Romance Among the Ruins

#162: Romance Among the Ruins, Paraluman, Utriculi, Mennlay (Taste Buds), Carolyn Yoo, Amy Stewart, and Salin x 2

Sep 22, 2024

THEN & NOW

Brief update: I still don't have regular internet service, although some relief is on the horizon. I'm writing this in my text editor, then uploading the text to Substack, either using a mobile phone as a "hotspot," or the local public library's wifi. That said, this issue is necessarily somewhat abbreviated.

I'm writing this on September 21st—although it may not be published until Sept. 22nd.

September 21, 1934 is the 90th anniversary of the vigilante attack on the Green Gold Filipino Labor Camp (which I have written about in my CommonwealthCafe newsletter, issues 2, 3, and 4).

At random, today, I picked up a letter from my father to my mother. It's dated September 21, 1945.

With those two dates, about a decade apart, I am reminded that my father's experience as a laborer and union member in the U.S., and my mother's experience as a beauty shop owner in the Philippines, were worlds and cultures apart, despite the fact that U.S. culture, war, and trade brought them together. Over the years, those differences would begin to show, becoming apparent to me only as an adult.

The Letter project continues, and I am still in what seems to be a never-ending phase of sorting and organizing the letters in chronological order. Today, just when I thought I'd corralled most of the 1940s, I came across another batch from that decade filed near the end of the 1950s. And there are still at least two more boxes full of unorganized letters to go through.

I've been really curious to know just when the question of marriage came up for my parents; this afternoon, I determined that it happened in the Fall of 1945. The Battle of Manila and the city's "liberation" from Japanese rule by American and Philippine forces happened in Spring of that year.

The earliest correspondence I've found between them is from August, 1945. At that time, they were still addressing each other as "friend." However, things moved quickly. The September 21, 1945 letter from my father, Nick, lays it all on the line. He professes love, revealing to me that he had already discussed the proposal in-person with both my grandmother, Matea, and my mother Trinidad; but a few details still needed to be worked out. This letter began a serious discussion of their potential engagement to marry.

Nick's subsequent letter to Trinidad dated November 14, 1945 tells me that she must've sent another letter—which I have not yet found—finally accepting his proposal:

"Now, here at last, [your letter] in such beautiful writing. I read it again and again to be sure that I understood every word of it. Now I can breath[e] very easily and contentedly, just because I'm the luckiest man on earth."

How strange for romance to bloom amongst so much death and destruction. And yet, I imagine that the people of the Philippines were good and ready to put it all behind them and start rebuilding.

A.V.H. Hartendorp described Manila in 1945:

"Manila lay waste, stinking with the thousands of dead, of massacre as well as battle. It had lost its piers, docks, and bridges, its electric light and power and gas plants, its telephone exchanges, radio stations, and newspaper plants; its factories and warehouses and office-buildings, its schools and universities, libraries, museums, churches, and theaters, its hotels and apartment houses, nine-tenths of its private homes, even its parks and avenues and streets. A great city of a million inhabitants, a metropolis, three hundred years in building, was gone" (in Manila Reborn, Google Arts & Culture).

By the end of the year, Trinidad's sister, Leonarda ("Dading") was already addressing Nick as "brother." My grandmother had accepted him into the fold. I see some correspondence between Nick and my uncles Vicente and Ladislao. Early in 1946, Trinidad would begin receiving letters from Nick's family in Mindanao.

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ART

I haven't been making much art, lately. For some reason, this year has exhausted me. Also, I've found that reading my parents' letters and re-imagining their lives—aided by various historical sources—has tapped into some hidden emotional streams. So perhaps I'm not making much art because I'm still processing all this.

Nevertheless, I'm grateful that a few of my smaller works on paper will be up for the Paraluman Fil-Am Festival in Salinas, along with some beautiful art by other Filipino American artists at the Urban Arts Collaborative Gallery. Save the date: 4:30-8 pm, October 18, 21 Soledad St., Suite C, Salinas.

Also, my ink drawing, "Flow 2" is featured on the covers of both issues 1 and 2 of the experimental art and poetry journal, Utriculi (with more of my art in issue 2). There is plenty of thought-provoking art and poetry in these two issues to light up your brain like a sparkler! So check it out. Utriculi is published by Sandy Press and edited by Harry K Stammer and Mark Young.

RABBIT HOLE

More Substackers:

Mennlay's intro to Taste Bud says she is "exploring the modern African diaspora through weed and foodways. Her articles have been featured in Vogue, Bon Appetit, High Times, Interview Magazine, and more." Check out these titles: "The Ancient & Simple Luxury of Beans and Rice," "Jamaican Fish Escovitch and the Lawsuit Coming for Reggaeton," or "Patatas Bravas and the Irony of Colonizers Demanding 'Tourist, Go Home.'" One glance at the food photographs reeled me in, but the articles on the diaspora got me, too.
Artist Carolyn Yoo (of See You on Substack) discusses "My artist history as told through Instagram." Check this out if you are thinking of pulling out those hooks and escaping from the big IG. I have an ambivalent relationship with that platform, myself.
Artist and author Amy Stewart of It's Good to Be Here has this idea in her article "The Self-Appointed Artist Residency, Explained": Why not appoint yourself the artist in resident of something—your street, a coffee shop, your front yard, a bus stop—whatever! Why wait for someone to appoint you?! Some of the benefits she mentions include "no application process," "no mission statements or project descriptions" and "you don't have to get dressed up and meet with a committee." I'm up for that!

SOUNDINGS

Thai jazz and funk drummer Salin, performing "Egungun" - Live in Thailand, with Farhan Remy and Hichem Khalfa on trumpet, Alexandre Dion on Baritone Saxophone:

Salin and the Hyah Kur Tribe on Isaan Roots and musical traditions in Thailand:

Eulipion Outpost

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