the wily filipino

Uncle Al’s name has come to be synonymous with the manongs; the early immigrants to come to America from the Philippines. He traveled 10 thousand miles with the manongs on their journey as workers and fighters—marginalized in a society that saw no value in them outside of a cheap source of labor—to be exploited, without a voice, without their story being told. But Uncle Al was their son, their nephew, the one that listened while hanging on to the carabao’s tail. Uncle Al came to know the manongs and what was in their hearts by listening; but not listening to just words but just as intently to what was not said. He could hear volumes in a moment’s silence. He was not like an anthropologist or PHD—he didn’t need to explain or have neat explanations within specified margins. He went with it—surrendering himself in a net that stretched far across the ocean and in the thick mountains of the motherland—yet, he had never traveled to that land himself.