Lasang Pinoy

The task of the first annual Lasang Pinoy Blog is to write about 1)foot associated with the 1982-1986 years, 2)food that they associate with the Philippines and 3)food and identity. Well, that's my summary, check out the link for more detailed description.

Stef posted saying it was not too late to post. So I will. Grant it based on the 3 possible areas I could really food blog for a couple of weeks. Let's just start and see how it goes.

I was in kindergarten in 1980 when my parents returned to the Philippines for the first time since leaving in 1969, not because of political turmoil or economic opportunity, but mostly because America is what she had grown up with in school. From knowing where she was when JFK was assassinated, to knowing dates and names in American history front and back. She was the generation born under American colonial rule. Later after my grandfather died, only then would their story become more of the classic American economic opportunity. I learned about how rice was grown, how chickens were born and died, but for the most part proved to be a rather picky eater. Instead of Chippys and packaged chips at the neighborhood snack store they have now, they sold foot long pieces of sugar cane and corn nuts. We were there for a month and I remember one day asking for milk. They gave me a powder packet to add to my water later.

I was in 3rd grade when Ninoy was assassinated in 1983. When news of the Philippines hit mainstream media you knew it was big. Our family subscribed to Philippine News and got most of the their news back home that way. This was before satellite, before The Filipino Channel and I believe even before channel 26 broadened their shows from predominant Chinese and Japanese shows. And the rare calls back home were the only way to find out what was going on back home. My parents spoke little of Marcos and his policies. But they understood the desire to go home from exile and the pain of being denied that return. I remember the news saying that when they were exiled they moved to Chicago where Cory was just the typical suburban housewife who cooked a very good Peking Duck. Their neighbors knew very little of why they were here and who they were. They were just that nice Filipino family next door. Even today Peking Duck reminds me of Cory Aquino more so than her bright yellow dresses and fingers raised in an L.

I was in 6th grade during the first EDSA. By then, I had done my report on the Philippines when asked to pick a country to report on in class. I knew there were 7000 islands. I knew about the Bataan Death March. I knew about rice exports. I knew as much as my encyclopedia could tell me. My parents had hoped to go back the year before but her siblings said it wasn't safe, don't come. My dad and brother, who had never gone home, would go a few years later when things had "calmed down". My sister and I with busy school and sports team schedules stayed home. I had few memories of Manila. I couldn't place EDSA on the map. I only remember Luneta park and the statue of Rizal and going to what I think was a squatters camp where my mother was visiting a cousin of hers. We watched the TV, the tanks, the protesters, the nuns. If a mother goes straight to heaven for her son becoming a priest, surely a soldier would go straight to the lowest levels of hell for gunning down a nun. I remember watching the scene of people entering Malacanyang, which we had driven by. I imagined the summer palace in Baguio which we saw from the distance through its gates when I was 5 looked the same way inside. The mass assemblies were amazing, more amazing compared to subsequent EDSAs with the use of txt messaging and email. We watched Marcos reach Hawaii. I wondered whose side the US was on.

We wouldn't got back as a family for another 10 years. By that time, I was well into college, had taken enough Tagalog to get by, had written articles in high school about food and identity, was well versed in culture, food, politics of the Philippines. My cousins remembered me as the one who wouldn't eat Filipino food. This trip back, me and my sister had reversed roles. I ate and could tolerate eating just about anything including dog. The family house was smaller than I remembered. Sugar cane had gotten replaced by dozens of shiny wrapped candies and chips. On my birthday they killed a pig and cooked through the night. This trip would be the turning point for me between the Philippines only my parents can take me to and the Philippines that I could freely travel to on my own.

The world had changed. Filipino items were readily available in the States as much as American products in the Philippines were. The news flowed just as freely through mobile phones, internet, satellite television. You could live in America and pretend you simply lived in a high end suburb of Manila or Baguio. Six months later I would travel back to the Philippines for the first time without my family where I discovered the buko pie in Los Banos which I still long for, a sign of my own personal hybridization of American and Filipino, and a symbol for my own personal homecoming.