It hurts. It still hurts thinking about how a complete stranger, my biological mother, has passed away. It was pretty recent. She passed away on April 23rd, 2013. They were right that there will be great change this year.
A few nights ago, my emotions had caught up with me. I uncontrollably was crying myself to sleep at night. It hurts that my [biological] mother had passed away right before my trip to the Philippines. It also hurts thinking of how people [in my hometown village] knew exactly who I was in the barrio because I look like my mother.
My adoptive mother thinks that my biological mother after passing away helped make this trip happen for me. [In a Universal “Law of Attraction” type of trigger]
It’s strange. I feel her presence even since I came home.
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I invite you to join me on the rest of this journey to reach back as I move forward.
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.
“Gusto ko nga ipahibalo ang mga istorya na naga kahitabo sa banwa gisaad na to” – Balita by Gloc 9
It’s been three weeks since I’ve been back from the ‘Motherland’. It’s been also three weeks of pulling out old photos, videos, and organizing everything to be digitized. I understand now why people are able to be paid to digitize old archives.
A piece of me is missing but at the same time it’s not missing. Part of me has been left in the Philippines while part of me is back here in America. Before flying back I thought to myself, “Will I continue to live my life as it was in America or have I consciously changed after this experience?”. I do have mixed emotions which I am unraveling. Whether these emotions are positive or negative, after attending a few conferences and being a part of organizations, I’ve learned from others to understand that these emotions are what make me human.
Also I’ve learned from two very wise women. One woman had said that “Only you are in control of your own thoughts and what you do with them”, and another woman had said to me after asking her for advice was, “Negative thoughts are not in your vocabulary”. The first woman is Grace Lee Boggs, an American Revolutionary, and the second was Fe Rowland who was the past director for Paaralang Pilipino or Filipino School at the Philippine American Cultural Center of Michigan. These testimonials have gotten me through many obstacles.
I thank many of the people who have helped me along the way who made this trip possible, those who aided my search such as the Inter-Country AdoptIon Board whom I’ve been in contact with since last Spring, Lorial Crowder who is the co-founder of the Filipino Adoptees Network which is based in New Your City, who is a close friend of mine and aided me during most of the trip. Lastly was my previous foster family’s generosity of offering me to stay at their home, and for my foster sister Hesziel and her family for emotional support and making me feel safe and keep me safe in my own homeland. I also thank the people at Asilo for allowing me to stay within their dormitories.
Inter-Country Adoption Board Office
During the trip I was able to meet and network with many people involved in inter-country Adoption Services at the 12th Global Consultation on Child Welfare. Meeting them at this conference also helped finding the right contact people as well when I had to travel to my island of birth, Cebu. The Department of Social Welfare & Development (DSWD) Region VII were my primary contacts in going to Cebu.
DSWD Region VII
With the help with many of these friends, family and organizations, their advice and dialogue has helped me through many obstacles. Without them it may not have been easy. A part of me feels that we’re all meant to have intersected with one another.
Another part of me wishes that I had could have stayed longer. Being back in America is strange. Being in the Philippines was even stranger yet at the same time I felt home. Perhaps it was because I was fortunate to have people like the organizations whom helped me along the way which were like family to me and also of course, my foster and biological family. There’s a stronger emphasis of the importance and value of politeness and human interactions while in the Philippines. Others may argue this but being adopted and still keeping myself rooted within my culture, I’m glad that I was given the opportunity to learn the culture and language parang hindi maging mayabang kung palaging nag-eenglish ako. “so I don’t come off as snobbish if I kept speaking English” since I took the opportunity as much as I could to understand my roots and assimilate as much as I am able to…
Having these thoughts on my mind of this does not make me grow tired. I may be still in the process of understanding everything that just happened while I was there. It won’t be instantaneous but I am a strong believer in that everything happens for a reason. For sure I know that this entire journey has made me stronger and has had a positive outcome.
