oJ a
lin ,4
q.~-lImeJU~ 04 Vice V~
A THREE
CONTI NENTS BOOK . . .
LYNNE RIEN NER PUBLISH~l BOULD ER&LO NDON
T:ll1PINAS H
(1
litft ,..q.q0 ©1995 Norman Reyes
"-'f0 IPI ~~I
A Three Continents Book Published in the United States of America by Lynne Rienner Publishers, Inc. 1800 30th Street, Boulder, Colorado 80301
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the publisher except for brief quotations in reviews or articles. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data: Reyes, Norman, 1922Child of.two worlds: an autobiography of a FilipinoAmerican or vice versa / Norman Reyes; [illustrations by Peter Sapasap]. - 1st ed. p. cm. ISBN 0-89410-777-1. - ISBN 0-89410-778-X (pbk.) 1. Reyes, Norman, 1922- -Childhood and youth. 2. Filipino Americans-Biography. 3. Manila (Philippines)-Biography. I. Title. . E184.F4R497 1995 95-32387 959.9' 160049921-<1c20 CIP AC
Illustrations by Peter Sapasap Cover art by Judith Smith of Soleil Associates ©1995 Three Continents Press Printed in Canada
Preface ................................... xiii Chapter 1: Journey's Start ....................... 1
Thoughts on immigrants and the making of America. Chapter 2: Meetings of the Twain .................. 6
My Filipino father and American mother, Ildefonso and Grace, meet and marry in Brooklyn, then journey to their new home in the Philippines, where more Americans are arriving to administer and assist this new colony. Chapter 3: Alien Com . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 12
With the help of her Filipino sisters-in-law, Grace grows into the exotic sights and sounds of her new surroundings in a new culture. Chapter 4: Pilgrim's Progress. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .. 18
Two early expen'ences as a Protestant in this deeply Catholic country: a festive cemetery and a life-size Christmas star,
Chapter 5: Mother and Child .......................... 23
Pregnancy pilgrimage: the procession and bazaar of a small provincial church; birth of her first child, a mestizo. Chapter 6: Father and Child .......................... 29
Ildefonso's feelings about his new bicultural family. A flashback to his boyhood when Spain stepped out of the Philippines and America stepped in. His contacts with America. Chapter 7: Far from Brooklyn ......................... 36
Building an American bungalow in San Juan, a Manila suburb with rambling livestock and no sidewalks. Chapter 8: Barefoot Boy .............................. 45
My boyhood pastimes among neighboring American, Filipino, and Filipino-American families. Chapter 9: Sundays at La Lorna ........................ 57
The sights and sounds in a miniature "village" of my Filipino cousins, aunts, and uncles. Chapter 10: Mestizo . ................................ 64
A step back in time to the tum of the century and the romantic tale of the British-Spanish-Filipino parents of a close friend of mine. Chapter 11: A Different Drum ......................... 74
Amid increasingly American influences, on the lookout for times of "being Filipino." Ordinary people. Bonds and relationships. A memorable excursion with my godfather.
Chapter 12: Fiesta .................................. 85 A colorful weekend in a distant town, with rituals and feasting to celebrate the birthday of the town's patron saint.
Chapter 13: The Ancestor Box ........................ 100 A Chinese friend helps me look back in history to the tragically tangled relationships of the Philippine Chinese with the Spanish overlords.
Chapter 14: Child of Two Worlds ...................... 132 In 1932, a cross-cultural self-portrait at age 10: things, thoughts, and activities of East and West that lived side by side in my life.
Chapter 15: Culture Palaces ......................... 146 Some special boyhood places: an American gasoline station and a Filipino smithy, an American movie house and a Filipino cockfight arena.
Chapter 16: Outward Bound ......................... 156 In the mid-1930s my horizons begin widening beyond the Philippines as regional and world events including arts and entertainment increasingly touch Manila.
Chapter 17: School Days, School Days ................. 171 A Manila university older than the Pilgrims' settlement at Jamestown. The Chinese schools of Manila. My own school with its mestizo students and all-American faculty.
Chapter 18: Jungle Boy ............................. 181 An extended visit to the Muslim south: days at sea among seafaring gypsies and on land amidjungle warriors.
Chapter 19: Windows ............................... 205
American movies are enjoyable field trips into American culture and social attitudes. Newsreels bring European conflicts closer. Newspapers and radio bring more of the outside world into my small environment. Chapter 20: Winds of War ........................... 222
The Philippines edges toward World War II as Hitler invades Poland and America sides with Britain. "The Way We Were": a nostalgic summing-up of my city and my life on the eve of war in the Pacific. Chapter 21: The Storm Begins ....................... 237
My role in Manila's practice blackout and evacuation. Bombs fall on the Philippines as Japan attacks American and British forces in the Pacific. My family leaves town and I stay behind as Japanese troops begin landing in the Philippines. Chapter 22: Midnight Run ........................... 256
Manila declared an Open City. My trip to Bataan with the retreating American and Filipino forces. A visit to my family's provincial hideout as Japanese troops close in on Manila. Chapter 23: End of the Line .......................... 272
Starting a radio underground in Japanese-occupied Manila. A second mission to Bataan, then Corregidor, ending in surrender and capture. Epilogue: Time Tracks .............................. 286
Manila, Philippines, 1922. It has been barely 18 years since the last shot from an American Krag rifle was fired against Filipino revolutionaries in this equatorial 7,000-island archipelago, wrested by American force of arms from Spain in the Spanish-American War. In those few years the Philippine capital city of Manila has begun to change from the aristocratic stronghold where Spaniards ruled their vast plantation empire and managed great fleets of galleons carrying Chinese silks and porcelains to Mexico to be traded for New World silver. Instead of rising leisurely at 10:00 a.m., having supper at 2:00, and dining at 11:00, Manila's business community is now throbbing to the new Yanqui rhythm of "early to bed and early to rise." Through automobiles and streetcars, public sanitation and electric toasters, education and civil service, movies and basketball, and a cornucopia of American consumer goods in all the stores, the United States is replicating itself among its "little brown brothers" in a country of rice paddies, sugar cane fields, and coconut plantations. Above all, the Philippines also is stirring to the beginnings of an American-instigated system of universal education pointed toward self-government. In this cultural patchwork, a boy born of a Filipino father and American mother begins his cross-cultural coming-of-age xiii
quest that will be resolved only when World War II comes to the Pacific on December 7th, 1941.
xiv
T e rawings in this book were created in Honolulu by Philipp' . nd graphic artist Pete Sapasap. He works in several media but favors line drawings of the type included here.
A THREE
CONTINENTS BOOK
LYNNE RIENNER PUBLISHERS 1800 30TH ST., SU ITE 314 BOULDER, CO 80301