I remember the first few moments attending the Philippine American Community Center of Michigan (PACCM). There were many different languages of the Philippines being spoken back and forth, sounds and phrases that were familiar and alien to me as well. It was when I heard someone speaking out of the sea of other languages in the crowd had entranced me to this forgotten language that was once mine and that hearing the Cebuano or Bisaya language once again was eerily nostalgic.
It is documenting the loss in cultural and ethnic identity, and currently where I find these moments past, present and future moments most precious to keep and capture of how I’ve come to be seen and/or accepted as a member of my biological family in the Philippines very crucial and important.
Join me in my journey and let’s paint this picture together of reunion and reconciliation.
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
After meeting my biological relatives in Tabogon, meeting my sister, and seeing my mother’s grave, a sadness washes over me. I’ve made so many people happy because I didn’t forget about where I came from & it showed to them that a part of me values them and places them somewhere in my heart although we are strangers. When I met my ninety-four year old grandmother, she hugged me and would not let go. I was her grandson she has been longing for.
They had hoped I was able to stay but it’s saddening of both cultural and language barriers we will have. The Department of Social Welfare (DSWD) made it very clear to them about the kind of person I am now and that my objective was to search for Elizabeth Ochia, my only key person who “found” me and just so happened to be my very own biological mother.
The opportunity to forgive her is not there since she has passed four months before I arrived here. It saddens me more that she had passed without knowing her own biological son has been searching for her too. I have learned to forgive the past and won’t forget.
I just hope that everything is okay after leaving my home once again.
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
As the years pass I’ve grown fascinated with this relationship and kinship of my biological family back home. After building my relationship with my biological extended relatives through the power of Skype video chats, Facebook messenger, and Viber calls, it’s my recent trip in May, 2015 where staying with my biological cousins’ place in Caduawan and Danao for five weeks found me most intrigued with this post-reunion and birth family search.
It is through the intergenerational dialogue and spending time with my biological relatives that I learned more about myself and had to unlearn in my case study papers that I was a “foundling”. When speaking with my 94 year old lola at the time, I asked her if I was given a birth name by my mother. She replied, “Isagani”.
A friend of mine who works for the InterCountry Adoption Board (ICAB) -Philippines told me the translation of my name. She said it translates from Bisaya; one of the major language groups in the Philippines, where “Isa” means one or only one and “Gani” in the Bisayan language is a term for affirmation or a yes. So the name all together loosely means “Yes you are my only one” or “Yes you are my one and only”
Each discovery while large or small helps me piece back together a part of my ethnic cultural identity which I had lost, because it is too easy to learn what people call “American” or “Western” culture when you’re surrounded by it everywhere you go and have nothing that reflects your own roots. Documenting this experience makes these experiences immortal allowing me to physically reflect upon it.
Help me continue to document these stories in my next film as I put together these collective narrative of my biological family.
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
The aftermath of the biological family reunion – where does an adoptee go from here? How does one balance two families? These are some of the questions that James Beni Wilson will attempt to answer in his next film project, Once Upon An Ochia.
There are not many documentaries that highlight the ongoing relationship of an adoptee after reuniting with their biological family. I will be will be mapping out a collective narrative focusing on the inter-cultural interactions between my families and myself. It will also include genealogy work of putting together a family tree and capturing the living oral history. This film is dedicated to adoptees, specifically trans-racial or trans-national adoptees, who are finding their way building and balancing new and old relationships, how it may impact one’s identity; to bring you a glimpse of what it may be like after post-reunion of an adoptee “finding their roots.
Please help me reach my goal in fundraising for my latest documentary film here! Even if you don’t donate, that’s fine as long as you help me share my indiegogo campaign I’ll be very grateful!
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
Ever since being introduced to the Filipino community, the month of January was not just a month that was supposedly where my birthday happened to be in. It was a bittersweet month. A reminder.
Every January 24th, I would blow out candles and make that wish. I’d wish that someday, I would make it to the Philippines. That I would find my biological family. I’d hope my prayers and wishes would be answered in some form or another. I’d pray that my biological family would be safe even though I never met them. Can someone ever miss someone they have never met before? Is that possible?
Aunty Fely, my mother’s older sister. “May resemblance ba?” Is there a resemblance?
It’s made me wonder every birthday since 2007 as to who my biological family was. Inside there were unanswered questions. There were missing puzzle pieces that needed filling no matter how happy I tried to be. This was a month where sadness was covered up with sleight grimaces and a longing to know where I fit in between two worlds of being a Filipino in a family that happens to be a white caucasian American family and a Filipino who was foreign to his own community. These were times when I would stare back at myself and felt lost. These were times where I’d tell classmates and other people that I wanted to find my roots, and sometimes have been shot down by their tongues saying that:
“Why search? Aren’t you happy?”
“What if your family doesn’t even want to see you?”
“You were abandoned and found in a plastic bag in a banana tree, your mother didn’t want you!”
Despite these, I’ve never given up on hope. That hope fueled me to want to go back and document my story. I’ve been advised that I should document it. So this in the end will come full circle. It hasn’t only helped me weave through what life has given me but I hope it helps others as well.
Video editing has been tedious especially working so often in order to save enough money to attend school and being part of these non-profits. The documentary will be hopefully complete before January ends.
I’ve gone back and we were successful in our search as said in one of my previous blog posts. Unfortunately, I’ll disclose that my biological mother is no longer with us. I do feel though that she has been watching over me since the moment I had started my Kicktarter and set foot on Filipino soil. Even now I feel she is here with me. There is one question still that comes to the forefront.
Can someone miss someone they never met before?
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
