http://aaldef.org/blog/undocumented-to-get-bushwhacked.html.
Fans of the old Asian Week column I did, will want to check out this site regularly for more of my writing.
This column is on an old George Bush idea that Homeland Security just won’t let go.
They are the perfect antidote to 9-11.
That’s what I call American Filipinos Sam and Gina C. of California, and their kids Malacas and Pinay. (Of course, names have been changed to protect the innocent).
Sam served in the Navy and both he and Gina come from military families. Their 9-11 patriotism cannot be questioned. They mourn like everyone else the tragic losses on that day.
But instead of dwelling on the negative which can foment the kind of anti-Islamic sentiment we’ve seen crop up with threatened Koran burnings and the like, they are overwhelmed by a different feeling every Sept. 11.
It’s one of how global peace , love, and family really can triumph over terror. Again and again.
They just have to recall how they spent their day, Sept. 11, 2001.
The family was on a plane to New York scheduled to land around 9 a.m.
Of course, they didn’t make it.
Gina recalls how the captain suddenly came on the loud speaker. “He said they were experiencing difficulty and they wanted us to land and deplane,” Gina said. “Usually it’s the closest area nearby. We were over Nova Scotia. They took us to Ireland.”
Fans of geography will note how this is not exactly the ideal path one would take to an eventual destination of California, with or without a working GPS.
But this was supposed to be a unique journey.
ADOPTED PARENTS
When their trip began two weeks prior from California, Sam and Gina were just a middle-aged couple heading to Moscow. After years of fertility doctors and the pain of trying to conceive, Sam and Gina turned to adoption as their option. Af first they turned to the Philippines. But being an older couple worked against them in finding an infant. Then they found a local California agency that suggested they go to Kazakhstan to find a baby in need of a home.
Sam liked the idea of Kazakhstan. Pre-Borat, few people had ever even heard of the former Soviet satellite. In Kazakhstan, the babies can look a little bit East and a little bit West. The Asian influence is as strong as the Russian ethnic strain.
“They sent us pictures and videos,” said Sam. “And we could choose the baby we wanted.”
The couple, in their 40s at the time, liked the Asian look of the babies. That was important to them knowing the child would be given a Filipino upbringing. They felt it would help the transition in becoming a real family.
The process took less than eight months, and as they went through it, it was too hard to just adopt one.
They took a pair: Malacas and Pinay.
They call them their Kazapinos.
THE FLIGHT BACK
But getting the newly minted global Pinoy family back to their home in California would be no small feat. Just going from Kazakhstan to Moscow was far from easy. By the time they were on the Moscow to New York leg, crossing the Atlantic, the family thought they were home free.
But then the message on the loudspeaker came on. And without an explanation they were headed the reverse direction— to Ireland.
Picture this: You are travelling internationally in a cramped space with two kids, ages 3 and 5, one of whom is vomiting intermittently on you. You don’t speak Kazakh or Russian. The babies don’t know English or Taglish. But their cries and screams are universal.
Is this not the definition of terror?
When they landed in Dublin, the chaos ensued with hundreds of people scurrying, struggling with their bags. Sam and Gina had their kids. Nothing made sense until they overheard a reservation agent say the words, “Your country has been attacked.”
“I said, ‘What did he say? ‘“ Sam recalled. “It was crazy. As the news unfolded. I thought, ‘This can’t be real.’’
Then he saw a woman crying uncontrollably. She was on the way to visit her son who worked at the World Trade Center.
“She was hysterical,” said Sam. “All I was thinking was, this can’t be real.”
The shock was tempered by the genuine hospitality they found in Dublin. If you have to wait out the world’s confusion, there are worst places than Dublin.
Within a few days as the airports in the U.S. opened up, Sam and Gina were headed to Atlanta, one of only two airports opened.
There they spent a few more days, before getting the first flight back to California on the 17th.
But something had happened. Amid the terror and the chaos, a real nuclear family was forged
Today, Malacas, now 12, is malacas (big). “The doctor’s say he’ll be 6 foot 5 inches,” said Sam, who is about a foot shorter than that.
Pinay, is now 15 and was a local beauty queen winner.
Both she and her brother embrace their unique “Kazapinoness.”
Their parents beam with pride over their kids. And they’re glad they made the step to adopt. Filipinos don’t often choose that option. Some think it’s too hard.
“When we hear that, we tell them our story, “Gina said.
Sam and Gina found something unique in their quest for family. They made the world a little smaller by adopting orphans from a far away place. And on a day that terrorized the world, they forged the strongest gesture of peace, love and family imaginable.
9-11? They know what it means.
“The power of God protected this family,” Sam said. “We’ll always remember it.”
Recently two deaths occurred, one natural, the other not. I was related to both of them, though as you can see, the guilt is only now setting in.
My Cousin
For her privacy and to protect the innocent, let’s call her Paula.
She was a real gem.
Paula was just a few years younger than me, born in 1958. She was smart. She was beautiful. She was a great dancer, and an even better singer. She sang, well, like an angel.
We grew up in San Francisco. We even went to Lowell High School at the same time.
And until I heard the news this week, I couldn’t remember the last time I saw Paula, or even what she looked like.
It was all a blank until I went to the wake and saw her portrait. Unmistakably a cousin, in her eyes and face I saw the whole family.
At the wake, I saw another relative, an aunt. When she recognized me, I dipped my head to air-kiss her hello. Then she pulled back and said, “Say hi to your mom.”
A nice sentiment, sure. But my mother died more than 10 years ago.
By her statement, my aunt in her 80s was going before my eyes. But her forgetfulness was a forgivable, natural thing. The rest of us willfully forget. Life gets in the way, we move away, our lives in different places and connections naturally wane.
That’s the way it was with Paula and I. We might see each other at funerals.
And now she staged her own.
She had lost a job in January. Her mother died a year ago. She had a bout of depression, and decided her meds weren’t worth it. Nor was anything else.
Did she have options? The family? What if it was like the way it was, and our families lived within blocks apart in San Francisco. And we all saw each other, and knew that it was a family full of love that could provide support. Could that have helped?
My other cousins at the wake had the same feeling. Were where we when one of us needed us?
Busy, leading our own complicated lives for sure. But maybe it could have been different if we had more family gatherings other than our funerals.
Manang Juaning
The other funeral last week was for my Manang Juaning, 85, an Alzheimer’s sufferer. Her son, Ben Medina and other family members were at the nursing home for her last breath.
Her life is like the history of Philippine immigration.
Her father, Lolo Telesforo was the cousin of my father. That’s why he stayed with my family in our extra room all those years. He first petitioned for his grand-daughter Esther, who moved in with us and was like a big sister. Then came Ben, her brother. And he moved in too.
They needed their own place when the other five siblings (beautiful sisters all) arrived, along with the leader Manang Juaning. From that base came 15 grandchildren, 14 great-grandchildren, and 1 great-great grandchildren.
The wake was a flood of generations—five in all, from Juanita to great-great grandchildren Robert Dorr Jr. and Jayden Dorr.
Not only did I not keep up with relatives I actually lived with, I had practically skipped 3 generations of young relatives. Many of them were already in their late 20s.
“We haven’t seen you in a while, uncle,” one said to me. They knew of me as the “Uncle on TV,” or more aptly, Uncle in absentia. But I knew relatively little of them except we had blood and history in common.
You can prevent from becoming the “modern” Filipino family.
Stay close. Don’t just text or e-mail. See and talk to each other, often. Use the word love as noun or verb, frequently.
And don’t make funerals the family reunion.
“24” is my guilty pleasure.
But I sure wish it had ended for good last night.
In real life, I’m a softie for human rights, civil rights and all rights of the oppressed. But on “24” I can satisfy my unrealize desire to kill, maim, torture, and this season, disembowel, all for the greater good. Jack Bauer is better than a video game. You don’t have to figure out how to use the darn remote controls to make him move. And when push comes to annhilate, Jack is more moral than we all thought. Last night, Jack couldn’t off Logan or Pillar when he had the chance. (Jack bit off Pillar’s ear, but he lived). Deep down, the good guys know what’s right.
Unlike “Lost,” where nothing in the previous 6 seasons seemed to have anything to do with the powerful last 10 minutes, at least there was a kind of unity to “24.” As in the previous seasons, the last episode fulfills the mission of the day. Among the highlights: Chloe shot Jack. Chloe avoided a full cavity search. Taylor gave in to her guilt over the cover-up. The corrupt peace accord was averted. Great. It was as it has always been for me, a tense, “stand-up-while-watching” TV experience.
But I really wanted it to “end” end.
And then I noticed, as the clock ticked like the last seconds in a game, the story arc wouldn’t give us much more than it had to. Jack is still alive, on the loose, and with a final wink, is off, a step ahead of the feds, the Russians, and millions of fans soon to be in hot pursuit.
So a faux finale. They had a chance to bring it all together as when Jack told Chloe how, when it all began, she came into CTU, and he never knew it would be her to have his back. But she did.
I swear I tried to pump out a tear just to play along. But after 8 seasons, I was dry.
Instead, I winked back.
Addendum: On his blog, Chuck Ross, asked if finale was a missed opportunity. Of course, I believe it was. The storytellers were victims of their “real time conceit,” and were trapped inside a box of their own making. The subsequent movie should be liberating, unless they rename the project “120.”
“24” made sense 8 years ago, when real-time was a buzz word. But why insist on the format now? Time for the next thing, or the next old thing.
SIM card disembowlements–in 3-D?
