Sunday, August 22, 2010

thoughts of SCOTUS and guys dancing in bahags

shared by Angela Makabali, her cousin

As I just completed my first week of law school, I found myself thinking, "It's not a coincidence that I'm in the Bay for school." The exact hows and whys of my decision to become a lawyer is a long and winding story that covers many events over the last seven years, but there is one event to which I keep going back.

2003, my freshman spring, the University of Michigan affirmative action cases were up for oral argument before the Supreme Court (affectionately known to law students as SCOTUS). I was one of 15 students in a freshman seminar with a law professor who has always been one of my mentors and role models for the type of attorney I want to become. In this seminar, I was able to start exploring the relationship between race and the law, and deepen my interest in civil rights. A couple of classmates and I decided to hop on a bus for a 10 hour ride to DC to hear the oral arguments of such an exciting case.

Getting in after midnight, we slept on a grad student's parents' floor in sleeping bags for a couple hours before heading out to SCOTUS, well before sunrise where we camped out some more. As sleep-deprived as we were, I still remember the awe of seeing those pillars at sunrise, directing my gaze to "Equal justice under law," and having a feeling in my gut that I wanted to do this kind of work in my future.

Fast-forward a few hours after passing through the chambers and catching glimpses of Scalia, Ginsburg, et. al., we began our march from the Court to the National Mall for the rally. During the march, a student reporter approached me and asked for the record, "You're Asian. We don't see a lot of you guys here. Affirmative action hurts you guys, so why are you here?" Taken aback, I sputtered, "Um, because it's the morally right thing to do," which he noted and walked off.

I didn't have a coherent argument, and this really bothered me at the time, and my first thought was to call Cyn. While we saw each other when in the same city, we both had crazy schedules, so we didn't chat by phone often. Something prompted me to call her though. So I called her and asked, "What are the policy reasons for why we support affirmative action again?" After she patiently explained to me the complexities of the Asian American population and institutional racism, we got off the phone. That was the last time we spoke. It was the morning of April 1, 2003.

While she was at UCLA, Cyn's presence throughout the formative years of my life as a high school student significantly shaped my interest in Asian American and Filipino American activism, which came to be a big part of my life in college. From the cultural (taking me to PCNs to see guys dance in bahag--holla!) to the political (I have her copies of the Autobiography of Malcolm X and Ron Takaki's Strangers from a Different Shore) to the personal politics of activist circles (Cyn's mastery of bringing consensus and seeing the bigger picture above the drama), the ways in which she guided and continues to guide me are always present. The awareness of race and politics that she cultivated in me was part of the reason why I sought out that freshman seminar on race and the law, out of which my desire to become a lawyer grew, and, as I start my second week as a 1L at Berkeley Law, I can only think how fitting it is that I've come to the Bay--where I am near my family, and near Cyn.

Monday, August 2, 2010

thoughts of cherished childhood memories

shared by Leslie Chew, her cousin
The last time I saw Ate Cyn was most probably when I was 5 years old before we moved to Manila. Even though I was quite young and it almost seems like a lifetime ago, it's the little things I shared with Ate Cyn that have a special place in my heart and I cherish especially now.

I remember how I refused to take a nap in daycare and preschool, so she and my other ate's would take turns to pick me up before nap time to go home. 
I remember her baby-sitting me usually with Ate VJ. The both of them used to call me "fife" (I have no idea why- till this day). I remember playing hide and seek with her, climbing on the counters, hiding in the kitchen cabinets, running up and down the stairs like crazy chasing me, making little crafts with clothes pins, glitter, googly eyes and colored pipecleaners. 
For things I barely remember, there are pictures to remind me. Like going to Oakland A's games when I was around 3 or 4 years old. Birthdays and parties I was too young to acknowledge with her always carrying me or her guiding my tiny hands with a bat to knock out the Barney piƱata, sliding and swinging in the park, trips to LA, Disneyland and Universal Studios, going to the beach, visiting the Golden Gate Bridge, and her making sure I had my little green pony right beside my seat for long trips.
The last time all of us Pesigan cousins were complete in Manila, it was in 1992 for our Lola's 80th birthday. That Christmas we all attended the annual Estacio reunion and I was tagging along, almost literally attached to Ate Cyn's hip when they did a little performance in nun costumes! 
Little things that sometimes make me wish we didn't move so far away so there could be more of. But at the same time, I'm glad that even for a short while, Ate Cyn was a part of my life.