable wearing, pulled out wet and wiggling into the florescent lights of the delivery room, held by my heels like a baby bat. My psyche's marked by celestial forces scrambling to congeal in the wee hours of the 16th, Neptune in my sun sign, spiritual but unmoored. I have my mother's black hair, my grandmother's spirit of travel, but neither of their discipline.

Four maternal generations, right to left. My great (maiden) Aunt May, grandmother Juliet Blanchard, mother Eunice, and me Kathryn Aileen Poethig. At Pine Knot, the family cabin on Archibald Lake, Wisconsin.

Exile dreams

Expatriate

The street ghosts, Malate 2003

We arrive as the Magsaysay era ends

Remembrance as a sacrament. First Sunday of Lent 1989, Richard Poethig

arrival

Kerry (Kathryn) Poethig

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