TELLTALE SIGNS

(Excerpts of speech delivered at the First National Conference of Calambenos in America held at the DoubleTree by Hilton Hotel in Norwalk, California on November 14, 2014).
Among the fondest childhood memories I cherish were the times I spent in my grandfather Lope Elepano’s home in Calamba, Laguna where my mother and her siblings were born. I remember as a child walking by myself all over the town from the church in front of the giant pot (the “banga”), all the way to the market (the “palengke”). Continue reading →

For the last month, my Facebook friends in Manila have been lamenting their utter frustration and helplessness at being sentenced to spend a great portion of their productive lives stuck in traffic with no hope in sight. Continue reading →

The most important bill being considered by the Philippine Senate this month is the bill that seeks to create an autonomous Bangsa Moro state in Mindanao to replace the Autonomous Region in Muslim Mindanao (ARMM) which Pres. Benigno S. Aquino III described as “a failed experiment”. Continue reading →

The Delano Strike of 1965 made the front pages of the national newspapers and was featured at the top of the TV network news. The media interviews of Filipino farm worker leader Larry Itliong made him a hero to the Pinoy community, countering the stereotyped public image of Filipinos as docile houseboys and obedient navy stewards. There was now a new positive image of an assertive Pinoy who was articulating the just demands of the Filipino workers Continue reading →

Perhaps the most historic day in American farm labor history began one early morning when 1500 Filipino farm workers in Delano, California went to work at their regular time of 4 AM, cut the grapes off the vines as many of them had been doing since they first arrived in the 1920s or 1930s. But this time, they left them at the base of the grape trees, and , as they planned the night before, the Filipino farm workers then proceeded to walk off their jobs. It was September 8, 1965, the first day of the Delano Strike of 1965. Continue reading →

They are often referred to, half-jokingly, as TNTs, the Tagalog acronym for Tago ng Tago (hiding and hiding) or Takot na Takot (very afraid). But it is no laughing matter to be a Filipino out of lawful immigration status in the U.S., constantly hiding from immigration authorities and always anxiously fearful of being deported back to the Philippines. They often work for the lowest wages as domestic servants or caregivers, and reside with their employers or in cheap, overcrowded housing. Despite their abject living conditions, they still somehow manage to remit money back to their relatives in the Philippines. Continue reading →

The surge of border children crossing into the United States in recent months has prompted calls from Republican lawmakers for the U.S. government to offer these children free passage back to their home countries. Continue reading →

Before there was Facebook, before there was cell phone texting, before there was Instagram and Twitter, there was a time when my wife, Edna, and I would just lie quietly in bed, reading books.
On my side of the bed lay a stack of books generally about politics, history and law. On Edna’s side were books about religion, personal growth and inspirational accounts of lives well-lived. Continue reading →

Virtually every American child of Mexican descent grows up knowing about the great Cesar Chavez and about how he organized the oppressed farmworkers into a farm labor movement which led to the vast improvement in the working conditions of farmworkers. This image was supported recently by the nationwide release of the Hollywood movie, Chavez.  Continue reading →

After Franco Consolacion died on June 6, 2014 at age 75 from serious health complications that had debilitated him since 2005, a mutual friend, Cip Ayalin, asked me to say a few words at his Cypress Lawn funeral wake on June 14. I replied that I wasn’t sure if I could find enough good words to say about him. Nonetheless, his brother, Alex, and his son, Gary, asked me to speak and so I did.  Continue reading →