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27th Anniversary

It’s been 5 years since my last post.  I was more active on my personal account on facebook until it was disabled.

Today (Good Friday) — or this weekend of Holy Week marks my twenty seventh anniversary of being brought to the United States.

Yes, my adoptive parents and me are well aware that Lent and Holy Week changes every year.  This however doesn’t change the lasting impact of the historical moment for all of us where my adoptive mother went to the Philippines during Holy Week of 1993 and came to the Philippines to finally meet me.

So much has happened that I cannot lump into one post today to bring you all up to date since my last post in 2013.

This film has been low-key shown in many spaces.  The films have mostly been open between academic circles for higher education and I hope to show them in certain classes such as Sociology for secondary education .

I have given the rights of the Department of Social Welfare and Development to screen the film, “BINITAY: Journey of a Filipino Adoptee”, for their adoption training department in order for a better understanding of transnational and transracial adoption.  However, I criticize and see that they find my transnational/racial adoption as a success story built upon their backs when there were many struggles that have been endured without their aid and guidance to my adoptive parents.  Lastly, I’ve learned some themes such as for transracial adoption, in order for opportunity to be granted, the sacrifice can be a cultural death (birth culture).

In recent news, obviously a novel corona virus (covid-19) has affected the world globally.  My ever changing self perception of what it means to be a transracial and transnational adoptee is in constant flux due to living here in America and although to some people I do not appear to look Asian, I still have a watchful eye for myself and others whom may face violence from others due to xenophobia.  With an unnamed family member, combating their usage of saying the word #ChineseVirus and their unjust perception on immigration , I instead just put them into perspective how America is almost like a centralized place for a globalized economic hub and how diversity and multiculturalism is the paramount of America’s “exceptionalism”; however, I do not use those exact words and just frame it to stop their xenophobia and let their perception go outside of the box.

Negative rhetoric from the media of course is pervasive for those who give into scapegoating other racial backgrounds.  With any epidemic worldwide this is what we the human race needs to transcend for our survival.

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Oral history and Lineage

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”

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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.

–> Visit my Indiegogo campaign at https://igg.me/at/OnceUponAnOchia-/x

–> Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/binitaydoc

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

 

 

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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.

–> Visit my Indiegogo campaign at https://igg.me/at/OnceUponAnOchia-/x

–> Follow me on twitter at https://twitter.com/binitaydoc

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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Binitay: Journey of a Filipino Adoptee Trailer

Here is the official trailer of my documentary.  The official full showing will be on Sunday, March 16th, 2014 at the Philippine American Community Center of Michigan (PACCM).  I invite you all to attend the showing and how the cultural communities have helped me come in terms with my identity as a transracial adoptee.  

For those who many not understand why I created this, this project was manifested from the time I was a pre-adolescent.  During that time, fellow classmates would find out that my parents happen to be white Caucasian, while I am a Filipino.  So I told them how I was adopted and so time and time again, questions would arise from classmates asking if I ever knew my real biological parents or family.  Other questions for example were: “Do you know how to speak Filipino?  Have you been back to the Philippines?  Were you born there?  Are you full Filipino?  Are you sure?  Do you know anything about the culture?”  And so on.

So because of those constant questions, experiences of outsiderness, and a growing eagerness to find out more about the man in the mirror, it finally had led to eventually opening up my case study papers for the first time.  I read those papers and had felt a cycle of anger, forgiveness, and understanding as I learned more about my homeland.  After being able to tell my story, others have told me I should document it.  So here it is, the preview to my documentary.

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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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Enero. Coming full circle

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 sister. "May resemblance ba?" Is there a resemblance?
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.

–> Visit my Kickstarter campaign at http://kck.st/filipinoadoptee

–> Join our Facebook community at http://www.facebook.com/binitaydocumentary

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