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Beyond the Shores
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Commencer à lireLongueur: 382 pages5 heures
- Éditeur:
- Lulu.com
- Sortie:
- Apr 7, 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781365027772
- Format:
- Livre
Description
Beyond the Shores is the story of Dr. Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo in her own words. It chronicles her early years and upbringing in Manila, her entry into medical school, her subsequent immigration to Kansas for her postgraduate residency, and her celebrated career as a pediatric neurologist.
Informations sur le livre
Beyond the Shores
Longueur: 382 pages5 heures
Description
Beyond the Shores is the story of Dr. Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo in her own words. It chronicles her early years and upbringing in Manila, her entry into medical school, her subsequent immigration to Kansas for her postgraduate residency, and her celebrated career as a pediatric neurologist.
- Éditeur:
- Lulu.com
- Sortie:
- Apr 7, 2016
- ISBN:
- 9781365027772
- Format:
- Livre
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Beyond the Shores - Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo, M.D.
Beyond the Shores: A Memoir
Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo, M.D.
LECA PUBLICATIONS
Copyright © 2016 by Lillian Gonzalez-Pardo, M.D.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, without prior written permission of the author and publisher.
Published by LECA Publications
ISBN 978-1-365-02777-2
All proceeds from sales of this ebook will benefit the Filipino Cultural Center Foundation in its mission to promote and preserve the Filipino cultural arts.
For Olivia, Mia, Ally, Gideon, and Malka—Keep the memories alive.
Foreword
I’ve never met anyone quite like my mom. That sentence might sound strange because one never thinks of meeting
one’s parent in the conventional sense. The fact is, your mom or dad has known you for your entire life, but you, in turn, have only known them for a portion of theirs. Your relationship with them seems to spring from nowhere, but their presence has always been with you, and is an integral part of your consciousness and being. Of course, I don’t remember ever meeting my mom; she was just there. She always has been.
In the course of my life, I’ve met strong women, and I’ve met minority women, and I’ve met strong, successful minority women in positions of leadership. But I have never before met a strong, successful, driven Filipino woman physician who rose to the top of her profession while at the same time balancing her commitments to marriage, motherhood, and community, and doing so in her own way, like the Frank Sinatra song, and on her own terms.
My mom has always been determined, focused, purposeful, principled, and exacting. Her critics might characterize her as bossy, impatient, defiant, competitive, and brusque. All these adjectives are of course applicable, but they don’t give us the full picture. Her drive and sometimes take-no-prisoners approach have served a greater purpose, whether promoting the Filipino Association of Kansas City or advocating for one of her many other beloved causes. My mom sets high standards both for herself and for those around her. But underneath it all is an enduring sense of compassion and humanity that can be seen in her work as a physician and in her extracurricular involvements as well.
Hearing or reading about your parent’s early life is almost like encountering fiction, because their life story predates yours. Most of the critical scenes in their life happened before you were born. The narrative arc was set in motion long before. Even seeing early pictures of your parents as their younger selves is jarring. My mom was once a baby? A toddler? An insecure teenager? A twenty-something professional in love? But of course my mom had a life for thirty years before she had me. She was the middle child and only girl born to middle-class parents in Manila. Her family was not wealthy, but her parents valued education, and with her father’s encouragement, she went to medical school at the University of the Philippines and pursued her dream of becoming a doctor.
Medical school was challenging, and it is poignant to learn in these pages about my mom’s vulnerabilities—for example, her painful loneliness for part of medical school while her parents were in the U.S. for her father’s work assignment—as well as her perseverance, one of the characteristics I most associate with her and respect about her. It was during this time that she found her inner strength and will to succeed. Later, after graduating from medical school and passing both her physician licensure exam and foreign-medical graduate exam, she applied for and was accepted into the University of Kansas neurology program for her postgraduate residency. While there, she met my future father in the cafeteria. According to my dad, our eyeballs locked, and the rest is history.
Of course, my mom remembers it differently. But, in any case, that is the short version of how our family came to be.
Acculturating to a new life and country was not easy, but luckily for my parents, they ended up in and settled in Kansas City, which welcomed them with open arms. My dad’s new colleagues at the VA Hospital threw my parents a wedding shower and gave them gifts. They married in June of 1964; my brother, Manuel, was born the year after, followed by my sister the next year, and me three years later, after which time we moved to the Philippines after my parents’ visas ran out. Two years later, amidst the political turmoil in the Philippines, we moved back to Kansas City for good.
My mom focused on her burgeoning career as a pediatric neurologist, while my dad’s career as a psychiatrist also took off. They purchased a house in the suburbs, got a dog, joined a tennis club, found a nice Catholic church to attend, bought a piano, rooted for the Chiefs, Royals, and KU Jayhawks, and put us kids into good schools, while also managing to find the other Filipino immigrants in Kansas City and form an association. They re-created the important cultural touchstones that they missed in their home country, and helped found and build a cultural center that will be a beacon for generations to come. It was the best of both worlds.
My mom’s story—the story told in Beyond the Shores—is the embodiment of the American dream. It is a story of courage and ambition. It is a story of vision and hard work. And if you know my mom, you know that this isn’t the end of her story. At seventy-seven, she is still as engaged and dynamic as ever. Age hasn’t slowed her down much. Talk of death does not frighten her. She is not in denial. No one lives forever, she says. But for as long as she’s around, I know that my mom will continue to fight for the things she believes in. She will continue to lead by example. She will continue to care for others. She will continue to hold us together. And she will continue to be an inspiration not only to me but to all who know, love, and admire her.
Patrick E. Pardo
Los Angeles
Author’s Preface
A lifetime of experience is worth sharing. Writing about these experiences keeps the story in perpetuity for the next generation, before memories fade and are forgotten. Immigrants often have compelling narratives, stories that tell of struggles, acculturation, survival, and, for many, success. Only in America, it has often been said, are hard work and persistence eventually rewarded with the fulfillment of one’s dreams and aspirations.
Most immigrants, like me, come from distant shores, traversing wide bodies of water, whether the Pacific, Atlantic, or other foreign seas. Although now, very few make the trip in ships or ocean liners to immigrate; immigrants today in this jet age mostly fly to America. This life’s journey took me from the shores of the Pacific and in a roundabout way, across the Atlantic from Europe to America.
And so, seventy some years after I was born, fifty plus years after life in America, after having three kids and five grandchildren later, this is my story. I write the story while I still have my full faculties to recall these memories and stories from the recesses of my brain, mostly from the hippocampus, to type them in my 21st-century devices, to see and read them without my glasses, and most of all while I can still remember the sequence and experiences of my life. Other memory minders and prompts were letters that I accumulated through the years. In addition, I’ve always kept journals since I was in medical school. I saved letters to my parents that I found in boxes back home after my father died. I kept files of letters to and from my children. I kept cards and letters from my patients and valued them dearly, especially after I retired from my medical career. I wrote essays that were printed in newspapers and weekly magazines, in prefaces and introductions to books my patients and colleagues requested me to do. Over the years I gave a few speeches and had some television appearances, and I saved the notes I made at the time. Even after the personal computer came about, I printed and kept significant emails. To give the reader an idea of the depth and breadth of my interest in many social and community issues, I have included some of those writings in the appendix of this book instead of encumbering them in the respective chapters.
When I started thinking of writing this memoir, two of my maternal aunts enlightened me on my parents’ early years. These stories were not known to me when my mother and father were alive. One aunt has since passed on, but my mother’s youngest sibling is still alive and vibrant and provides me with new revelations with every visit with her in the Philippines in the past several years.
I never took my accomplishments, big or small, for granted. But when I became a septuagenarian, my children put together a mini-album for me titled 70 (plus) Amazing Things Grandma Has Done in 70 Years…
I began to think that maybe I do need to tell my story for the grandchildren’s sake, as they became curious of the items in the list. So with the prodding of the children, I made a pledge to sit down to write my story.
Around this time too, my husband, Dr. Manuel Pardo, was finishing his second book, so I was being outdone with a score of 2 to 0. Manuel’s earlier book about his father, Mind Healer: The Life and Times of Leopoldo G. Pardo, M.D., was met with much enthusiasm among his relatives and friends. The book led to reunions among his cousins and reconnecting with long-lost nieces and nephews whose families had grown and needed updating in the family tree. His second book, A Psychiatrist’s Journey: Memoirs of a Life Fulfilled, was about his personal story of his career as a psychiatrist, especially his long tenure at the University of Kansas Psychiatry Department. After his retirement, he embarked on the book writing and was obviously quite focused in his desire to complete them. As competitive as I am, I needed to work harder to even come close to evening the score.
In 2011, I wrote an essay titled On Becoming a Septuagenarian,
which inspired me to write the longer story—to start at the beginning and expand on the events that have happened in my life. It was harder to recall the very early years; some stories were oral histories passed onto me by aunts, uncles, and cousins. Documenting my professional life was easier, as I kept voluminous files, which, of course, had to be thinned out considerably after I formally retired from medical practice. However, there were a few memorable letters, cards, and photos that I saved for their sentimental value, such as my application letter for postgraduate training in neurology, letters to and from our parents at the time we decided to get married, and special letters from many patients (and in many cases, their parents) who appreciated my caring for them.
As Manuel and I became more active with the cultural and educational programs of the Filipino Association in the Greater Kansas City community, I became entrenched in the promotion and preservation of our rich cultural heritage. Our investment was total: physical, financial, and emotional. I wanted that cultural element be part of my legacy to the community and to our family. I wanted the grandchildren to be proud of their Filipino heritage, be they full, half, a quarter, or an eighth of Filipino blood, they have a lot to claim to their lineage. My story is part of their story too, and one that needs to be passed on to their generation and the next.
I have also included a section on my travels, undertaken either as part of my professional life or for leisure, as Manuel and I enjoyed more time after retirement. These adventures have constituted a major part of our activities. Despite the rigors of plane, train, car, and bus rides, there is always a reward to seeking out new places, learning about each country or city’s respective history, and meeting new people. It is an ongoing educational process that has enriched our lives. We have traversed many more shores during these travels. I have been to six continents, and though I doubt if I will make it to Antarctica, there are still a few countries on my bucket list, and with luck I might still get to them someday.
Memoirs, unlike biographies, are recollections. Thus they are dependent on one’s faculties and sensibilities. Some memories, if unhappy or undesirable, may be repressed, but hopefully most are happy memories that are saved in our brains and are cherished. Such is the limitation of my story. The skeletons in the closet, if any, are less remembered, if not forgotten. Yet this is not a Pollyanna account of my life. The challenges and difficulties are remembered, as are the frustrations and disappointments, professional and personal. The family dynamics that occurred are also recorded for posterity. I was honest with my emotions when they happened. So take it for what it is. This is my story.
CHAPTER ONE: MY EARLIEST CHILDHOOD MEMORY
When I think of my earliest childhood memory, no matter how deeply I delve into my brain, I cannot recall any incident before the age of three. The images that flood my memory are of being with my grandparents in the province of Cavite, in the town of Indang, where they lived and raised seven children. My mother, Lumen, was the oldest of the siblings. Because my brothers and I were the first set of grandchildren, we earned preferred status, despite the rather stormy start of my mother and father’s elopement against the wishes of my maternal grandparents. My mother was just 19 years old and was supposed to be studying pre-dentistry in Manila, when she and my father, Eduardo, were married.
Although I was told that I went to preschool in Manila, I no longer recall the name of the convent but vaguely remember the trauma of being hit in the hand with a ruler by a nun, wearing a black habit and a white wimple. My crime? Dirty fingernails. I remember more vividly the parochial school in Indang, Cavite. We were brought to the province, when I was three, because of the news of impending trouble
in the city after the bombing of Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 (December 8 in the Philippines). The oral history from my aunts was that my maternal grandfather Lolo Arsenio took us on a trolley to the bus station in Manila. From there it was a two-hour bus trip with my two other brothers, Rene and Edwin, ages 5 and 1 respectively, to Indang. We were told that we would be safer in the province than in Manila, where there was the possibility of bombs and violence. My parents and my Auntie Lourdes, my mother’s middle sister, were left behind in the city while we lived with our maternal grandparents until the war ended in 1945.
Indang is a municipality in the province of Cavite, established as a town in 1655, ruled by a gobernadorcillo during the Spanish time, later by a mayor when the Philippines became a commonwealth under the United States. The name of the town was derived from a tree that grew there. It is historic in view of one of its prominent residents, Severino De Las Alas, was in the cabinet of Emilio Aguinaldo, who was declared the first president of the Philippine Republic on June 12, 1898. Severino De Las Alas was the younger brother of my mother’s father’s mother, Maria De Las Alas. The family owned landed estates that became various plantations for crops such as coconut, coffee, fruit trees, and pineapple.
Lolo Arsenio De Las Alas Peñaflorida, my maternal grandfather, had coconut and coffee plantations; he tended to that business as he visited the family farms on a regular basis. I remember him talking about copra (dried coconut) prices. There was a farm in barrio Kayquit that was walking distance from the house and where we often had picnics on weekends. There was also a waterfall nearby where we washed our dirty dishes and took quick showers. I helped my grandma pick up firewood and small fruits and put them on baskets that I carried on the top of my head, province-style, trying my best to balance the basket without using my hands.
Lolo’s bedroom, on the upper floor of the house, smelled of sweat and unwashed clothing; he had the accouterments of a farmer-owner: a metal canteen, boots, heavy clothing, and a machete (a type of sword). He also had an office on the lower level where he kept an Underwood typewriter, among other things. He went about his way with minimal conversation, but I knew I was a favorite as he often gave me money when I got good grades, which was often. However, I remember that during one Christmas, he helped me make a little Christmas star, but he did not decorate my star with the traditional thin colorful paper all around. I cried because I had the ugliest star in the pageant. My Lolo was the only one who called me Celia, a derivation of my childhood nickname Cely.
My grandmother, Lola Paz Vida, wife of Lolo Arsenio, owned a general merchandise store in the town center in Indang. The store also had a refreshment parlor that served snacks, such as halo halo (an iced dessert with tropical fruits) and other native delicacies, such as rice cakes like puto, and bibingka. I often looked forward to a reward of a glass of halo halo after I had finished my chores. Saturday was market day in the town, when goods were brought to the market. My grandmother had a stall there to display the merchandise. We were in the dry goods section, selling clothing, fabrics, and sewing notions. For helping tend the stall, I was given small change to buy guinatan, a special dessert of coconut milk soup with tropical fruits. To this day, I love to eat this special concoction. Lola Paz was a very hardworking woman, who managed the store with efficiency. She made regular trips to Manila to buy at wholesale prices the merchandise sold at the general store.
The ancestral home of my maternal grandparents was on two levels, about 3,000 square feet on each floor. The ground floor was occupied by the store in the front half, and a kitchen and a lower level dining room in the rear. The upper floor had a porch, living room, dining room, four bedrooms, kitchen, breakfast room, and indoor plumbing for dual bathrooms. For that time, it was considered a large house and modernized. By the front porch, there was a tree that grew pomelos, and in the back a huge tree bearing a red fruit called makopa. The pomelo was sour, and the makopa rather tasteless. In the household were maids who assisted my grandmother in cleaning and cooking. I often watched them in their chores, but my brothers and I were also given our own chores, such as dusting and scrubbing the floors with coconut husks to make them shiny. My brother Rene preferred doing the porch and outside staircase as he often escaped to play after he had reached the last step below.
Lolo Arsenio had three younger unmarried sisters: Isabel, Pacita, and Angela, who lived in the same household. We fondly called them Lola Beng, Lola Cita, and Lola Gela. They went to church everyday, while my Lolo only went on Christmas, if he felt like it. He was the head of the family and managed their farms and properties. Only Lola Gela finished at a teachers’ college and became supervisor of schools in the public school system and was assigned to many regions in Luzon. Lola Beng was always dressed in the native attire of a long skirt or saya and kimona, a loosely shaped blouse. I never saw her in a western-style dress. As the oldest of the three, Lola Beng was the caretaker of the family’s heirloom statue of Santa Veronica, which was featured in the Holy Week procession each year. The saint is traditionally dressed up during Holy Week with an elegant pink satin dress embroidered with gold threads in a floral design. My mother told me that when I saw the dress when I was six years old, with much wishful thinking, I said, I want to have one like that when I grow up.
Lola Cita was the active go-getter who loved to travel to and from Indang and Manila just to bring rice cakes and other native delicacies to her nieces and nephews, who pined for those native foods. She dressed in western-style clothes, not the kind Lola Beng wore, because it was easier for her to take the bus wearing a regular dress. Lola Cita was as religious as the other sisters and in church every morning without missing a day of prayer.
Lola Gela became a summer supervisor for the Teacher’s Camp held in Baguio City, in the northern, cooler part of Luzon. The three grandchildren got to join her and enjoyed the summer interlude, as she had a large room that accommodated us as well as other relatives who tagged along. It was during that summer that we met teachers and superintendents from other schools, including one from the School for the Deaf. I learned sign language that summer of 1948 and have never forgotten it since.
My older brother, Rene, and I attended the local parochial school in Indang. We both started in first grade at the same time. However, by mid-term of that year, I was doing so well academically that I got accelerated to the second grade and left my older brother behind. It probably did not matter at that time to my brother, who was two years older than me, but in retrospect I don’t think he was too happy about it. Nonetheless, at the time all he cared about was playing with his friends.
After the war we were eventually reunited with our parents, who came to Indang and told us stories of survival in Manila, dodging bullets and running to air raid shelters. My dad had shrapnel in his left arm, my mother had a smaller one on her foot, and my Aunt Lourdes had a number of smaller scars on her back. Of the three survivors, my aunt took the longest time to recover from the shock of war. In those days, they did not know about post-traumatic stress disorder, from which she surely suffered.
Many summers later, we would spend our vacations back in Indang to attend their annual fiesta celebrating their patron saint, San Gregorio, which was usually held in the month of May. Processions were held, and food was in abundance when we visited. We came to know our aunts, uncles, and cousins on my mother’s side. Also held in May was a daily devotion to the Virgin Mary. Every afternoon we prayed the rosary, and young girls brought up to the altar the letters outlined in flowers spelling out AVE MARIA PURISIMA. Little girls like me were dressed in white, with white veils over our heads as we offered prayers to the Virgin Mary. It was a nice celebration in the small town of Indang, unlike the huge church in Quiapo in Manila that brought worshippers from all over the large metropolitan city in their devotion to the Black Jesus of Nazarene.
When the war came to an end in 1945, there were American soldiers who paraded down the streets of Indang. Lolo Arsenio later told me that I was one those children in the crowd, who shouted, Victory Joe! Chocolates Joe!
It was well-known that the U.S. soldiers threw out chocolate candies from their rations to the Filipinos who asked for them. The war also introduced canned Spam and Vienna sausages into the diets of many Filipinos. American soldiers drove out the Japanese who had occupied the town in the years before. Some of the Japanese hid in the barrios, others committed hara-kiri rather than being caught alive. There was much joy when the war finally ended. My Uncle Danilo was sent by my Lola Paz to Manila to look for my parents and aunt who had stayed behind in the city. By the time they came home to Indang, there was much relief that they survived, which all my Lolas attributed to the grace of God, as they had prayed daily for their safe return.
In 2012, many decades later, a medical mission to the Philippines I helped organize traveled to Cavite City. I brought some of our group of doctors and nurses there for some rest and recreation following an arduous week of volunteer work. The four-day tour included a historical landmark in Kawit, Cavite: the home of Emilio Aguinaldo. Part of the itinerary included a stop in Indang, my grandparents’ hometown, which brought back memories of the days of my youth. In a stop in the downtown area, I looked for and tried to find my Lolo and Lola’s former home, but at first glance, I only saw commercial stores: signage for a bakery, a 7-11 convenience store, and a video-photo shop. Gone was the staircase that took us to the porch upstairs, and gone was the pomelo tree that I used to climb. Upon closer look, though, I saw a familiar name, Peñaflorida, in the video store. I recognized a cousin by that name and inquired at the store. I introduced myself to the proprietor and asked if he was the son of my Uncle Romulo. I said, "I am your cousin, Ate Cely." He was, naturally, surprised to see me there, as he knew that I lived in the United States, and it had been quite a long time since he last saw me. He proceeded to give me a quick account of what had happened to the my grandparents’ former home and store. The property had been allotted to the different cousins and to the rental of certain parts to the commercial establishments. I felt sad that the memories of my childhood had disappeared.
After this brief encounter and realization, our bus moved onto another part of Indang, about a mile uptown to an exclusive private restaurant and resort. I was amazed by how progress
had been brought about in what was a quiet town that I once knew long ago.
CHAPTER TWO: GROWING UP ON EVANGELISTA STREET
After the war, my father, Eduardo Gonzalez, established a business, the Reliance Key Company. The year was 1949. I was ten years old. Although my father was the holder of two graduate degrees, in business and law, from the University of the Philippines, he had to make a living to support his family. I only have a vague knowledge how it came about that, while visiting Japan, he learned the trade of key duplication, then a relatively unknown technology in the Philippines. The brilliant idea became the basis for an innovative business, which became a successful venture. He rented commercial space on Evangelista Street in the Quiapo district, in Manila. The space was about 2,000 square feet on the first level, which included the retail establishment in the front half. There were two tables with the key duplicating machines, and on one wall was a row of different varieties of blank keys and a desk for the manager. The living quarters were in
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