Philippine Independence Day and Ancestry
June 12, 1898: an independence both permanent and short-lived amongst the budding and competitive and emerging empires of the West who play the rest of the world like an RPG strategy-based board game. They exchange fire, words, technology, infrastructure, dress, custom, labor, and assert complete influence and ownership. A day to honor a flurry of heroes and a people in a long and complicated battle.
I spent the better part of my morning thinking about my grandpa, Agafino, whom I never got the chance to meet (neither my siblings), who served in the US Navy as a cook of various rankings. He was a hot-headed man too who had no qualms about stuffing you and your disobedience in an empty rice sack and tying you to a tree branch. As flawed as I've been told he is, he is still more a mystery, a myth, a laboring body in ships filled with sailors who don't look or speak like him (for the most part). I continually wonder what it was like for him. Was he ever called a "monkey" by the white sailors he served? Was he ever transferred for being hot-headed? Did they like his cooking? What was it like to cook American food for the first time? These are some of the questions/concerns that have come up in drafting the first 5 chapters for NING SANTOS #1. And I'm hoping to explore those as I continue Ning's story.
I also thought of my grandma, Paz, whom I was fortunate enough to grow up with for 16 years. I wondered about her life during grandpa's deployment: did she find her love for dancing during this time? Was grandpa ever home long enough to see her birthing their children? Did she curse in Ilocano on the regular or have to watch her mouth? Where did her aversion to touch come from? Did she have opinions of WWII or at least glanced at the face of newspapers? Was she ever terrified by grandpa's hot-headedness? How did she deal with it?
Then, I thought of my great-grandparents on both sides of my family, whose stories have been silenced through time. Were any of them fervent revolutionaries or simple civilians just trying to make it though the end of Spanish rule and braving the incoming influence of American imperialism? Were their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents just trying to make it through the beginnings of Spanish rule? Were they buried unmarked or were they marked and resting under three centuries worth of soil and other bones?
Researching and asking are small-scale time machines that, for me, can't really run without bring fueled by imagination, hope, and subversion.
I spent the better part of my morning thinking about my grandpa, Agafino, whom I never got the chance to meet (neither my siblings), who served in the US Navy as a cook of various rankings. He was a hot-headed man too who had no qualms about stuffing you and your disobedience in an empty rice sack and tying you to a tree branch. As flawed as I've been told he is, he is still more a mystery, a myth, a laboring body in ships filled with sailors who don't look or speak like him (for the most part). I continually wonder what it was like for him. Was he ever called a "monkey" by the white sailors he served? Was he ever transferred for being hot-headed? Did they like his cooking? What was it like to cook American food for the first time? These are some of the questions/concerns that have come up in drafting the first 5 chapters for NING SANTOS #1. And I'm hoping to explore those as I continue Ning's story.
I also thought of my grandma, Paz, whom I was fortunate enough to grow up with for 16 years. I wondered about her life during grandpa's deployment: did she find her love for dancing during this time? Was grandpa ever home long enough to see her birthing their children? Did she curse in Ilocano on the regular or have to watch her mouth? Where did her aversion to touch come from? Did she have opinions of WWII or at least glanced at the face of newspapers? Was she ever terrified by grandpa's hot-headedness? How did she deal with it?
Then, I thought of my great-grandparents on both sides of my family, whose stories have been silenced through time. Were any of them fervent revolutionaries or simple civilians just trying to make it though the end of Spanish rule and braving the incoming influence of American imperialism? Were their parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents just trying to make it through the beginnings of Spanish rule? Were they buried unmarked or were they marked and resting under three centuries worth of soil and other bones?
Researching and asking are small-scale time machines that, for me, can't really run without bring fueled by imagination, hope, and subversion.
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