by Mae Respicio
I show Tatang how to mix my secret concoction of nontoxic gelatin, although not-so-secret, I guess, since I found the recipe online. He helps me pour it into a silicone fish-scale mold. After the mold dries, we pop the scales out and lay them on a Styrofoam dummy head to figure out how to glue them to Trey’s face and neck. I’ll paint and blend them into his makeup.
Dad had the right idea. Jumping in feels great, and so does my alone time with Tatang—it’s kind of nice not having a perfect big sister around to share him with. Now it’s my turn for something between only us. It’ll make my team’s win even sweeter.
“Thanks for helping so much, Tatang.”
“That’s my job. Always has been.”
I’m trying hard to feel happy for him, like Mom said, but it’s tough. When he leaves, who’s going to cheer everyone on?
Hmm…I wonder if winning a spot in the festival would make him see how much I need him here? Seeing us win could make him realize he’d miss out on every big moment in my life.
That’s it!
I can’t let him down now.
* * *
Over dinner Dad asks, “How’s the movie going?”
I pull out my phone to show pictures of Trey’s practice transformation, but then I remember Mom’s rule: No screens at the table. I give her puppy-dog eyes. “Please?”
She nods and I hold up the phone.
“Scary monster!” Toby says. Now I know I’m on the right track.
“Wow, honey, Trey looks fabulous!” Mom says.
“Yeah, I love all the colors,” says Dad. “Your bakunawa has a lot of depth and nuance.” That’s fancy for “pretty good.”
Tatang’s face lights up and he starts asking questions: When will you begin filming? What will the other characters look like? What props will you use?
“I can’t spoil the ending, Tatang! But want to hear about the other characters?” They all give me their full attention.
My head buzzes, and I’m fast talking to get everything out. Maybe people who get good at things always feel this way, like they’re accomplishing something that matters.
Trey and Abby don’t have any siblings, so they get their parents’ time twenty-four seven without any competition. I used to think that sounded boring, but not anymore.
Mom’s phone rings from the other room.
“I’ll let it go to voice mail,” she says. We keep looking at my pictures, but the phone rings again. Mom excuses herself from the table.
“We still have to do some location scouting,” I say, and I explain how and where.
“I’ve always wondered how that works,” Tatang says.
“Want to come?” I ask.
Mom runs back into the room with her phone. “It’s Lainey!” she shouts, and there’s my sister’s face, grinning. All eyes turn her way.
“Lay-Lay! Lay-Lay!” Toby shouts.
“We’ve been waiting for your call!” Dad says.
“We miss you so much, anak!” Tatang says.
Dad asks her how it’s going and it sets off Lainey’s happy rambling: how packed with cars Manila is, her surprise and sadness traveling through shantytowns, the green of the countryside, and the roosters that crow her awake in the early mornings. Everything’s exactly how Tatang has described it. “I’m having the best time!”
Everyone huddles around the phone. I’ve waited and waited for her to call—so why don’t I feel more excited?
Finally Mom points the screen in my direction.
“Kai-Kai, I wish you were here!” Lainey hollers, but we barely talk because my family can’t stop asking questions about all her adventures.
It’s a bright, clear day, the kind where the clouds seem so white because the sky’s so blue. Mom, Tatang, and I make our way across the UCLA campus. UCLA stands for the University of California, Los Angeles, and it’s not far from our house. Their mascot is the Bruin, so on game days someone in a fuzzy bear costume runs around giving noogies.
Students walk in every direction. I try to figure out their majors: girls going into a building carrying tall stacks of books are engineers, a guy with a camera interviewing a girl in a suit are broadcast journalists, and two guys playing Frisbee barefoot in the courtyard are undeclared.
Since Mom’s a professor in Asian American studies, I know a lot of things about my culture and its history, like how Filipinos were the first Asian group to land in the United States, or that the yo-yo was invented by a Filipino man named Pedro Flores and yo-yo means “come back, come back” in Tagalog—and tons of other facts that Uncle Roy tells me to tuck away in my Pinoy Pride Drawer. Pinoy and Pinay mean someone who’s Filipino, and my uncle and I want to cheer whenever we hear of someone from our culture doing extraordinary things. Tatang says it’s good to know where you came from, not only in the here and now but before you ever became a dot on this planet.
I spot the lecture hall where Mom teaches and sprint to the entrance. She and Tatang catch up and we head for the elevator, but Tatang says, “Stairs, please. I need to exercise these creaky legs.”
Today he’s Mom’s secret weapon.
Tatang’s wearing his best cargo shorts, orange sneakers, and a black short-sleeved button-down covered in unicorns and stacks of books. We walk down a glossy corridor into the lecture hall, which has tiered seating, whiteboards, and a wood lectern. Mom takes her place at the lectern and I sit in the back like a real college student.
Tatang sits in the front row as people file in. He hasn’t brought any note cards or slides. He told me he’s winging it.
Not everyone in class is Filipino or Asian. It’s like my school, with all types of bodies and faces and skin colors, people with all different stories to tell. It’d be so boring if everyone around me looked the same.
“Take your seats, please,” Mom says.
Tatang scans his audience and shouts, “There are open chairs in front, folks! Don’t be shy! My dentures don’t bite!”
A few students chuckle.
Mom says, “All right, class. Any questions about your reading on the 1965 Immigration and Naturalization Act?”
Students listen to Mom, respond, and take notes, except for one guy who’s already fallen asleep. Tatang has a great big smile as he watches Mom—the same expression he had during Lainey’s graduation speech.
“We’ll discuss this in more detail next class,” Mom says, “but for now, let’s shift gears. Today we have a very special guest speaker. You may have heard me mention him before because not only is he a decorated war hero and an immigrant who has lived and achieved the American dream but, full disclosure, he’s my grandfather. I’d like to introduce you to ninety-year-old Mr. Celestino Agas.” Tatang straightens and Mom says, “Take it away, Mr. Agas.”
They trade places up front and he opens with a joke—one I helped him think up.
“How do you fight a lumpia?” He looks around the room but no one answers. Then he says, “You pancit! Get it? You punch it? Anybody here eat lumpia and pancit? Filipino egg rolls and noodles?” A few students groan good-naturedly. At least it got them to pay attention. “Nice to see some of you have a sense of humor. That’s one of the traits I value most because I’ve needed it to get through many things in my long life.”
Tatang’s face turns serious. He begins sharing stories from his days as a young soldier in World War II. Some of these memories he’s told me, but there’s a lot I’m hearing for the first time. The students listen as he leaves the lectern and walks the room.
“War is hard. I was part of a catastrophic event called the Bataan Death March. This was when seventy-five thousand captured allied soldiers—Filipinos and Americans—were forced to march from sunrise to sunset, nearly sixty-five miles across the Bataan Peninsula along Manila Bay in April of 1942. We were not given any food or water. We suffered from heat stroke and starvation. We we
re physically beaten along the way. Many of my friends died, some of them left to rot when we could not carry them. It could easily have been me, and there has not been a single day since that I’ve taken my life for granted. It’s why I try to stroll each evening and watch the sun set. It’s my personal marker of what I’ve lived through and what I still have to achieve.”
Wow. I never knew that. I think of the times I got annoyed when Tatang made me take end-of-the-day walks with him when I didn’t want to. No wonder sundown is when he’s quietest.
Soft crying comes from a student next to me as Tatang keeps going.
“At the end of the march we were crammed into trains and brought to an internment camp. Somehow I had survived to that point, but the camp was torture, too—so many soldiers dying from disease and malnutrition, some beheaded.”
Students gasp. “The Philippines was a former colony of the United States, so those of us who fought were nationals; we should have received the same benefits as all American soldiers, including citizenship. But a law was passed that stripped us of these rights. We were left unrecognized, our role erased, and we’re still fighting for that recognition to this day. Sadly, it’s too late for some. There are not many of us survivors left.”
Every time I hear Tatang speak of his war days I can imagine him so clearly on that horrible march. I rub at little goose bumps on my arms.
The time flies as Tatang shares his memories, just like when he tells Lainey and me stories and we ask for another and another, even after Dad says, “Lights out, girls.”
When the class ends, Tatang is silent and stares out at the crowd, looking a little sad.
The class applauds and Mom takes her place at the lectern. “Questions?”
No one says anything. A student’s phone vibrates but the owner doesn’t answer. The girl next to me sniffles and even the guy who fell asleep sits up alert.
“Not a single comment? Am I that boring?” Tatang says.
Half the arms in class shoot up. He points to one.
“How did you feel when you were marching?”
“I wanted to give up, but I thought of my family.”
“What’s been the hardest moment in your life?”
“Figuring out who I am.”
“Yeah, sounds familiar,” the student says, and everyone laughs. Figuring out who I am is something I’ve heard Lainey talk about with my parents.
Tatang says, “Keep asking questions. Ask questions of your family and of older generations to learn not only about them, but about yourself. Share their histories.”
Another arm goes up. “What’s your greatest achievement?” the student asks.
Tatang points in two directions—to me and to Mom. Heads whip toward me and I stare at the floor.
More hands are raised. More answers, and each is a powerful little story. Tatang’s soaking this up and I’m glad. Everyone should know about his life.
When the period ends, a bunch of students stop to thank Tatang or to shake his hand. His eyes light up, and so do mine.
* * *
“How did class go?” Dad asks that night. He, Mom, and I sit on the couch, Toby and Tatang already in bed. Talking with my parents before bedtime feels nice. Hanging out. Some kids at school get embarrassed by their parents; when they go to the mall their moms drop them off at the corner instead of walking in with them the way my mom does.
“Tatang was awesome,” I say. “I even heard new war stories. I wonder why he hasn’t told me some of those before?”
“Maybe it’s hard for him to relive the memories,” Dad says.
“Or maybe…maybe you’ve never really asked,” Mom teases.
“Hey! What’s that supposed to mean?” I say.
“Want to know the reason I became a teacher?” Mom says.
“Because you were always teacher’s pet?”
She laughs. “When I was a kid Tatang would try to tell me what it was like when he and Nanang came to California—but I was never curious. Then in high school I did a report on American immigration, so I interviewed him. I had never seen my grandfather as a person with a full life that happened before I existed. It made me appreciate what my family had been through for me. The sad part was when I did my research, I didn’t find much in history books about Filipinos, even though we’ve had a big role in American history. That’s when I decided I wanted to help people understand how important our stories are.”
“Mom, that’s so cool.”
“I wish I’d taken time to learn more about my history while my grandparents were alive,” Dad says. “A lot of kids never get to know their great-grandparents. You’re lucky, Kaia.”
That bad thought sneaks back into my head: one day I won’t have Tatang in my life at all.
“What happens when…,” I start, but I have a hard time saying what I’m thinking.
“What is it?” Mom says. “It’s okay, you can ask.”
“What happens…when Tatang passes away?”
My parents look at each other.
“We’ll get to that road when we have to, but now’s not that time,” Mom says.
I can hear Tatang in my head:
Kaia, where are your feet?
I’m here with my parents, in our home, watching them watching me.
“Mom and Dad…are you…are you upset I don’t want to be a doctor?”
“You’re asking a fellow artist?” Dad chuckles. “Where’s this coming from, kiddo?”
“During his lecture Tatang talked about figuring out who you are. What does that even mean?”
“I think he meant what makes us unique. And according to Tatang, each of us has at least ninety years to figure that out.” Mom smiles at me.
“Everything Lainey does always seems so extra special, like deciding she’s premed. Must feel pretty great to figure it out, huh?”
Dad pulls me into a squeeze. “Did I ever tell you that your lolo and lola didn’t want me to go to art school? They wanted me to be a doctor or a nurse or an accountant—all the things that didn’t feel like me.”
“How did you know what did?” I ask.
“It was your grandparents’ tales about growing up in the Philippines that got my imagination going—especially ones about magical creatures. I couldn’t stop drawing. I like to think you get some of that from me.”
“I do!” I say.
“Art is in your blood, Kaia,” Mom says. “And you know, immigrants like your tatang—they’re artists, too. They create a life from nothing but a dream.”
My parents catch each other’s eyes and smile.
“Your movie is helping Tatang’s stories live on, Kaia,” Dad says.
Hearing this fills me up.
* * *
It’s late and our house is quiet. I’ve been keeping Tatang’s journal under my pillow.
I pull it out.
A few more photographs bookmark some of the pages. I shake them free and they fall to my lap, faded colored squares framing Nanang and Tatang, young and happy. They’re standing in front of their first American apartment next to their first car, arms around each other’s waists. Nanang wears cat-eye glasses and a groovy dress, and Tatang’s got a buzz cut and is wearing skinny pants.
Tatang saved up months of his janitor’s salary to buy that car. They drove it everywhere—dropping Nanang off at her nursing job so she wouldn’t have to take the long bus ride, adventures with their kids, seeing things he never imagined he would: the desert, the snow, Yosemite, and the Grand Canyon.
Tatang’s face hasn’t changed much since these pictures were taken. When we were younger he had that same determined look, only without wrinkles. If I had a time machine I could spot him in any year of his life.
I scan more pages and land on my name.
Kaia will not want me to go, I know this much
is true. However, I will tell them my heart has made its decision, and I will help them through this. For my greatest desire at this moment in my long life is to return to my home country and know where my feet are. The heart can have more than one home.
After what my parents said, I’m curious about the Tatang before me.
I flip open my laptop and search for articles about Filipinos in World War II and the Bataan Death March. What I find is devastating and I can see why Tatang hasn’t shared much about that piece of himself.
I scroll through headlines and one stands out: Filipino World War II Veterans Receive Congressional Gold Medal of Honor After 75 Long Years. I click on it. The article describes how Filipinos are finally getting recognized, seven decades after the veterans’ rights were taken away. It’s what Tatang talked about with Mom’s students.
It looks like…maybe he can get his own medal awarded to him? How cool would that be? I wonder if Mom already knows about this.
I read more articles. There are steps and paperwork and I’m not so sure I understand all of it, but I have a shiny new idea.
The next morning Mom’s in the kitchen making breakfast, rice and longuinisa—Filipino sausage. Dad likes to say how the only constant thing in our ever-changing lives is the rice cooker. We pretty much eat rice with every meal. The first time I spent the night at Abby’s I was surprised when they didn’t offer any at breakfast. She thought that sounded weird, but she’s stayed at my house so many times that Abby eats rice for breakfast at her house now too.
The room smells savory. “Morning, sweetie,” Mom says.
“Good morning.” I sit at the island and watch Mom crack open some eggs that sizzle when they hit the pan. “Mom, are you teaching any more classes this week?”
“Sure am. Why?”
“Could I go with you again?”
She looks at me. “Again? Really?”
“Yeah. I thought that was super interesting with Tatang. I’ve never heard you do a whole lecture before. I promise I won’t fall asleep like that one guy.”