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Reading Peter Bacho 2
I am about to embark on re-telling the stories of Peter Bacho in Dark Blue Suit.
There is something about the Manongs of Peter : they come from small Philippine
towns facing a difficult existence in America – despite that, they maintain
virtues that are so admirable, heroic in fact : These men, regardless of
whatever, still wore their most impeccable dark blue suits. And I imagine them
walking down the streets of America, young handsome brown-skinned men walking
down American roads, pretending to look and act like Bogart, from far-away land
Philippines. I imagine them holding the hands of their babies, rejected and
dejected, but still holding the hands of their babies, and even when they
encounter incidences similar to that mentioned by Bulosan about a Filipino baby
who was left to cry out of hunger because no restaurant would allow its father
in, still I imagine these Filipinos in a strange country that I now call my own,
walking on its roads in their dark blue suits, holding the hands of their hungry
babies. But I am talking ahead of myself here, much, much ahead of myself here.
What happened to the kids of the Manongs?
In DARK BLUE SUIT, Rico Divina is the man, the ultimate Pinoy-American child. He
is half American-Indian and half Filipino. Rico's story is perhaps one of the
most poignant stories I've read – it tells me about being outsider trying to be
in; and trying to be real in a world of confomity. His life, though lived in
America, is no different from the lives lived by most Filipinos of his age. He
talks as if there is no future for him. His temper gets him in trouble. "Like
many Filipinos, Rico was short and wiry, but he made up for it by being strong,
fast, clever – traits that earned him respect even from the bloods (gang
brothers, I presume) and they were always the hardest to impress." He has this
thing for white girls. And just like their brothers in the Phiulippines, this
Fil-Am seeks a way out of the rut he's in.
Rico was abandoned by his Filipino father at a young age. As expected, he lived
in poverty and became resigned to immobile existence economically and
intellectually. He did not believe he had what it takes to go to college.
So, he signed up for Vietnam.
Just like so many Vietnam veterans who were both loved and hated by a divided
America, he returned without fanfare and wandered from place to place in
America. Vietnam did not kill him. His wanderings, joblessness, isolation,
loneliness were the ones that killed him. What is so heart wrenching in this
story is the fact that Rico was a good boxer and as a soldier, he earned a
medal. To die with only a single medal to your name was the saddest thing. The
only friend who respected , honored and buried him with utmost dedication was
Buddy.
Buddy is the story-teller in this collection of short stories. Buddy himself,
despite his intellect, strength, love and compassion is not doing good in
America either. He is in the midst of a divorce, he'd forsaken the Law because
it led him nowhere and the only good thing he is doing is spending time learning
martial arts, boxing, and recollecting the lives of the Manongs of his father's
generation. To add more humiliation to his failures, he is teaching Math to some
high school brats.
What Buddy could not avoid at his age, 50, is the vanishing tribe of Manongs. He
is left looking out for them, trying to understand them, he is a solitary voice
left to represent the Filipino men who came to America when America was
extremely cruel to Filipinos. And where else would he end up? It is in a
cemetery, bringing flowers to graves of departed unknown Manongs.
And this is were the sadness of DARK BLUE SUIT is felt. It is the sadness of the
Fil-American trying to put to an end to somethig he could not fathom. Whatever
he saw as a boy – his father, his father's friends, his father's enemies, the
children of his father's friends, his growing up with a culture that is both
accepting and rejecting, and the demise of a generation that is no longer
remembered after its role in paving the road for the Filipinos in America is
over – there is no other word to describe that except sadness.
I see him in the cemetery, a Fil-American visiting his dead father and Uncle
Kikoy. I see his solemn countenance, lighting cigarette, eyes focused on the
ground. Wondering about his father : "What secrets did he won? What fears or
hopes? What dreams had he dreamed in a different language? I never knew; he
never told me."
.....
"The newcomers didn't know what the old men had done and quite frankly, couldn't
care less. They wouldn't see the connection between their own comfort and what
others had struggled to build. They couldn't see that the old men had heart and
did the most with the least, and with a style they they can never have and that
I'll never see again." DARK BLUE SUIT
Alex Maskara Pinoy
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