A space for my thoughts

I didn't realize the holiday season would hit this hard.

For the entire time I have been alive, Decembers were special for my family: my brother, dad and I celebrate our birthdays this month, my parents got married in December and of course, there are festivities that come with celebrating Christmas. We usually had five major dinners: my dad, my brother, and my birthday dinner, my parents' anniversary dinner, and then the midnight meal on the 24th.

In previous years, my family prepared for celebration season starting in November: my mom and I would start plotting our meals, brainstorming on the sequencing of dinners to make sure that there was enough variety in the food that we were eating so we wouldn't be having, like, roasted ham for all five of our dinners. It was exciting (though slightly stressful) trying to figure out what to eat when: did we truly want to order a lechon when it's a. unhealthy and b. it's so big? Did we want to try our luck with all you can eat sushi? How about fried lobster?

Then there came the question of presents.

My dad had a weird hang-up about presents, seeing these as evidence of how much we loved him. This weirdness stems from the fact that growing up, he felt that his birthday was...well, something his family just forgot. As the third son in a family of five, my dad always felt that he was in the background, with major milestones such as his birthday not even meriting much celebration. In fact, my mom would call my dad's family while my dad was still asleep to remind them to call him, and to wish him happy birthday, something that my uncle still "forgot" to do despite my mom's reminders.

There was a lot of trauma there, which I understand as explaining why my dad was so exacting about the gifts we gave, trying to see whether our gifts were given out of true love for him or whether we were doing so in a rote manner. Although I was frustrated because this meant it was so hard to get my dad a good gift - Beatles paraphernalia and biographies were inevitably deemed to be written by hacks, fancy shirts from fancy stores were a waste of money, books by authors that I thought my dad would like were not as good as writers who my dad considdered the masters - I realized, in my thirties and after my own stint in therapy, that my dad's tendency to criticize gifts were his trauma response.

Yet, later in life, he stopped being critical and grew to appreciate all of the gifts that his grandchildren gave, which he saw as being given out of genuine love. I remember a previous birthday when my then 4 year old showed the dance that she had prepared for her beloved nono. The dance went on...and on...and on...and on. I swear, it was a 15 minute dance recital, with SP clad in a pale green tinker bell costume and while I was getting antsy and started looking at the clock, my dad sat riveted, clapping his hands and saying that this was the best birthday gift EVER. So December became easier and less fraught when his grandchildren came.

(Pictured: here are my parents in December 2020, celebrating their anniversary with take-out from a now closed Chinese restaurant that served lobster)

These days, grief is not an elephant - it isn't so big and so consuming that I feel its constant weight bearing down on me, as it was in the first few weeks after my dad passed. This time, grief is a fox. It sneaks up on me, unexpectedly, catching me unaware.

It snuck up on me the other week. I was at a neighborhood coffee shop, with my laptop, seeking a space where I could hold an online meeting. I was fixated on things I needed to accomplish that day, referring to my internal check-list. I walked towards the corner table, and, on my way there, a mom apologized because her stroller was in the way. I smiled hurriedly, told her not to worry and sat down. As I was arranging my things on the table, I looked up and saw that the mom was with her parents, with her dad cooing at his grandchild. It was a warm, lovely moment and I could tell how happy the four of them were, the baby lapping up all the attention. I felt a pang hit me and remembered, all at once, the love that my dad showered on my kids -- the excitement of seeing both his grandchildren for the very first time, the delight that he showed in their every activity, the first time SP and I were on a flight to Vancouver and he and my mom picked us up from the airport whereby they left me with all the bags and swooped up SP, the songs he sang for and with my kids, the conversations he had with them about music and history and books and travel.

(Welcoming his newest grandchild and celebrating kindergarten graduation)

My dad was gentler with his grandkids than he was with me and my brother. My kids loved him unconditionally, sought him out, wanted to learn from him: "how do you play the guitar, nono?," they would ask or "nono, can we sing a Christmas song together?" Our relationship with our parents are always complicated and with me and my dad, it was sometimes rocky. But his grandkids gave my dad the gift of constant love, admiration, and respect. They accepted and appreciated him for who he was - their nono who cooks them omelettes and sneaks in a McDonalds or Tim Horton's run (much to my dismay), who showers them with praises and compliments, who watches every kindergarten and daycare graduation, who comes to sing songs for their daycare during parent/grandparent 'talent' day. They delighted in his presence and him in theirs.

I remembered all of the moments my dad shared with his grandkids in a quick mental photo reel, all of these memories just flashing by in quick succession, all in the space of a few seconds. I felt unbearably sad that my kids won't have my dad with them to celebrate future milestones, but also felt so much gratitude that they were well and truly loved and adored by their grandpa. My mom told me a few weeks ago that my dad was really looking forward to watching my kids grow up, and I hope, wherever he is, that he is still keeping watch.

Grief also caught me unaware today. I am writing this post in Prince George, BC. Because I had a long day, rather than exploring, I opted to go for dinner at the White Spot across the street from my hotel. As someone who lived in BC, I always had fond memories of White Spot. As I sat by myself, perusing the menu, I suddenly got hit by a memory of me, my parents and my brother, newly arrived immigrants in Canada, going to the White Spot in Richmond Centre to try something different from the Asian food that we always ate. I remember at that time in 1999 that the menu had meatloaf and mashed potatoes. So we went to White Spot, which to me represented quintessential Canadian food. I don't even think my dad liked White Spot but we went there anyway to make me happy.

You see, my dad did that - he always centred me, my mom and my brother's preferences for food, for family outings, even for movies. My dad absolutely did not want to watch the movie "Sense & Sensibility", with Emma Thompson and Kate Winslet, but my mom and I were into Jane Austen and so we went, my dad grumbling later that Emma Thompson, at 36, was truly miscast when playing Elinor, who in the book was supposed to be in her twenties.

And so, there I was, earlier this evening, sitting by myself in a booth at the White Spot at Prince George, trying to hide from my server that I was getting teary-eyed lest she think I was having an overly emotional reaction to perusing the menu. It is only now, as I write this, that I realized that I finally understand what Michelle Zauner wrote about in her memoir, Crying in H Mart, which had a scene of her crying while walking up and down the grocery store as she remembered her mom. "How can I be having such an emotional reaction when sitting in a White Spot, for God's Sake?," I chastised myself, as I tried to read the menu through blurry eyes. "Get it together."

"From the belly of the best, hands-off the Middle East!"

This Saturday, I was with other protestors in front of the White House calling for a free Palestine, a permanent ceasefire, and the need to hold the US war machine accountable for its acts of aggression. While chanting and marching and listening to speeches, hazy memories of the lessons that my dad tried to teach me about colonialism came to me, unbidden:

I was 9 or 10 when listening to long-running debates between my dad and his dad, my Lolo Leon, and also my dad and his father-in-law, my Lolo Turong, about whether the Philippines should continue allowing the United States to operate military bases in the Philippines. Like a sponge, I paid attention to what was being said, only half-understanding the context but nevertheless riveted by all these male elders - all lawyers, all opinionated, all convinced that they were correct - eloquently refuting each other. I liked being in these 'male' spaces where politics was discussed: it was way better being here than watching Filipino daytime variety shows like Eat Bulaga! with the others. My dad was unwavering in his conviction that the US military bases had to be vacated and that the so-called security protections that the US provided were non-existent. I remember being confused about what they meant. Why was my dad so adamant that the Philippines needed to get rid of Americans? Why was he so upset about their continued presence - shouldn't we be grateful to Americans like Douglas MacArthur, who 'liberated' the Philippines? Wasn't this what my history teacher taught us? Later, as I thought of these discussions, I soon became worried what the US departure would mean for me. Specifically, I worried about accessing the amenities at Camp John Hay in Baguio - historically a US military reservation - where we regularly went for summer vacations. If the US military left, does this mean that the really cool, US-style ice cream parlor that served yummy sundaes would be gone too? How about mini-golf? Also, what about Subic Bay? If the Americans left, then where else would we get cheap American goods, like the Kraft Dinner mac and cheese that I loved so much? I decided right then and there that my dad was wrong and that I wanted the US to stay in the Philippines. (I can't believe I was a little imperialist, all for the sake of maintaining my access to American-style ice cream sundaes and KD).

In my grade 9 social studies class, we were studying the 'Arab-Israeli' war. A major class assignment was for all members of the class to take part in a role-play, brokering peace negotiations. I was assigned to be Yasser Arafat, trying to work out a settlement with Yitzhak Rabin. We each had to deliver speeches, role playing the historical figure we were assigned. My dad learned about the assignment and was excited. However, when he saw the books I had checked out from the library, he was dismayed. He said that these books did not appropriately give credence to Palestinian struggles. He picked one up, read a chapter, looked at the book jacket and threw the book on the floor, furious. "These books only tell part of the history," he said forcefully,"These are selective! This is propaganda!" Being thirteen and generally inclined to do the exact opposite of what my parents advised, I rolled my eyes: was my dad truly saying that he knew more than the writers of these books? That he knew more than my teacher? (Note to readers: this was exactly what he was saying - my dad was well-read and kept up-to-date with political affairs and in a different life would've pursued his PhD in political science). I only partially listened as he spoke, tuning out while he talked about colonialism and occupation. Why does he always have to bring up colonialism?, I internally fumed. Later, as I wrote my speech as Arafat, my dad decided that he would provide annotated speaking notes (!). I decided the best way forward was to try to reconcile what he wrote with what I wrote. I took out words like 'nakba' -- what was that? Was that really important? Why was my dad putting in references that we didn't learn about? Also, his speech was too long! We were only supposed to talk for 5 minutes. In the end, I used my speech and rewrote parts of his. I received an A+ for my speech (and in fact won the Social Studies Award for that year!) , which my dad was happy about, but not without reminding me that Israeli aggression in Palestine is ongoing and unceasing.

As the school year continues in earnest and life transitions to its 'normal,' frenetic pace, it's easy to be lulled into thinking that nothing is amiss. I have so much work, so many graduate students, so many professional obligations. And as a parent, there are also so many things to check off my to-do list, from remembering to sign school permission slips to various important dates, including birthday parties, deadlines for extracurricular sign-ups and many more. In some ways, it is good that there is a script for us to follow because then, life can continue.

But keeping busy hasn't made grieving easier. Grief has caught me unaware, as I blogged about last time, causing a torrential outpouring of despair. (Much love to my friend, J, who I saw afterwards and who immediately led me out of the conference hall so we could just chill). But grief also seeps into the edges of my awareness even during mundane moments: I hear the beats of a Beatles song on the radio (my dad is a Beatles superfan, as pictured below, with my mom as they crossed Abbey Road for the tenth time in tribute to that iconic Beatles album cover), I catch sight of an older Asian guy who from behind could be my dad, I read the news and see an article that would no doubt provoke a reaction in my dad.

It is in these moments that I get unbearably sad, not so much that I break down and weep, but moments when I need to take a minute to breathe. I don't preoccupy myself with other tasks - I lean into the sadness because isn't it true what they say about how the depth of your sadness relates to the depth of your love?

I am still constantly haunted by how I never got to say a final goodbye to my dad. And there have been many moments when I've asked for a sign from the universe that my dad, wherever he is, is ok.

Maybe me wanting a sign has led me to dream of my dad.

One dream, just a few weeks after my dad passed, featured my dad with Lolo Turong and Lola Pining - my maternal grandparents who I miss and think about daily. We were at a family event in Quezon City, at my Tita G's house. Everyone was there: there was food, there was a lot of chaos, many things were happening simultaneously. As is the norm for these events, there was a lot of tumult: people talking, laughing, arguing, eating. My dad, Lolo and Lola weren't talking but were clustered together, smiling and watching the gathering. They weren't separate from the group but were part of it.

I woke up, feeling...relieved? Confused? Happy? I also felt a pervasive sense of longing. But I felt lighter.

Last night, I had another dream of my dad. I was in a cranky, crotchety mood yesterday. I was snapping at everyone, impatient with MOTL and my kids, frustrated with Toronto public transit. I was also morose: the entire day, I had a horrific feeling at the pit of my stomach that wouldn't go away, a feeling of dread.

The way I felt in this dream was, well, normal. I no longer despaired. I felt the way I remember feeling before my dad died: unburdened by grief and unworried. I was in Manila, seated at a restaurant with dark brown chairs made out of narra wood, capiz windows half open bringing in the sunlight. Across from me was my dad. We were just hanging out. In front of us were different beverages: calamansi juice, tea, water. We were talking -- I don't know about what -- but it was beautiful because it was so run-of-the-mill. Nothing stood out about our conversation: maybe we were talking about the kids? About my mom? About politics? About writing? I stood up after our conversation and asked, "will you be ok?" My dad nodded and said -- and I can hear his voice so clearly -- "I'm ok." Then he smiled.

I woke up. I was unsettled ; I wasn't sure where I was, I kept trying to go back to sleep so I could return to this restaurant, I wanted to recapture that moment.

It took a long time for me to get my day started. I spent the first half hour of the morning drinking coffee, eating toast, staring blankly out the kitchen window. And for the rest of the day, I felt hazy: I felt like I was in a dream and was watching myself go through the motions of my day. Look, there I am, boxing. Ah, there I am again, having a series of meetings. And look, there I am, finally heading home from work. Is there an alternate reality where my dad and I were really at that restaurant and where we could continue conversing? And that my current reality, facing the rest of my life without my dad, is just a dream?

I know that there are a lot of interpretations one can have about what dreams signify. It could be my subconscious helping me process what is, by all accounts, an enormous and devastating loss. It could be dreams born out of intense longing. But could these dreams also be messages telling me that, wherever he is, my dad is doing okay?

I am at a conference this week, where a book that I co-wrote was a finalist for an award and got an honourable mention. The book itself took forever to write, for a variety of different reasons - being on the job market, getting pregnant, new immigration policies, getting pregnant again, COVID...the list goes on. And the review process was rocky in that the Press sent the book to five reviewers, one of whom was somewhat hostile in that the reviewer thought my co-authors and I were being too critical of Canada's immigration policies (lol, ok, bro).

So it was great to get the book recognized and fun to celebrate and have dinner with friends in a cute restaurant.

Yet as I sit here today, trying to plan my day for the conference, I feel a wave of loss hitting me, a wave so torrential that I have to stamp it down - hard - because it would be difficult for me to get on with my day (and get on with my professional obligations during this conference) if I ride the wave out.

Because you know who would've been thrilled about the book getting recognized, who would brag about it to everyone (in an embarrassing dad way)? My dad.

Sometimes, I feel that my dad was too extra. Some examples?

A few months ago, he went to a reunion of his classmates at the University of the Philippines College of Law. One of his classmates held a prominent position in the Department of Labour, and my dad gave him a copy of my other book, on migrant domestic workers' activism. His friend politely thanked him for the book and mentioned that he would read it, and have people in his department read it too.

When said book first received a book contract, and won a 'best dissertation award/First Book Prize,' my dad emailed a newspaper columnist whose writings he followed and told them about my work (!), even sending excerpts. The columnist responded kindly and said they'd look at my work.

When planning my wedding with MOTL, and we were figuring out what giveaways to give, my dad - in utter seriousness - said that we should buy every single guest a copy of the first book I co-edited. I, of course, said no.

In all of these instances, I did what children always do: I shake my head, I internally groan, and I say, "papa, please don't." I felt embarrassed because I didn't want such a huge fuss to be made. In truth, I also wanted my dad to calm down. I'm proud, too, about my accomplishments, but can we not celebrate quietly?

Now, I realize in retrospect that part of my dad's excitement stemmed from seeing me do things that, in a different life, he might have done. You see, in his twenties, my dad received a full scholarship to do his PhD in Political Science at Harvard. Being a kid from the Philippines, this was a big deal. But because of the fact that he was already with my mom, and also because he truly loved the study and practice of law, he opted instead to be a lawyer. This was a career he loved - almost to the exclusion of everything else - and so it was the right choice for him.

But I do think seeing me do graduate work in Political Science, and then eventually become a professor in this field, was exciting for my dad. My dad was a beautiful writer, was an intensely philosophical and thoughtful, and had always told me that one of his dreams for the future was to translate works of Political Theory in Tagalog. So my journey now resembled what his journey might have been.

Anyway, here is a picture of my dad, front and centre, at my book launch last November. Now, more than ever, I am feeling the intensity of my loss.

It is August 27, and in less than a week, the school year will begin. In the lead up to the start of the school year, I've had an influx of meetings and a noticeable increase in emails. In many of these interactions come the question:

"How was your summer?"

It is a hard question to answer. In all cases, I respond honestly. It was a terrible summer, my dad unexpectedly passed away, my family and I are still processing our grief. Sometimes, people respond compassionately. A few times, it is clear that I've made a faux pas, making me realize that social norms dictate that when people ask how you are, most don't really want to know.

I am also sharply aware that there is a time limit to how long you're expected to grieve. A few days is understandable, a few weeks maybe, but a few months? Then people are just being self-indulgent!

That my workplace offers a one-month bereavement leave is apparently a rarity since other workplaces, from what I hear, only offer five days. It is cruel to expect people who have recently lost a love one to - what? - attend a meeting to figure out service commitments for the year? Who gives a shit? Why does that matter?

So how was my summer?

Here's the real answer:

It began with a beautiful trip to the cottage, where my dad read at the dock, hung out with us at the beach and the lake, and even played table tennis. My mom told me that my dad was a table tennis shark in his youth, and it was pretty cool to see him play with SP, aggressively ducking and dodging and watching the ball eagle-eyed.

Another favourite memory was him having ice cream with us, which, being diabetic, he normally opted out of, but this time decided to eat with his grandkids.

That trip was idyllic. Time stood still. Was it 9 am when we were at the dock? How did it become 3 pm so quickly? Should we figure out lunch? Should we go to town? Did we want to take a nap? Or did we want to keep reading? Having no obligations meant that we could do whatever we wanted, and so could relax and unwind. We didn't know then that this pleasant, run-of-the-mill, beginning of summer trip would be the last we'd have with my dad.

The contrast between the slow pace of that week is sharp compared to the rapid escalation of events just whirling by on the week of June 30. (And readers, trigger warning - this gets somewhat bleak).

At 8 am, I woke up with a text from my brother saying, "Papa is dead." When I saw all of the missed text messages and phone calls that accrued in the last half hour, I realized belatedly that something horrific had happened. The entire car ride to my parents house, I was in a state of cold numbness. Part of me didn't believe what my brother texted. Maybe I would open the door and my dad would be ok. Maybe they just had a scare.

I was wrong. When I entered the house, I saw my dad lying on the floor by the couch, an orange blanket over him, my mom and my brother huddled together, ashen-faced. A cop with a notepad was asking questions.

And here time moved so quickly that it was hard to catch up. I couldn't even take a breath. I was hit with information: my dad passed away on the couch, where my mom and brother found him. They estimated that he probably passed at 3:30 am or 4 am. He was watching Netflix, which was still on the tv. Apparently, at 7:30 am, they called the paramedics. My brother was asked by 911 to try to resuscitate my dad, to no avail.

At 8:30 am, the cop who was left there was still trying to contact the coroner. "It's a busy day," he said wryly. Left unsaid was that that Sunday, June 30, was a busy day for deaths. I remember thinking that for him, and for the coroners, that day was just another day at work. I made a mental note that there were procedures we had to follow, that I had to be an adult, that I couldn't ask him to leave right now even if I wanted to have just a minute to myself to figure out what the fuck just happened because there were forms that had to be filled out. He couldn't leave unless the coroner released a report. Catatonic with shock, my brother, mom and I tried to confer, whispering, trying to make sense of events.

At 9 am, the cop asked us where my dad's funeral home was and what we wanted to do now. He still couldn't reach the coroner, but he could have the coroner fax the report to the funeral home.

Decisions had to be made.

There was no funeral home on standby. And now we had to get one.

My only point of reference (I shit you not) was the tv show, "Six Feet Under," when it came to the logistics of death. After googling funeral homes in Toronto, I called one, and made arrangements for 'a transfer of care.' My mom, brother and I were trying to process what was happening, and had to figure out whether we wanted the funeral services in Canada, or whether we'd make arrangements to go to the Philippines.

At 10 am, the cop got ahold of the coroner, and asked about whether we'd want an autopsy. My mom said no. I had made arrangements with a funeral home for the 'transfer of care' and they would liaise with the corner.

Decisions had to be made.

At 1 pm, the 'care transfer' team came to take my dad away. This was the last time we'd see him before the funeral, they told us. I asked if they could come back in half an hour. In that half hour - the only time since 8:30 am when we were finally alone - we wept.

At 2 pm, we took an Uber to the funeral home closest to my parents' house, where we were presented with a list of costs and options. Did we want a cremation? Did we want a religious service? Did we want a reception? What casket did we want to have - here, have a look at options at the back. Did we want to bring our own caterer or select from a list of caterers who were familiar with the venue? How about flowers?

Decisions had to be made.

At 3:30 pm, hungry and in shock, the three of us tried to eat at a nearby restaurant. I couldn't eat. I think we want to a ramen restaurant, which I normally would slurp, but everything tasted like cardboard. We tried to plan logistics but because the next day, Canada Day, was a holiday, nothing could be done because all business establishments were closed.

The next day, Canada Day allowed us to pause our planning. It was an odd day. We took my kids to High Park. We knew that this was the calm before the storm. It also dragged longer, in anticipation of what was to come.

And for the rest of the week, time sped up, again.

Many many many decisions had to be made, the bulk of which I, as the eldest daughter, had to decide. There were two events, and others surrounding these events: main events were the funeral service and the reception but there were also logistics to handle, including figuring out the transnational virtual component of our celebration. There were family members to host and to manage, video tributes coming in, a slide show to compile, eulogies to write. Catering menus to consider. Biblical passages to assign. A cantor to hire. A schedule to oversee. All of this had to be decided in four days, given that the funeral and reception were on a Saturday, six days after my dad passed. And amid it all, we still had to live: eating, bathing, and cleaning were still necessary.

Then after the rush of the events being planned, time once again stood still. The silence and calm of the days following the funeral were hard to navigate because it was in this very silence and calm that it became clear what we've lost. We went to the lake and to the beach, again, and while it was nice to be by the water and fun to make sandcastles with the kids, the looming absence of my dad, who normally would be there, haunted us.

In my month of bereavement leave, we also had to deal with a lot of paperwork and bureaucracy, which again was cruel, because certain funds would no longer be accessible past a certain point. Beyond this, though, we just were...there. Trying to remember to eat. (Here, the constant influx of food from friends left at our door helped us remember to eat. I am forever grateful for this act of kindness).

Time stretched long during the day, and sometimes became unbearable at night. I would check the clock. Midnight. 1 am. 1:15 am. 2 am. Why was sleep not coming? I belatedly realized that I was subconsciously keeping vigil till after 3 am most nights, which is when my brother had a final conversation with my dad. Then I would fall asleep, exhausted, after. Early Sundays are especially horrific. Because my dad passed early on a Sunday, Saturday night to Sunday morning have become my haunting hours. My body freezes, my mind whirls, I can't sleep.

Yet even amid all of the sadness this summer, there were still moments of beauty this summer. Normally, I would try to sneak in bits of work, even when I'm off. I would sneak a peak into my inbox to make sure that I didn't miss anything. I would try to jot down a paragraph for a paper. I would look at my WhatsApp messages to see whether I was needed by someone, somewhere.

This time, I had no desire to do so. I was only aware of where I was in the present moment. I saw beauty in the mundane. I was perfectly content to be at the splash pad with my kids, laughing at both of them racing each other to see who would get to the button that would activate the sprinklers once more. I loved digging into the minutia of the University of Alabama dorm room where Kiley Reid's new novel, "Such a Fun Age," is set. I was perfectly okay going to Home Depot numerous times, wandering the aisles with MOTL and my kids, debating the merits of different shades of light blue paint for our living room. I didn't have to be anywhere but there, and so I was fully present. Who knew that bereavement would allow me to finally learn all the lessons that meditation apps have tried to teach me about only being in the moment?

Following bereavement leave, with time speeding up once again, and as I return to work, I oftentimes have surreal, out-of-body moments where it becomes clear that the urgency that workplace missives demand is fabricated and made-up. That a lot of us have been trained to jump and run. That we're all perpetually trying to vie for the legitimacy of our presence in this institution. That we are all indoctrinated into publishing or perishing, with many women of color professors actually dying prematurely young because the corrosive nature of academia have taken a health toll. (The term slow violence, I think, is applicable here).

I don't want to play this game anymore.

In one such surreal, out-of-body moment, when I was exchanging messages with a friend, I realized that I didn't have to. This friend wanted to apply for a grant, but wanted to meet THAT week even when I couldn't, and when I said this wasn't possible because I had no childcare that week, then said that most of the other partners could not meet in September, the implication being that I had to make myself available. Whereas old me would have contorted herself, parked her kids in front of the TV to try to make the meeting work, now, I realize that I have control over my time. And so I backed out of the grant.

This doesn't mean I don't think time is important. I am beholden to workplace requirements: for example, I have to teach at certain times, or go to mandatory meetings. I also want to make sure my graduate students finish their dissertations before their funding runs out. And I am beholden to research partners who are facing actual time pressures: their tenure clock is non-negotiable and so we have to work together to churn out that article. I also feel an obligation to my community: there's a deportation order for someone, and so it was important that we write our support letters asap!

But ultimately, being selective about what to focus on, on what truly matters, is the only way for me to survive the year.

So, really, how was my summer?

I returned to work on Friday and was hit with an avalanche of emails. While I was dreading opening my inbox, after awhile, I realized two things: first, that while there are emails that require your attention, they almost always get resolved without you responding and second, there are matters that do require your attention, but aren't as urgent as they appear. This has led me to reach the following epiphanies:

Our importance within institutions (academic or otherwise) is over-stated-- institutions will continue without us, even in the face of death;

"Urgency" in academic contexts is, in many ways, misplaced.

The people at work who I (we all) should hold close are those who step up in ways that matter.

The latter, I think, is what I need to remember. Sincere emails of condolence are kind and much appreciated (more on this below). But you know who truly have your back, those who you should keep close in your inner circle? Your work friends/colleagues (frolleagues?) who make sure that when you get back from leave that they've actually reduced your work load so you won't have to deal with it, people who get how excruciatingly hard it is some days to even wake up and try go on as 'normal' (whatever that means) and tell you, after you check in to ask about a specific task, "we've got this. Don't even think about it." While I've long since understood just how corrosive institutions are, it is people who have your back that make these institutions humane because they know, as well as I do, that when the time comes when they are facing horrific shit, I will also have their backs.

What I also appreciate is sincerity. I can smell from a mile away folks who are emailing to "check in" with me, but are really trying to see whether I'm "okay" now so they can line me up to do tasks for them. Such is the uncaring nature of neoliberal capitalist institutions: people within them have been so used to seeing each other instrumentally that "check ins" are equated not with actual care and compassion, but are a way to surmise whether the person can be tasked with yet one more thing.

All of these epiphanies are making me realize, again and again (and again and again and again) what I've known: that we are more than work. That we have value beyond what we give our employers. That we matter because of who we are, not because of what we can produce.

Having these epiphanies have been monumentally helpful in guiding me to recalibrate my expectations about work and my presence: that, at the end of the day, what matters is who we love and who love us in turn, and that getting caught up again in the academic arms race of publishing, emailing, grant-applying and grant-receiving means prioritizing work over self, work over life.

One regret that I have is that even as I have tried so hard to reorient myself away from the academic arms race - documented in Academic Aunties - I relapse and forget to find an identity outside work. There have been multiple times in my life when I prioritized work over living. The one that still haunts me is opting to finish the academic term and fulfill my teaching commitments in 2013 despite receiving news that my grandma - my lola Pining - was diagnosed at 89 with pancreatic cancer. When I got the news, it was November, and I thought, foolishly in hindsight, that I would finish out the term and head back as soon as December break started, especially since the doctor's prognosis was that my grandma had a "few more months." Yet my grandma died weeks after this diagnosis which meant I wasn't able to see her one last time. Here is a blog post I wrote in her honor.

Another memory that haunts me is my assumption that my dad and I still have a lot of time together. As we prepare for his 40th day death anniversary, which my community celebrates because it signifies the deceased's transition into the afterlife, I am haunted by how much I took my dad's presence for granted. One decision I wish I could undo was in the summer of 2008. Rather than heading back to see my parents in Vancouver, I opted to stay in Toronto so I could keep studying for my PhD comprehensive exams. I had the option of writing the exam in May, which all of the professors teaching the class encouraged us to do. They were telling us not to worry, that we would all very likely pass. But because I was caught up in the academic arms race, I opted to write the exam in August so I could spend an extra two months studying. Our professors pretty much told us that we would pass, but I didn't believe them, and so spent most of the summer in the library rereading Robert Bates and James Scott. Why didn't I just write the exam in May? Why did I have to try to not just know the material but try to master it? Who was I trying to impress?

I wish I knew then how finite life was. I wish I'd decided to spend an entire summer with my dad and mom in Vancouver. I wish we had taken more family trips. I wish I had treasured evenings spent going with my family to the Richmond night market, doing day trip drives to Seattle, hanging out at home and chatting. Even though my family, like many, has had its share of turmoil, my mom, dad, brother and I - pictured above, in my high school graduation - actually like each other's company. We know each other's quirks and tendencies. There's a comfort with knowing that in our family, we can be who we are, because there is unconditional acceptance.

Hello Tumblr, I am back.

When I started this blog, I was 30 (!). I was a grad student - hence the name: grad student drone; I was trying to finish my dissertation; I wasn't yet married to MOTL and thoughts of children were completely out of my radar. I blogged fairly regularly, then intermittently, and then rarely. The last post I made was in October, 2017. At that point, I was a year plus into a tenure-track job, I had one kid and was knee-deep in my first year of therapy, after suffering from a debilitating bout of postpartum depression. I thought I'd blog again, but always had something else to do: whether it was hustling to get tenure, realizing that the hustle was misplaced and that the rules were rigged and that academic meritocracy was a myth (all of which I speak about with awesome guests in my podcast, Academic Aunties), trying to survive a pandemic, and - quite honestly - trying to find an identity outside academia. The years since were also full of lots of love -- MOTL and I now have two kids! -- but also a lot of heartbreak, including pregnancy losses and the loss of loved ones.

And it is loss that brings me again to this blog. You see, exactly a month ago today, on June 30, 2024, I lost my dad, Leonides Fulgueras Tungohan, who was 73 years old.

Here he is, at 28, posing with a cig, with shaggy black hair, a precursor to today's shaggy, K-pop hair styles:

The loss was unexpected: my dad had health conditions, including gout and diabetes, but he wasn't terminally ill. Our last conversation was me, kissing his cheek, and telling him "I love you" and asking that he "drive safe" after he and my mom drove away from our house following my kids' dance recitals. My last sighting of my dad was when he was walking behind my mom while my mom and I Face-Timed, wincing in pain as he tried to walk to the couch. "Your dad is having another gout flare-up," my mom explained. I didn't think anything of it. When my dad peered into my mom's computer screen and saw that my kid, SG, was there, he brightened up, as he always did when he saw my kids, and said hi.

To say that these final moments haunt me is to make a huge fucking understatement. In fact, it would be no exaggeration to say that the last month has been a blur. It has been a month of complete and utter heartbreak.

I vacillate between two modes: debilitating, heart-wrenching, absolute sadness or run-of-the-mill sadness. When I feel the former, the enormity of my loss sometimes hits me, so hard, that I have to grip something -- a ledge, a chair, a table -- to keep from falling. When I feel the latter, I'm only kinda sad because I get caught up in day-to-day tasks, such as putting my kids to bed or doing the laundry. In these everyday mundane moments, my sadness is like a low hum -- it's there, in the background, but not so painful that it becomes debilitating.

Whether it's the former or the latter, there isn't a second in the days since June 30 that I am not sharply, keenly, viscerally aware that my dad is no longer here. It takes monumental effort to tamp it all down because when I allow myself to feel the full range of my grief, I collapse. And I can't collapse, not when I still have to live, not when there's so much shit to do, because what is most cruel about death is that with death comes a lot of work. Work that tends to fall on women. Work that tends to fall on eldest daughters. Work that is layered on top of the other work that we've got to still do, from paid work to social reproductive work.

One of my lowest moments in the last week was needing to find space to grieve, by myself, without interruption. And so I bought a ticket to watch a movie - Fly Me to the Moon - by myself. Sitting at the very back, watching couples and friends in front of me murmur and laugh among themselves, I could finally, in the dark, just be.

Having a space to just be is also why I am returning to this blog because it provides me a space to process and find a bit of a reprieve from all sorts of expectations. It's also a way for me to remember my dad, to think of him, to place my memories of who he is in written form. This is also going to be an experiment for me because I want to see just how the next year will be for me. A friend, S, who also lost her dad a few years ago, told me that grief is all-consuming in the beginning but that eventually, you make peace with it and that grief will almost be like a friend, who is always just there, whose presence you just get used to. So my commitment, on day one of my grief diaries, is to track whether I will ever make peace with my grief. Will grief be a friend who is always just there? Because right now, grief is (still) all-consuming and doesn't seem to want to give me a break. Grief isn't a friend yet. Grief and I haven't made peace yet. I have complicated feelings about grief: I want grief to just leave me alone, to stop suffocating me in its pervasiveness, but I also want grief not to ever leave. Because I fear that if grief leaves, does that mean my dad and my memories of him does too?

Along the way, I might write about work and my efforts to truly pivot away from prioritizing work over everything: if there is anything I now know, with absolute clarity, is that life is fucking short, and we all need to prioritize what matters. I might also write about my kids as they deal with the loss of their grandpa, about how my family and I reconfigure our lives to see what happens next. I will also write about the (gendered) work that accompanies death and dying and how the business of death is so grossly capitalist. Hey, I'm a researcher! I can't turn that part of my brain off!

You know how there are stories of how Olympic athletes have legendary motivation? That they work hard and that they train and that it is never ever enough to win the race - that it’s important to beat world records? That they get up at the crack of dawn and practice over and over and over, with a single-minded determination to overcome the limitations of human capabilities to achieve feats of endurance and strength?

Or how about the world-class researcher, who foregoes any semblance of a personal life or a family life? Who is so motivated by the need to contribute to the ‘canon’ of their field that they work day-in and day-out? Who dedicates weekends to refining their research questions, analyzing data, and working? 

There are countless examples I can cite of people gifted with determination, who want to exceed the bar, and in fact who want to set the bar so high that it would be hard for others to follow.

Yeah, that’s really not me.

Although I have plenty of moments where I get competitive, and where the ‘muse’ strikes, and I write, and research, and work extremely hard, my default mode is to watch the Usain Bolts of the word whizz on bye. “Good for you, bro,” I’ve cheered Bolt on in the sidelines while munching on chips and dip. And when the Nobel Prize winners were announced this week, and I read about how yet another economist from the University of Chicago won, I mentally gave him a high-five in my head and thought - and I am being honest - “it must suck to have to work so hard all the time. I bet he has a supportive partner who does all the care work. Hmmm. I hope she has support. It must suck to have an absentee partner.”

My default mode when working out is to set the bar so low so that when I am done, I pat myself on the back and think, “naillleeeddd itttt!” 30 minutes on the Elliptical or the tread-mill while burying my nose in a book and then a few minutes of lifting weights 2 or 3 times a week? DONE! I am practically Serena Williams at this point!

And as many of my readers know, I have started a writing log, which has worked well but is making me wonder, hmmm, maybe I should up the stakes. So my goal is to write every week day for 30 minutes uninterrupted. It has yielded good results and has led me to finish my book’s introduction and part of chapter one in two weeks. But you know what’s shitty? When I am done with my requisite 30 minutes, I stop, smile, and think, “yay! I’m amazing! Now let’s do some mindless Internet surfing.”

What I need to do right now is to find ways to raise the bar a teensy bit higher, both when working out and when writing. I don’t need to win a gold medal. (Though being a [late] millennial, I sometimes think when watching a sport like, say, curling, “those folks look like my accountant. If I expend more effort, maybe I too can win a gold medal in curling? Hmmm). I don’t even want to be Super Amazing and Brilliant and Wise Professor of the Year. 

I have blogged before about my many efforts in the course of writing my dissertation to actually sit down and write. I gave up cheese. I went on a writer’s retreat. I waited for the muse to come. Then I just finished my dissertation over several weeks in a burst of inspiration/desperation because dammit, I was just going to be done. This meant that I checked out at home and spent all of my time writing. MOTL took care of the household chores and fed me. I became a hermit. Looking back, it was probably a low period of my life. But it was probably necessary to go through all of that because I had a deadline. If I didn’t defend my dissertation at a specific time period, then I wouldn’t be able to take up my postdoc. Then what?

Now, though, things have changed. I no longer have days - nay, weeks and months - that I can devote solely to my dissertation. I do not have free time! I am a parent. I can’t just check out of being a mom! I can’t tell SP, “ok, kid, go feed yourself. Mama has to write”. I can’t peace out on my family and be like, “yeah, I don’t feel like being a parent.” And I know that fellow academics do that - mostly men, I suspect - but I can’t nor do I want to. Because guess what? I actually want to spend time with SP and with MOTL. SP is now 19 months and I want to hang out with her. I want to spend my early evenings coloring with her, or cuddling, or joking around. Is that a revolutionary thing to say? I love my job but it’s not the only thing in my life. 

I also a prof. A junior prof. I’ve already talked about my impostor syndrome and how weird it is to land a job in this market. I am grateful. To get a job in this market is a miracle. But the thing is, as a prof, I also have attendant responsibilities that make it hard to write. I have service work. I have students. I have so many meetings to attend. 

In short, I actually have to get organized. I can no longer rely on boom and bust periods of writing, where I can spend days (weeks?) not writing, and then BOOM! Inspiration hits and then I can write. If I wait for inspiration or for a huge chunk of my time to write, then I will never write.

And so, readers of my blog, I am sorry to say that I actually now have a system for writing. Yes, I, the person who used to think of schedules as, like, an unbearable imposition on my free will and my autonomy now adheres to one.

Want to hear about how I write? (Non-academics and non-writers, feel free to stop reading. Because is there anything more precious that reading about writers write about writing? Ew.)

1. For the past week, the very first thing I do - before even checking email and after I say goodbye to SP at daycare - is write. 

2. I set a timer for thirty minutes. I write without stopping for thirty minutes, even when I suspect that what I am writing is crap. I just write.

3. When the timer stops, I put the time I started writing, the time I ended writing, my word count, how I felt about writing that day, what worked for me that day, and the biggest challenges I faced when writing. Yes, I actually document this. It is kinda like a writing fit-bit. The idea is that once you see how much you’ve accomplished - even if it is through superficial markers like word counts and time spent writing - you get motivated.

4. I share my writing log with a few friends in order to make us accountable. At the bottom of the log, there is a space for comments. Mostly, people write things like, “yay! This is awesome! So much progress.” It’s just a corny way to show love and to get people motivated!

And so I’ve only been doing this for a week (excluding weekends). Since I started, I’ve been able to write consistently for thirty minutes, and some days, I’ve even been able to write for an hour straight. It was harder for me to write during my teaching days but still, I forced myself to wake up earlier so I could do so. I needed to just put writing into my schedule even during the busiest of days because otherwise, it would just fall by the wayside. My goal during this entire week is to finish the introduction to my book, which I’ve almost done. 

The results? 

265 minutes of writing 

4,043 words

Is it good writing? It actually hasn’t been bad. I’ve had to reorder a few of the paragraphs and make grammatical changes. And I still need to include references. And while 4,043 words feels like a modest amount of writing done over the course of the week, I can honestly say that if I didn’t have this log, I probably wouldn’t have written at all. So the log and the accountability group keeps me going.

* Necessary disclaimer: This is borne out of 15 years or so of attending meetings and reading emails in the NGO world, in the UN, in academia, and in research think-tanks. This is NOT specific to a particular meeting or work site.

“This looks great.” 

Translation: I didn’t really read it, just skimmed the first paragraph, and because I don’t want to be asked to do the work, I’ll praise it.

“I have a few questions...”

Translation: This will pass over my dead body so I’ll filibuster this process to make sure that this doesn’t see the light of day. 

“Let me start by saying - thank you so much (blah blah blah blah blah)”

Translation: I really don’t have anything to say so I am buying time by making a round of thank you’s and hope that while I am doing so, I’ll have something smart to say.

“Ok, thank you for your feedback!”

This is a hard blog entry to write. But write it I must because now that I am a mother of a daughter, it is important for me to process, first, the ubiquity of sexual predation that target young girls who may look older but who are still children, and second, to understand exactly how to protect children like my daughter without enacting paternalistic regulations that end up making her feel shame.

I was motivated to write this after reading actress Amber Tamblyn’s brilliant description of the time actor James Woods hit on her at 16 and invited her to Vegas. At that point, Woods was middle-aged; Tamblyn had just gotten her driver’s license and was getting cheeseburgers with her friend after watching a concert. What resonated most with me is the way Tamblyn describes the nonchalance with which Woods reacted to Tamblyn’s response that she was 16, making clear that his invitation was inappropriate. She says, “I told you my age, kindly and with no judgment or aggression. I told you my age because I thought you would be immediately horrified and take back your offer. You laughed and said, "Even better. We'll have so much fun, I promise." 

Men like Woods are powerful. Girls like Tamblyn and countless others are not. As the Jian Ghomeshi and Bill Cosby trials show, men are always believed, whereas women have to constantly prove that they are not lying, that they speak the truth, that they did not “misinterpret” someone’s intentions, that they aren’t being too sensitive, that abuse and harassment - no matter how seemingly benign - did happen.

What strikes me even further about Tamblyn’s account was all this happened when she was 16. Tamblyn has written before about how she got sexually propositioned when she was a 13 year old actress. And while naysayers might shrug and say, “well, what do you expect? This is Hollywood. Of course girls as young as 13 get sexualized,” these encounters happen everywhere to girls around the world.

As a girl who developed early, and who grew breasts at the age of 11, I was conscious of how differently I was treated because I no longer looked like a child. 

The very first time I saw a man masturbating, I was in a movie theatre and was in grade seven. I was exactly twelve years old. Writing about this now makes me feel ashamed. You see, what had happened was that a friend and I had contrived to tell our respective parents that we would be watching a movie after school  My friend told her parents that my mom would be with her, and I told my mom the same thing. All of the parents in my peer group - including mine - were especially protective because we lived in a city where people feared kidnapping. (This was in Makati). So they made sure that wherever we were, a parent was present. Anyway, my friend and I had a spat, and she decided not to go to the movie with me. Because I had an hour and a half to kill before meeting my mom outside the theatre, I sat through the movie. 

While watching the movie, an anonymous man sat next to me. It made me feel weird because the cinema was empty. He leaned over and looked at me but I pretended to ignore him. A minute later, I heard him panting heavily. When I looked over, there he was, going at it.

I was petrified and left the cinema, walking to the bookstore close to the cinema to wait for my mom. 

I wasn’t really aware of what I saw, but I just knew that it was awful. On the way home, I cried. I might have confessed to my mom that I lied about watching the movie with my friend’s mom. Or maybe I kept it secret. I can’t remember. But I didn’t tell her about the man jacking off in front of me because it felt shameful. After all, didn’t I lie? Wasn’t this my fault? (Ma, if you’re reading this, none of this was your fault). 

Let me remind you that I was 12. I still wrote in my diary, I was obsessed with the Sweet Valley book series, and I followed pop stars. In short, I was still a child.

When I think about my school years, I am struck with just how many predatory men there were who seemed to seek pleasure in having close access to adolescent and teenage girls. At that point, I thought nothing of it but now that I think about these with the benefit of hindsight, it is actually somewhat horrifying. There was that science teacher in grade nine who grabbed my hand, kissed and licked it (!) when he saw that I had a note scribbled on it - “just want to make sure that you’re not cheating”, he said, because we had a test to write that day. This same science teacher was also the school’s girls’ basketball coach and had a tendency to give the players in his team long back rubs. Then there was the math teacher who was always really nice but who made a really weird comment about how “fresh” I looked in my new sweater.

Even now, as I write this, I can’t help but think that hey, maybe I am exaggerating. Maybe my science teacher really was genuinely concerned about me cheating on the test and so...kissed and licked my hand? Maybe “fresh” was supposed to be synonymous with “pretty”? (But why the heck would a high school teacher be complimenting a student’s looks?!?!) 

And as I write this, I am also petrified that readers will think wow, what a drama queen. Who cares if someone jacked off in front of me? Was it really THAT bad? It’s not like I was attacked! And now I feel compelled to offer proof that these incidents really did happen, that I didn’t make these up...

...you see how patriarchal sexual mores mess you up? You see how this pervasive culture of not believing women causes so many women - myself included -  not to believe what I so clearly remembered?

And of course, there have been assorted moments of sexual predation that I’ve experienced and witnessed later in life, when I was officially an adult. We can talk about that later.

But the point of this post is to highlight how sexual predation/sexual harassment happens to young girls, including me. You know the common adage that girls mature faster? I am sure that there are biological reasons for that. But I think girls mature faster because we have to - we have to develop instincts that allow us to protect ourselves from the predations of men who disregard boundaries and who see our bodies as theirs and not as ours. Now, unbidden, dirty aphorisms that I’ve heard over the years - “once she’s old enough to bleed, you can do the deed!” “when you see grass, you can get that ass”! - are coming to mind. I can’t remember when I heard these. I probably laughed at these too. But the fact that we can make jokes about fucking young girls before they are ready - that culturally, we see these girls as conquests whose bodies can be taken - tells us so much about how little value society accords to girls.

As we welcome the start of the new academic year, and, for me, year 2 of being a new professor and a new parent, I’ve decided to share the ONLY goal I have.

Ready for it?

My goal is to not have food stains on any of my clothes when I am at work. Seeing that SP thinks that any of the clothes I wear is an extension of her napkins and her bibs, this will be a hard goal. 

As I reflect on the past year, it is hard for me to come to terms with the fact that so much time has passed. “Oh naive little grasshopper,” I want to tell the person who was brimming with excitement a year ago, “how little do you know of the challenges that lie ahead.” And while I survived and was surprisingly more productive than I was sans bebe, thereby corroborating this article showing that “the ultimate efficiency hack is to have kids”, my mental and emotional health was subpar. To say that it was hard doesn’t quite capture the challenges that were ahead. 

There were also darkly funny moments when I tried to combine parenting + professoring. Herewith are a few moments that now makes me chuckle:

1. The time I had an important meeting and I reached into the purse and saw that SP had switched ALL of my pens with CRAYONS. I decided to take notes using my laptop instead.

2. The time I was in a department meeting that lasted longer than it should have and I started lactating, leading to milk starting to seep through my bra. What did I do? I had a cardigan that I wrapped across my top and then I crossed my arms, deliberately adopting what I hope was a pensive thinker’s pose. 

3. The many, many, MANY times I had to pump in the middle of Skype calls, and I was trying in vain to mute the horrible whirring sound that suction cup made.

4. The many, many, MANY times I had to yell out loud, “I’ll be there in a minute!” to students and colleagues knocking on my door because I was pumping. And then I had to do a one-second once-over to double check that when I opened the door, that my tits weren’t hanging out. (Hey, I want favourable teaching reviews but not THAT way).

5. The many, many, MANY times I would rush out of the house, run to work, and then look down and think, “FUCK” because my clothes had spit-up/vomit/pureed food.

6. The one time I decided to bring SP to work for a lunch meeting because folks wanted to meet her, and I kept smelling something funky, so I kept sticking my nose on her diaper to check, thereby repelling - I think - some of the people without kids from eating their lasagna, which bore an unfortunate resemblance to...well...you know.

7. The one time I had a meeting with our VP research and right before I walked into the meeting, I saw that the sleeves of my blazer were adorned with stickers, courtesy of SP.

8. The one time I had to lecture in front of a full classroom, and I had to retrieve my lecture notes at the bottom of my bag, and OF COURSE this bag was a bottomless pit, and I had to whip out baby toys, empty bottles, wet wipes, and a dirty diaper (sigh) from the bag before getting to my notes. (This was the same bag I used on the plane when I was flying somewhere with SP).

And there are more. There have been arduous moments, such as the time airport security threw away my breast milk, when I was en route to the American Political Science Association conference. I also received a diagnosis of hypothyroidism at the same time as I was muddling through the dark days of PPD and at the same time as work was becoming extremely stressful because I didn’t get a grant that I worked so hard on. 

It’s still hard, but with SP being a toddler, parts of this whole parenting and professoring gig are becoming easier.

Today, September 5, 2017, Donald Trump announced that DACA or the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, will no longer be in effect. This means that, as of today, no more applications will be processed, although those whose permits will expire in six months will be able to get their permits renewed. The White House is claiming that the only reason that Trump is eliminating DACA is because of Obama’s purported “executive over-reach” in authorizing DACA in the first place. During today’s announcement, White House Press secretary Sara Huckabee Sanders attempted to calm people down by saying that all is not lost and that Congress will have until March 5, 2018 to come up with legislation to replace DACA - this being the date for when the first permits issued under DACA will expire.

To say that this is a bullshit excuse is to make an understatement. The Trump White House was never concerned about executive over-reach. This, after all, was an administration that issued 90 executive actions in its first 100 days. (In contrast, Obama issued 277 executive orders over two terms). The reality is that Trump, ever eager to appease his rapidly dwindling conservative base, is ready to put “America” - and, by extension, “Americans” - first.

This despite the fact that the dreamers who were protected by DACA are American. The 800,000 dreamers who were affected by DACA were brought to the United States as children, and did not have any choice in the matter. The average dreamer was six when they arrived in the United States, putting them in their mid-twenties today. 

What is especially galling is that United States immigration policy wasn’t always so draconian. In prior eras, it was relatively easy for migrants and their children to get legal papers: “Before 1976, immigrants from Latin America could apply to become legal permanent residents (green card holders) if they had children who had been born in the US — no matter how old those children were...after 1976, parents of US citizens [had] to wait to apply for green cards until the child had turned 21. But even then, there was a largely informal policy that parents of US citizens were generally deferred from deportation until they could adjust” to permanent residency.” 

It was the passage of the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act in 1996, which mandated that people leave the country for three to ten years before being allowed to apply for permanent residency that effectively led to the current situation. Rather than risking becoming legal, and spending years apart from their families, many migrants opted to stay underground. 

In short, as per Canadian immigration scholar Audrey Macklin’s arguments, migrants suddenly found themselves losing security “just like that.” The arbitrariness of laws and policies point to how questions of membership, citizenship, and belonging were always in flux, depending on the current whims of current power brokers...

...And this particular power broker - this racist, white supremacist piece of shit who seems to think nothing of making policies on a whim and who mistakenly believes that inherited affluence confers wisdom - sees nothing wrong with ramping up his “America First” program even when members of his own party are encouraging him to exercise caution. 

And while I understand why immigration supporters - and, in particular, moderate Republicans -  use the argument that Dreamers contribute to the economy and should thus be given legal status, such arguments miss the larger point: the dreamers’ economic contributions shouldn’t matter; at the end of the day, it is the fact that deporting them to countries where they have no ties and where, in many cases, they can’t build futures, is the wrong thing to do. Saying that dreamers should be included because they help drive American economic growth is to advocate for a form of limited inclusion that can be snatched away easily. What happens when you aren’t model minorities? Or if the criteria to become a model minority becomes higher? Put differently, it shouldn’t matter what type of job (if any) dreamers have and how much money/taxes they pay. They should be given legal status because this. is. their. home.

All of this is to say that today is an abysmal day in American politics. As I type this, I am shaking my head with rage and with horror. I’ve met a few Dreamers within the Fil-American and Asian American community. (Nope, not all Dreamers are Latino. According to this report, there are 22 000 undocumented Filipinos who qualify as Dreamers. There are many who are from other communities). A common thread uniting their stories is their fear of having to say goodbye to their friends and their families. Where will they go if they get deported? Imagine being kicked out of a country that you thought was your home. Imagine being booted out by racists who want to make America white again. (Not that it ever was, of course. Most of these MAGA idiots never even considered how indigenous genocide resulted in the founding of the US). Imagine facing a future where different members of your family live in different countries: remember that in many migrant families, some members are undocumented and some are citizens (e.g., those who are born in the United States get citizenship). How would it feel if you know that there will come a time when you will be separated from your folks, from your siblings, from your spouse, and/or from your kids, and you don’t know when you will be re-united?  

For decades, Canada has recruited women from abroad to provide care for children, seniors, and individuals with disabilities, promising these women Canadian citizenship at the end of their two-year contracts. ‘Take care of us and then we can give you and family citizenship,’ is the promise Canada makes to caregivers under the Live-in Caregiver Program. This has created undue hardship for caregivers, many of whom withstood adverse living and working conditions in order to attain Canadian citizenship. Yet for many, this policy at least allowed them to enter the country. It wasn’t perfect but it was something.

Except that in recent years, Canada has reneged on its side of the bargain. In 2014, the Caregiver Program severely limited the numbers of caregivers who could qualify for permanent residency. And in 2017, there are 44, 000 permanent residency applications that are in the queue, with an average processing time of 53 months for live-in caregivers according to Citizenship and Immigration Canada’s own calculations.

Needless to say, such long processing times have negatively impacts. Jocelyn, a caregiver I met at a press conference organized by NDP Immigration critic Jenny Kwan held on July 20, 2017, spoke about the difficulties of living apart from her family. She first worked in Hong Kong and then arrived in Canada in 2008 under the Live-in Caregiver Program. She filed her permanent residency application in 2010, and has yet to hear back from CIC. Her daughter, who was ten when she left and is now 23, told her that she no longer believes Jocelyn’s promises that they will be able to live together again. Jocelyn mentioned that the hardest part about her job is that she is “taking care of other kids but [she] can’t take care of [her] own.” In all the time she worked abroad, she has only seen her family three times.

Although I have long worked on caregivers and migrant workers’ issues, it was only when I became a mom in 2016 that I fully grasped the extent of the sacrifice made by caregivers. Despite technological advances, they do not get to witness key milestones in their children’s lives. It was hard enough for me to leave my baby for a week on a work-related trip. But to leave your children indefinitely, with no precise end date in sight? That is a hardship that caregivers can only withstand out of economic necessity.

I truly expected that a feminist Prime Minister like Justin Trudeau would understand and be sympathetic to the issues facing caregivers. Exactly why the Liberal government has done very little to address the issues facing caregivers confounds me. When campaigning in 2015, Trudeau and other Liberal party candidates reached out to different immigrant communities promising that they will do something on their behalf, that “sunny ways” were ahead, that many of former Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s measures were “un-Canadian.”

Many candidates condemned the restrictions that the Harper government placed to the caregiver program, which imposed new language and licensing requirements and quotas that made it harder for caregivers to acquire permanent residency. A few candidates told me that they also had to rely on the labour of caregivers. One Liberal MP even informed me that she relied on the caregiver program because the erratic schedule of being an MP meant that putting her kids in daycare was out. And so, like many migrant advocates, I believed what the Liberal government was selling. Theirs would be a humane government that understands the difficulties caregivers withstand. Indeed, the fact that Trudeau himself has relied on the caregiver program to take care of his children seemed to show that he would be particularly attune to caregivers’ needs.

Congress 2017, aka summer camp for nerds, is taking place this week! A number of friends have hit me up for food recommendations and so I figured I’d write a quick blog post with ideas on where to go that is within close proximity to Ryerson. Seeing that I am trying to cobble together my powerpoint presentation for Wednesday, this will be short but sweet!

Quick Lunch-time Eats

1. Salad King - although a part of me is dying a little bit in recommending this place, the fact is that it is but a hop, skip, and a jump away from your conference panels. This is a good staple to eat Thai noodles. The green mango salad actually isn’t that bad, and the panang curries have a nice kick to them.

2. Gyugyuya - also not too far from Ryerson, Gyugyuya is one of the places I go to when I’m hanging out in the area and craving something substantial. It is a Japanese curry place, which is different from other variants of curry in that there is a sweeter taste to the paste. I like the eclectic mixture of breaded and deep fried pork with the curry and meat base, which is then paired with hard-boiled eggs and cabbage. 

3. Sansotei - Sansotei ramen is probably one of my favourite ramen joints in Toronto. On par with Kinton, and way WAY better than the over-hyped ramen at Momofuku, Sansotei ramen provides a range of different types of broth and excellent chicken karaage. As a warning, it is difficult to get a spot so come early.

4. Poke Guys - So I kinda sorta got SUPER into the poke bowl trend despite laughing at foodie trendsters who were all over it. “Ha!,” I thought, “what’s the deal with poke? It’s basically sashimi with more rice.” But then I had my first taste of the California bowl at Poke Guys, which was laden with fresh salmon and tuna sashimi, the most delectable crab slaw, and fried onions for a nice change in texture. Seriously, you guys, I fell in love with poke after having this bowl, and dragged MOTL to have poke three times a week. My poke obsession has since abated. But seriously, if you are at Congress, Poke Guys is maybe a ten to fifteen minute walk from Ryerson. They mostly serve people who are getting their food to go, so you won’t have to wait too long to eat.

5. Banh Mi Boys - located a little bit north of Ryerson, this particular branch of Banh Mi Boys serves a dedicated following of Ryerson students. I like their banh mis, though I like their baos better. Their five spice pork belly bao is oh-so-delicious, with the fatty flavours of the pork melting into the bao, making for a hedonistic medley. What I like the best though are their kimchi fries!

If you have a bit more time to eat and would like to escape the hustle and bustle of Congress, I would suggest going to Scaddabush, which has yummy spaghetti and stuffed meatballs. When I was pregnant, this is all I wanted to eat. You also have other options, such as the joys of St. Lawrence Market and Kensington Market, which is probably a twenty minute walk from Ryerson. Ethiopiques has good Ethiopian food and is a great place for dinner. Their coffee service is actually quite spectacular.

Where to Drink

1. Bar Hop - Bar Hop used to be in a small space on King West but has since relocated to a bigger space on Queen with an excellent patio! If you like craft beer, Bar Hop is your place.

2. C’Est What - a quick walk/subway ride to St Lawrence market will take you to C’Est what, which is located in a somewhat dingy basement room. I like the food and their beer selection and also the fact that it’s pretty easy to find seating here.

3. El Rey Bar - do you know what mezcal is? Do you like tostadas? Do you like people-watching in patios? Then El Rey is your place!