Magdaragat, p.26
Magdaragat, page 26
The influx of immigrants from Southeast Asia propelled the opening of ESL classes in schools, especially in the Winnipeg School Division. Between 1979 and 1981, not many teachers trained to be ESL teachers, so school divisions were caught by surprise. Most of the students in 1979 came from southeast countries as refugees.
Although I had been a high school English teacher in the Philippines, I was not confident about teaching elementary ESL students. To be more efficient and effective as a teacher, I spent the entire day on Saturdays researching ESL methodologies at the Department of Education.
When the teacher I was substituting for moved out of the province, I was assigned to be a term teacher in 1981.
“I am now a teacher,” I whispered happily and confidently as I opened my classroom door. A surge of pride filled me. But my happiness was tinted with pain and sorrow that night, when my eyes welled with tears as I remembered my Papa and Mama. I imagined myself on the phone saying to my father, “Papa, your dreams for me have been realized. I am now a teacher here in Canada! I did what you had always been telling me to do: to try my best and to work hard.”
Being a permanent teacher spurred me to obtain more career opportunities and subsequently improve our economic lives in Canada. I became a three-time president of a prestigious association in Manitoba, the Manitoba Filipino Teacher’s Association (MAFTI), where I currently still serve as adviser. I completed my Bachelor of Education at the University of Manitoba in 1983 and went on to get a Master of Education in 1990, again as a part-time student.
In 1994, I was appointed vice-principal of Victoria Albert School. A decade later, in 2004, I retired after serving as vice-principal in two more schools: Sisler High School and Shaughnessy Park School in the Winnipeg School Division. I devoted my retirement years to serving the community in various associations, most particularly MAFTI. In 2019, I received the University of Manitoba Alumni Award for community service.
I have written four books: First Filipino Immigrants in Manitoba, published by the Manitoba Filipino Writers’ Guild in 1997; Understanding Filipino Seniors in Manitoba, Their Immigration, Settlement, Adjustment, published by the Knights of Rizal in 2010; gemma: The Bud, a book of poetry (2020); and Grammatically Yours, Gemma (2021).
In my moments of reflection, I thank the Lord for giving me and our family a chance to be here in Canada, truly the “Land of Opportunity.”
Yves Lamson
Reliquary
These words that you’re reading, though flat on the page, are in fact in the shape of a reliquary. The things herein are tucked away for the future generations to see and hold. A snapshot of the past, what it was like to live in my time, in this skin, with these experiences. What they do with these words, the memories shaped like the objects they’re tied to, is up to them. I can only hope that they hold them with as much care as I have for the cultural inheritances left to me.
* * *
See this low seat made of wood, rectangular in shape. Its colour faded to deep grey like stone, signalling the strength imbued in the wood from years of use and love. Hold it in your hands. Now set it down. Sit. Feel the grain of the wood; the grooves are deep and filled with story. Notice how sturdy and level it is? The square, squat legs were salvaged from a sofa and fixed to a thick plank of teak.
My mother had trouble standing in the shower when she was heavy with me. To help her, my father built this seat, a place to sit while she showered. Mom never learned to swim so she never enjoyed tub bathing, and my father understood this.
After my birth, the seat found a new purpose as a stepping stool in the kitchen. Sometimes I’d sit on it and watch her cook or chat on the phone to her sister.
When I was five, we moved from the house in Scarborough to a farm in Stouffville. When we had settled in and Mom found time for baking again, my father transformed the relic into a kudkuran for her. He added a tail, forged from blackened steel and imported from the homeland, to one of its width-ends. I see my mother straddling the small beast, scraping out meat from inside coconut shells to make budbod to sprinkle on kutsinta and maja blanca.
* * *
See me in this photo, with rounded edges and chequered matte finish. The words Winter — 1983 scrawled in my mother’s cursive on the back.
I’m sitting in a snowbank, cradled by my mother. My mittened hands warm in red acrylic, I’m clutching a pale orange shovel in my left hand, raising it to the falling flakes, my lips curled into a howl. My snowsuit is blue, sinking into the sea of white fractals. See my mother, bundled up in a snowsuit, her hair in a bob cut. She’s smiling at my father winking behind the camera, her arm wrapped around me.
What was she thinking in those moments? Was she thinking how far she’s come? Did she think about my future? Or was the present too urgent and fast? What did this sampaguita from Banca-Banca, the barangay named after the boats that carried our seafaring ancestors through the archipelago, know of snow and cold before she emigrated? Did she hear no two snowflakes were the same? Did she wonder what I would come to know of this land?
* * *
Hold this brown paper towel roll, a white sheet of paper cut to triangles, two rubber bands and this sando. Ordinary things made extraordinary.
My parents were frugal. They often avoided purchases from department stores and instead hunted for sales at Bargain Harold’s, BiWay, and Goodwill. All the while, those on the outside, looking in, labelled me spoiled. My parents poured their all into me, spending little on themselves. I had every He-Man I could wish for. I had monogrammed Yves Saint Laurent print bedsheets I thought were made special for me. I attended private schools. Still, I remember times when it had to be explained that we could not go get a new action figure or visit a drive-thru for a Happy Meal. Sometimes I’d complain, with petulance, and my dad would warn me, “Don’t dabog.” Two words said sternly, with threat looming behind them.
In these times between paydays, my father would rely on his storytelling to entertain me. These moments came to be my favourite — soft vignettes filled with narrative and play.
He’d tell me about the boys getting circumcised by the river, how they’d jump into the water after the slice. He was one of them.
He’d tell me about forcing his older brother to help him fly a kite in low winds, the kite string pulled taut between them across an empty plot of land in Cabanatuan. When Dad detected a faint breeze he’d yell, “Sige!” and throw the handmade kite into the air, signalling to his kuya to start running in a futile attempt to leverage the craft into the sky. After numerous attempts and when it became clear the winds were insufficient for flight, Dad would throw his hands up and yell, “You take it home!” stomping away from his brother in frustration.
He’d tell me about the time he was dared to jump on the back of a carabao on his way to school, and how he rode the water buffalo for a few seconds before it threw him off.
He’d tell me of the old man who let him take guava fruit from his tree, but drew the line when my father, a troublemaker, began cutting limbs from it trying to find the perfect Y shape to fashion a sling-shot out of.
He’d tell me about his older sister, my quiet and reserved tita, coaxing his bullies to come within arm’s reach of her with feigned softness. With the quickness of a viper she’d grab hold of them, pulling the two of them to the ground, dragging them and dunking their heads in the fetid canal water that flowed past their home.
He’d tell me about magic, monsters, history, and lore. His stories made me believe he was magic himself, that he could make anything, and make anything happen.
“Do you believe in magic?” he asked, as he cut up the sheet of paper into triangles. With both his hands, he swept the triangles into a neat pile on the colourful baníg on the floor of our bedroom. Gathering all the small triangles into his hand, closing his fist tight, he handed me the cardboard tube, the sando pulled taut like a drumskin over one end, held in place by rubber bands. “Hold,” he said, his hands cupped around mine as he poured the triangles in. Then he reached for his nightshift flashlight on the dresser. Flicking it on, he put it under the clothed, closed end. Leaning over, his one eye open and spying into the tube, he twisted it clockwise then counterclockwise. “Look,” he said, tilting the tube to me. I peered in, one eye squinted as he had demonstrated. I saw a kaleidoscope of colours and shapes powered by imagination and my belief in him.
* * *
See this photo of a library, tall shelves packed with books, small chairs and long desks between the resting tomes and novels. The children are sitting quietly in the chairs as the librarian, Ms. Heintzner, hands out worksheets. I am six years old, wild curls, uncomfortable but sure. This is a class for gifted children, a supplementary portion of the school day where students nominated by their teachers and deemed exceptional through a series of tests were asked to participate.
Peek over my shoulder, I’m holding a worksheet. There are questions on it, asking us to write any answer we like. The first question reads: “What do you wish to be when you grow up?” I write, “A helicopter.” The second question reads: “What is the name of your hometown?” I write, “Stoveville.” The third question reads: “What city is your school in?” I write, “Scarboro.” The fourth question reads: “What province do we live in?” I write, “Ontairio.” The fifth question reads: “What was your favourite part of the summer? Write four full sentences or more.” I proceed to write the bare minimum, misspelling every word I plausibly can. I would continue to do this through the next few days until I was unceremoniously removed from the gifted program.
I did this because my friends treated me differently on the ball court at recess when gifted classes started. I did this because I already felt distant from all of the city kids, who had friendships with each other outside of school. I did this because I did not want to be in the different class. I already felt different.
* * *
See — no, hold — this by-law book for the township of Whitchurch-Stouffville. Feel its weight in your hands and leaf through its pages. See the annotations written in the margins? That’s my father’s handwriting.
My father went to war with my hometown in ’89. It started with a series of impotent siege attempts by our NIMBY neighbour, Terrence. Terrence was constantly harassing my father, calling him to meet on our joined driveway after work. He was jealous that my father had so many friends. Or maybe it wasn’t green that shaded his heart, but something whiter, like prejudice. Each weekend, my father’s friends would come over to the farm, hang out, drink all through the hot summer days, and reminisce about their lives back home. Sometimes — often, one of them would pass out in tall grass, only to be woken by the chill of nightfall and high-hum of mosquitos. At night, they’d tell stories in Tagalog around a fire, sharing food and drink and laughter. They’d talk about how much a night outdoors, by a fire, with the murmur and cooing of nesting hens settling in for the night reminded them of their villages back home.
To accommodate larger animals like pigs and goats, my father decided to build an extension to the existing barn. With the help of his friends, it was finished in a handful of weekends.
A few days later, I saw my father speaking to Terry at our gate. I watched from our kitchen window before deciding to move outside, curious as to what was happening.
“Hi, Yves,” he said, before continuing with my father. “That barn extension looks like shit. All cobbled together with wood and rusted roofing tin. You’re decreasing the value of my property! You see how I keep my yard? It’s beautiful and manicured. Look at our rose garden! Look at our grass! Then you look at your property. It’s all tall grass, weeds, and junk cars.”
“You see junk, Terry. I see things I can use to fix my car. You see tall grass and weeds. I see places for our hens to lay eggs and for our chicks to hide from hawks. I like what I see. If you don’t, don’t look over here.” Terry walked away in frustration, throwing his hands in the air and cursing.
A few days later, a letter arrived from the township by courier. It was an order to attend a meeting. Terry had called the township to report my father, claiming that the barn extension was in violation of the by-laws.
At the meeting with by-law officers and other officials of my hometown, my father sat and listened as they began reading off alleged violations from a book. Before they could finish, my father asked, “What are those books, and where did you get them?” They told him the books contained the town’s by-laws and that he could purchase one from the township. Dad stood up and said, “Then this meeting is over until I get one of those books.”
He left the township offices, tome in hand, walking back to the car where Mom and I waited. Hopping in the passenger seat, pulling the car door shut, he said, “I’ll get these fuckers. You’ll see.” His brazen, devilish smile was broad, appearing closer and larger in the car’s sideview mirror as I looked on from the back seat.
Days passed and each day he read the by-law book as passionately as a seminary student would a Bible. He combed each passage for some hidden meaning, searching for an interpretation of the words that would allow him to find peace. Eventually, he found a path forward.
Our five acres are zoned agricultural while the flanking properties are zoned residential. This difference, along with a permit, allowed for the addition of our barn, which still stands today.
Over our gate I watched Dad put on a clinic. “I could’ve fucked you over, Terry,” Dad said. “That pool you just put in? It can’t be on the eastern side of your yard according to the by-laws. It’s too close to my property line. That’s a violation. There’s also no fence around it with a locking gate to prevent my chickens from drowning if they crossed into your yard,” he said wryly. “That’s another violation. Also, that addition to your barn you put on a few years ago? That makes it too tall according to the by-laws. Another violation. I could’ve said something to the township and you’d have to fill that pool and tear down your barn, but I didn’t. Why take away joy? That’s not what life is about.” He turned to me, “Life is about not getting fucked over, son.”
* * *
See this photo, snapped vertically. This was taken before I was born. The solo figure in the photo is my mother. She’s standing high atop the Scarborough Bluffs, her back to the water and sky. The trees flank both her sides, their limbs touching above her. She’s smiling, her body quarter turned to the camera, hands hanging at her side. She’s wearing a simple dress of dark red. The heel of her forward foot is raised slightly, pulling the hem just above her knee. My mother is beautiful and strong — a seafaring warrior, her miles travelled encoded in my DNA.
Pull back. The photo is in the centre of bristol board, hand-drawn lines emanating from it with important dates and facts from her history.
This was an assignment from grade nine. We were asked to give a personal history of a hero in our family. I chose her.
She was the first of her family to leave the Philippines for Canada; she bought the home that provided her siblings with a roof over their heads, a starting point for the next phase of their lives.
She was the one who, as a result of a severe asthma attack, lived in a coma for weeks. I remember a Thanksgiving years ago where my mother sat around a table with her nieces. My cousins were young mothers then, discussing the rearing of children and the uncertainties that they felt. They were looking to her for advice. She told them about her time in stasis, how dark and lonely it was. She described only one constant in that time, the thought that I was still young and needed her. That was the invisible tether that led her back to me. She said that each of them, too, had that bond with their children. All they needed was to remember that. Mothers are the ones who make the Fates genuflect, make them change their plans. She forced them to bend for me.
For months the assignment hung on the wall of my history class. After the semester ended and we returned from Christmas break, I went to Mr. Gallagher’s class to retrieve it.
“I told all the students on the first day that anything left behind at the beginning of winter break would be thrown out,” he said, unapologetically while at the blackboard scrawling something for incoming students to read. This had been my favourite picture of my mother, the only print I had. The negative developed and lost years ago.
In a moment of desperation, I ran out to check the school dumpsters. It was never possible that it could still be there, but I had to try. I never found it.
How could this man look at this photo, read the history of this woman, know the hardships and triumphs she experienced, then shrug and throw it out like common trash?
* * *
Here, tie one end of this thick, knotted rigging rope around your waist. I’ll help you. My father taught me good knots. Feel its coarseness and see the twisted natural fibre it’s comprised of. Dad purchased this at a garage sale. On the farm, we’ve used it for many purposes: to saddle break our spirited hackney, Bagga, that I rode. To tow cars we cannibalized for parts to the back of our property. To lead trees away from the house to fell them safely. To anchor myself to him.
In the winter of ’97, there was an awful windstorm that pulled sheets of roofing tin off of the barn, rolling them about the yard like loose-leaf. Some sections of tin clung to the roof by a few persistent nails, and the wind turned them over like book pages, slamming them back down with eerie finality. A winter storm was coming, and my father and I rushed to repair things before the burying blizzard arrived. The side of the roof stood at a sixty-degree angle, peak to ground measuring thirty feet. Having collected all the sections of tin, we waited for the winds to die down. The quickest way to secure the sheets to the roof was for one of us to hang over its edge. I was the lighter of us two, so we determined it should be me. Out of this rope, my father wove a harness to slip my legs into. The other end he criss-crossed around his torso, his body an anchor for me to hang from. Coiling the slack around his arms, he was the hoist to lower me down and bring me back up.
