From Olongapo to Jersey City
In the ’60s, in the Filipino city of Olongapo, my father and uncles would gather in the backyard of their cramped, multifamily apartment building. They would slap away at mosquitoes in the tropical heat of the night and engage in good-humored, slightly drunken conversation over San Miguel beers (Filipino-brewed!) and lechon, strips of pork. Then, as now, they were light-hearted, earnest and family-oriented—the true Filipino, or “Pinoy,” spirit.
In 2002, on a brisk April evening in Jersey City, my uncle Jesse Zuniga Lugtu pops open a second bottle of Heineken, takes a sip, then places it on the counter next the keys of his Mercedes-Benz. Meanwhile, I pour myself a Pepsi in a Styrofoam cup. We are seated at a homemade bar in my Uncle Pete’s basement. Uncle Jesse is still sober enough to speak intelligently and cohesively but is also relaxed enough to converse easily and openly. His brothers Pete and Hermo—Hermo is my father—chime in on occasion with helpful additions to our discussion.
The brothers awaken each other’s memories as they unravel and excavate the past—memories of sustaining on one sack of rice a week; of humming and hip-swinging to Elvis’ “Hound Dog,” but most vividly of simultaneously supporting and grieving for their brother Angelo, the activist of the Lugtu family. My father and uncles admire their younger sibling’s intense altruism, seeing him as a symbol of what the Philippines needed to lift itself out of hardship. Even from their American homes—with all the provisions of daily life in their grasp—my uncles still apply Angelo’s values of self-sacrifice, perseverance and simplicity. All three brothers enthusiastically share their thoughts, but the discussion remains grounded in the articulations of Uncle Jesse.
A Dream Kindled
Jesse, born on December 8, 1934, in Lubao, Pampanga—a province of the Philippines that has housed the Lugtu family for generations—told his story:
“My younger brothers and I love discussing our roots. We never hide the fact that we come from a very poor family. There were eleven of us children, me being the eldest. We were raised under two parents, Jesus and Generosa—all of us, and only one gainfully employed person in the family: our father. We lived from one payday to another. I have known how it feels to be hungry, short of everything that you needed.”
This was hardly an anomalous story in Filipino society. The nation’s centuries-old oligarchic system has long yielded a huge gap between the wealthy elite and the impoverished majority. Jesse explained his own experiences with class discrimination:
“The poor common folk were severely discriminated against in the areas of housing, employment, advancement opportunities, etc. Our family was denied a very decent house because most of the people who owned apartments wouldn’t offer them to us—they questioned our capability to pay them rent. We settled with what we received, which was usually a one-room apartment, where we all slept on the floor.”
By the early ’60s, Jesse was attending the Feati Institute of Technology to pursue a career in engineering. But because of the heavy financial burden on his father, he had to quit his studies and seek employment. His contributions certainly helped, but in 1961 he married Lourdes Ong and became a family man.
In 1965, he began to work as a payroll clerk at the supply depot of the Subic Naval Base, which served American troops fighting in Vietnam. The base’s budget was in American dollars, so Jesse earned much more than the average Filipino laborer. He was also fortunate to work in a tolerant atmosphere.
“When I was working at the base, I did not know the meaning of discrimination. We were all Filipino, and, although our supervisors were American, we were never refused as inferiors. I loved my job and employer. There was no doubt in my mind that what prompted me to emigrate to America was the fulfillment of the great American dream.”
Martyred by Injustice
The American presence in Jesse’s life in the Philippines during the 1960s certainly played an active role in his future. But this experience can be evaluated on a larger scale. Well-versed in Filipino history, my uncle provided a brief synopsis of American involvement in his homeland. The Philippines were a colony of Spain from 1521 until the conclusion of the Spanish-American War of 1898, when the United States occupied the islands as a commonwealth. Even after the Filipino liberation in 1946, America remained a strong influence—both positive and negative—on the Philippines and its government, education, public ideology and popular culture.
The 1960s was the height of the Cold War between Communist countries and the United States and its allies. “It was a kind of ‘if you’re not with me, you’re against me’ among countries in the world,” said Uncle Jesse. The Philippines, traditionally a U.S. ally, was aligned with the United States. But among the Filipino population, there was a division of allegiance.
Many Filipinos admired the democratic system of the United States. When news of President John F. Kennedy’s assassination reached the Philippines, they responded sympathetically. They admired the phrase: “Ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” Some of these people included supporters of President Ferdinand Marcos, who held close ties with the United States throughout his administration in the ’60s. The ideals expressed in Kennedy’s statement were followed up in Marcos’ campaign speeches, which emphasized values of “dedication” and “discipline.”
Meanwhile, other Filipinos saw the United States as imperialist. They instead wanted to model the Philippines after the Soviet Union or China. By 1969, the peso was under pressure, the stock market began a steady decline and prices soared. In this context Marcos’ emphasis on discipline, dedication, integrity and simplicity appeared hypocritical and produced explosive protests. Rebellion would later reach its height in the 1970s when Marcos declared martial law, but the heat of insurgency was brewing decades before, especially among the restless younger generations. The 1960s basically marked a period when early efforts were being made to organize and mobilize leftist and nationalist underground organizations. While the civil rights movement was America’s top news, the Filipinos were boiling with their own struggle for equality.
Pampanga—the home of the Lugtu family—was a breeding ground for revolutionaries and the birthplace of Uncle Angelo, more fondly remembered simply as “Loy.” At that point during the interview, Uncle Jesse paused in deep repose. He then resumed thoughtfully:
“Your Uncle Loy has always been regarded as the personal hero of the family, from me to my youngest brother Gil. He not only devoted his life to help the Lugtus recover from poverty, but he also dedicated himself to introducing a kind of government that would alleviate the living standards of all Filipinos in general.”
Loy was a student activist at the University of the East in Manila. “Loy’s personal aims,” Uncle Jesse said, “were improving the livelihood of the average Filipino and allowing for the distribution of the country’s wealth to the masses. His values were through and through positive, humanitarian ones.”
Uncle Loy died at a violent demonstration in 1973. Decades later, my uncles still miss Loy and his altruism. “The problem of the country was so enormous that it needed a strong leader to resolve the burdens of the poor,” said Uncle Jesse. “Who else but our personal hero?” My father and Uncle Pete nodded morosely in agreement.
Uncle Jesse explained the enduring problem of the Philippines:
“My personal sense of this situation is that poverty was and still is rampant because of the population explosion; resources are being unequally distributed and infrastructures have remained stagnant. This was and still is aggravated by incompetent leadership, graft, corruption and a lack of determination to cure a sick society by those who are in the position to initiate corrective actions.”
Despite the long, massive struggle—the organizations and demonstrations, the speeches and programs, the loss of lives—the Philippines remains in a state of economic and political crisis. The majority of the victims are naturally lower-class Filipinos.
Rock ’n’ Roll Sweeps Pinoy Streets
Amidst the political and economic turbulence of the 1960s, Filipino youth found relaxation, entertainment and hope in their daily lives. The American presence was not simply confined to the political history of the Philippines. Jesse was already in his late twenties and early thirties in the ’60s, but he was well aware of how popular American culture had entranced the Filipino youth—with manic results.
“Did you wear bell-bottoms?” I asked out of sheer curiosity.
“Yes,” he admitted, slightly embarrassed.
Suddenly, boisterous singing resounded from across the room.
My mother and two aunts were “karaoke-ing” to the Beatles’ 1963 hit single “Love Me Do.” My mother was doing the watusi. Minutes later, she burst into the twist. I laughed hysterically. My father and uncles burst into fits of equally hysterical laughter, made more thunderous by their inebriated states.
My Uncle Pete piped in. “Look around the bar.”
I looked around the bar. It was a full-fledged shrine to Elvis, complete with humongous posters, scrapbook outtakes and a hip-swinging pendulum Elvis clock! My Uncle Pete was an Elvis disciple.
After gulping down more Heineken, my Uncle Jesse said: “American influence on Filipino culture? There’s your answer.”
More answers were to come. My aunts and uncles added their stories, transporting me to the ’60s and to the Filipino city streets, where there stood flocks of Filipino youth—men and women with black-haired Twiggy-style pixie cuts, Beatle mop-tops and Jackie Kennedy pageboys. Their oft-undernourished bodies were adorned with miniskirts, cat-eyeglasses, flared hipster pants and hippie-chic blouses with psychedelic prints. At the local theater, the movie listings contained an assortment of popular American movies: The Ten Commandments, The Sound of Music, West Side Story and Bruce Lee flicks dubbed into English. If you switched on the black-and-white television (had you enough pesos to acquire one), the theme to Bonanza might burst through the speaker. Your younger sister might have had a crush on James Dean. Enter a classroom—pick any elementary school, high school or college—and the Filipino teachers would conduct their lectures in English.
“The deeply rooted American culture was imbued in the minds of Filipino. It was and still is 100 percent American. Since this was the game every day, I came to love it and became obsessed with it,” my Uncle Jesse admitted. Naturally, he was not the only one with this mindset. If the Filipino youth could not physically be in America, they could somehow make their visions of paradise incarnate in the clothes they wore, the shows and songs they tuned into and the films they watched.
Changed Backdrop, Unchanged Hearts
For the Lugtu family, the paradiselike vision would not remain merely a vision. In 1968, President Johnson ratified a new immigration policy, which abolished the old quota system, refocused admission requirements on skills rather than on national origin, and ultimately resulted in a flooding of Asian and African immigrants looking for jobs in America. In 1973, Jesse Lugtu and his family arrived at Kennedy Airport in New York. Now in the “land of opportunity,” one of the first moves he opted to make was to resume his college education. With poverty no longer an impediment, he took advantage of student loans and attended New York University. Joining the American workforce was another significant step, although not a necessarily difficult one:
“Growing up in the Philippines was, relatively speaking, a constant ‘struggle.’ But personally, daily ‘struggle’ was not a big deal to me because I was used to it. It was a way of life! This level of experience was my golden asset when I emigrated to the United States. What was a heavy burden to others at work was ‘peanuts’ to me. I was always trained to be a hard worker. I was rated an excellent worker by my employers, which gave me an excellent shot at opportunities that opened along the way. On the whole, any hardship that we as a family encountered, we encountered very easily and we survived. My family generally are survivors!”
My Uncle Jesse’s third bottle of Heineken is nearly empty, as were those of my father and Uncle Pete. The hours are approaching midnight. All are clearly exhausted, but the enthusiasm that perpetuated our discussion from the beginning is hardly extinguished. Indeed, members of the Lugtu family now proudly call themselves Filipino-American. But despite the contrast between the family’s early history and Filipino-American life—despite the fact that we can now easily afford quality education, designer clothing, automatic cars, a refrigerator consistently packed with food—the Lugtus still retain the same spirit that carried them through hardship in the Philippines.
“And what about now?” I asked.
“I’m in America now, but it’s not the materialistic goods that truly make me happy. Sure, I have my Benz. But I also have a good home, a secure job that pays well, a faithful loving wife, and my children and grandchildren. One of my daughters is a registered nurse in the state of New York,” he said with a tone of resolve and pride. “When I was growing up, my dream included all of those things. The American dream is achievable for people like us, if the desire is there. I certainly had that desire, and I certainly think that I have achieved that dream,” he concluded resolutely. “Your Uncle Loy taught us to be selfless, broad-minded and determined. He tried to live what we call the essence of life. We are trying to do that now.”
Rosanne Lugtu is an Honors College student and English major at Rutgers-Newark.
