The Gong: From "The Other Race" to the Superior White Race - A Conversation about your Humanity and Mine

by Prosy Abarquez-Delacruz, J.D.
10/4/01

"The center of the gong represents the wisdom of the heart, the center of the soul, and the outer part represents the uninvolved man. In playing the gong, the citizens of Southern Philippines, poor fishermen and poor farmers, would spontaneously challenge one another in competition, until the virtuoso performers emerge, as they collectively and individually respond to one another."

Eleanor Academia, World Kulintang Institute, UCLA, 9/29/01

The day before the book launching of the Asian Americans: the Movement and the Moment, I had lunch with Joanne, a youthful looking UCLA graduate now working at Community Coalition, I had a boxed lunch of bulgogi, tempura shrimp, potato croquettes. But equally interesting were the condiments of bean sprouts, boiled potatoes, kimchi. Joanne had a bi bim bop, wild rice with spices,cut up vegetables and usually with fried egg on a stonepot that kept it warm. Joanne had curly short hair, almond skin, with a ready smile and a very open, generous spirit in sharing her story.

She started to share with me their work on Prop. BB ( school bonds for school repairs) and shared the inequitable distribution of having air conditioning units, plumbing and roof repairs in the Valley schools and window security bars on schools of South Central. She went through papers of contracts that the school district had and came up with facts documenting this inequity. Their collective work with the community had reframed the debate and in two years, they secured the funds to repair the schools in South Central and not just for security bars.

We gingerly ate our miso soup of tofu, garlic and hot spices with wild rice. I asked her to take me to an authentic Korean restaurant, not catering to Americans, but one that caters to Koreans, and ordered by Koreans in their own language. She obliged and I found myself in Vermont, sandwiched between a Thai restaurant and a Spanish store nearby in Koreatown. Only in Los Angeles, can I go to three countries without taking an airplane and flying thousands of miles to experience them, all within a few blocks of one another.

Then, our stories converged on our fathers. I shared with her how my father restricted my politcal involvement when I joined the movement against martial law. What is martial law, she asked? Imagine going to schools met by national guards inspecting your backpacks, imagine rushing home so you can beat the curfew of 9 pm, and when you turn your tv or radio channels, only the voice of government is heard. Imagine also that all newspapers are suspended, and many citizens are jailed with courts suspended in the interest of national security.

Suddenly, tears flowed uninterruptedly. The deaths of 6,000 human beings from 62 countries on September 11, 2001 and my father's death last year all made me weep. I was weeping for those lost fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, friends, and soulmates and my father, whose humanity I got to appreciate only when I wrote his obituary. Joanne shared writing a letter to her father about the war and the lives that would be lost and the gap between them.. Oh, if only he could understand me instead of anger me, I could surmise from her sharing.

It made me cry more., You know,until I appreciated my dad and let him know in a letter how much he contributed to me as a person, watching him generously share our meager resources to nuns from my school at Christmas, to his relatives who would travel all day to reach his house in the city, only then did our relationship change, He started to treat me as a human being, on equal footing with him. He started to share his woes with me. On days he would not get a call from me, he would call me at work and just ask how I was doing, sometimes I felt rushed in talking with him, now how I would like to simply replay that so I could take a much longer time to talk with him.

I cried some more. But this time, I realized I was crying because I realized it was time for me to leave my job. Another chapter of my life has opened up, as a writer. I now could feel confident sharing my analysis and thoughts. That night, I could not sleep. I called Carol, one of my best friends who simply listened, shared her anxieties about coming to the event. She felt bare, naked and at the same time, uplifted in spirits. I too felt the same way, I told her. Natural feelings of vulnerability and invincibility I was reassured by another writer.

Talking about Movement, 6000 lives