 and now I'm going to be quiet and admit everyone. Thanks, Vanessa. Yeah. Hello, hello everyone. Hello everybody, welcome. Welcome. Hi, Auntie Chum. Welcome everybody. Yeah, welcome, welcome. What'd she mean with 201? I think she meant 301. Oh, 301. I think we're at 301, right? Yeah. Okay, let's get this afternoon show on the road. All right, everyone, good afternoon and welcome. Thank you for joining us this afternoon for this great author conversation. My name's Abraham Ignacio. I'm the librarian for the Filipino American Center here at the San Francisco Public Library. And this author talk today is brought to you as a partnership also with the Berkeley Public Library and the Philippine Studies Department of City College of San Francisco. So all three of us are bringing you this great conversation and talk today with Peter Baccio. So let's get the show on the road. So let's get to hear these great rich juicy stories of Peters and stuff. So let me just do a quick land acknowledgement intro which we do with every talk that we do, every program that we do. The San Francisco Public Library acknowledges that we occupy the unceded ancestral homeland of the Ramaytush Ohlone peoples who are the original inhabitants of the San Francisco Peninsula. We recognize that we benefit from living and working on their traditional homeland. As uninvited guests, we affirm their sovereign rights as first peoples and wish to pay our respects to the ancestors, elders and relatives of the Ramaytush community. So this afternoon, we are bringing you a reading of the new work of distinguished author Peter Baccio, Uncle Rico's Encore, Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle. And afterwards, a conversation with Professor Lillian Villarraza. So let me introduce our two distinguished guests today. Peter Baccio was born in Seattle, Washington and grew up in the city's famed central area. He teaches at the Evergreen State College and is the author of seven books, Cebu, Dark Blue Suit, Boxing in Black and White, Nelson's Run, Entries, Leaving Yesler and his latest, A Memoir, Uncle Rico's Encore, Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle. Baccio's books have received several awards, including the 1992 American Book Award for his novel, Cebu. His short story, The Wedding, received the distinguished site, Best American Short Stories of 1993. His second book, Dark Blue Suit, won the Murray Morgan Prize at a Washington State Governor's Writers Award in 1998. His nonfiction work, Boxing in Black and White was listed in the top 100 books of 1999 by the Center for Children's Books. In 2005, Seattle University named Baccio the distinguished Northwest writer in residence. 2006, the University of Washington listed Cebu as one of the top 100 books written by University of Washington writer over the past century. In 2008, Northwest Asian Weekly honored him as a literary pioneer and our other distinguished presenter today is Dr. Lilian B Villarraza, who is the chair of the Philippine Studies Department at City College of San Francisco. She is a cultural historian and holds a doctorate in history from Northern Illinois University with specializations in Southeast Asian history, Philippine history and US immigration history. Dr. Villarraza's scholarly interests include the use of performance and cultural production as a space to explore ethnic and cultural identity, local histories and community empowerment. Before I turn this over to Lilian, I'd like to just quickly read a quick statement from our partner, the Berkeley Public Library on behalf of Perdida Payne, who couldn't join us today. We at the Berkeley Public Library are delighted to collaborate with the San Francisco Public Library and celebrating Peter Baccio's new book. Mostly Uncle Rico's Encore, Mostly True Stories of Filipino Seattle. Thank you, SFPL. And we look forward to more collaborations highlighting diverse voices. And thank you, Berkeley Public Library. And I turn this over to our distinguished professor here, Lilian Villarraza. Thank you, Louis. Thank you, Abe. And I had a bit of an intro for Peter as well, but I'll actually truncate it a bit. So as a side note, I took my first Filipino-American literature course with Professor Baccio when I was an undergraduate at UC Irvine. Then as now, I have found his work to be wonderfully, to wonderfully embody the quiet matter of fact strength of the generation he often writes about the modern generation. His work also grapples with many questions of belonging and identity, cultural and intergenerational conflict that many second generation Filipino-Americans like Peter and myself have navigated on a daily basis through the generations. His newest book, Uncle Rico's Uncore, invites you into his memories with that same matter of factness to witness how he navigated those questions in life. I was telling Peter earlier this week that it felt like I was walking around the neighborhood with him as he chose stories to tell. And then there were moments of reflection and quiet introspection that came forth. And in those moments, I kind of felt like, ooh, should I be reading this? That those thoughts should only be his, right? But it felt like a blessing, right place, right time to catch those particular musings for folks who are listening now or later. My hope is that you enjoy Uncle Rico's Uncore as much as I did when it officially launches later this year. Without further ado, I'm excited to introduce Peter Baccio to our audience. So before we begin, Peter, again, thank you for being with us. And could you tell us a little bit about Uncle Rico and why you chose to title your memoir this way? And then tell us about the excerpts you're going to read. He was probably, there were three members of the Manong generation that are very, very close to males. Obviously, my dad and my uncle Vic and my uncle Rico. I was probably ironically enough closer to him than I was to my dad and my uncle Vic because he was my babysitter amongst other things. And he essentially chose me as more than a nephew, almost like kind of a designated son. And I was very loyal to him. And I loved him deeply. And I remember, well, in terms of the encore portion of it, I was living in San Francisco, broke as usual, trying to shuffling from job to job. And my mom called, this is in the 90s, and she says, well, you better get up here. It doesn't look like your uncle Rico's going to make it. And I said, can you tell Kikwoy, nickname Kikwoy, to wait until the end of the month because that's when I get paid. And she says, well, I don't know. I said, tell him. And so I drove up, once I got paid, I drove up all night and went to visit him and sent my goodbyes to the Veterans Administration Hospital. I kissed him on the head and told him I loved him. He got in the car and drove back. And a couple of days later, we were in our apartment on Polk Street, my wife at the time. And she was the apartment manager. And the door was open because it was a very hot day and she looked up and in the hallway, there was this very, very dapper Filipino young man. And he had wavy hair and a little bigote, a little mustache, right? And he smiled. And then she looked up again and he disappeared. And she went out in the hallway, no sign. And I asked her to describe what he looked like and she did. I said, that's my uncle Rico. I'd seen pictures of what he was like as a young man. He was very handsome. He dressed like a movie star. I said, damn, uncle Rico, you're gonna visit my wife, not me. I was kind of pissed off. Because he had always had an eye for attractive women. But we were very, very close and he was part of my morning prayer. So that's his encore, that's my uncle Rico. Anyway, let me start with a map of Filipino Seattle, at least the Seattle I grew up in. His map of Filipino Seattle, 1950 to 1970. In my dreams, sometimes there's the map of the city I love. In almost 70 years, not much has changed. That gives me comfort. On this map, I follow the lines north, south, east and west and find the intersection, 32nd Avenue, East and Thomas. This is where my family used to live, in a small one-floor yellow house that's still standing. The location is the eastern edge of the central area, the historic home of Seattle's African-American community. Or so the tagline goes. But the central area was also home to Filipinos working class whites, and other ethnic groups. On our side, the eastern side of the block, there was another Filipino family, the Braganos, a Japanese-American family, and three black families. Across the street lived an older white couple, out on older castle. As a kid, I loved our house and our block. I felt safe there, protected. I had building parents, good friends, enough to eat. My 20 years of living on our stretch of 32nd, I don't recall the cops ever having been called. As an adult, watching our nation go through powerful, earth-shifting, racial convulsions. I love that house, that neighborhood, that street even more. I would leave that little house, fishing pole in hand, to join neighborhood pals for bike rides, or hikes to the lake, or to the aburita mudgun. Or I would leave my bat and mitt for little league practice in Washington Park. And sometimes, especially during the summer, I would leave with a darker purpose, to ambush drivers heading northbound on 32nd Avenue East with my friends, a motley and multiracial gang of vanvils in the making. We would lie prone, hidden and still in the uncut grass, our pea shooters at the ready. Then we'd inhale, hold our breath, and ping cars to the drove north in the far west. It was all great fun, and so one afternoon, we hit a driver who'd left his window open. The peas flew and hit him upside his head. The red 56 Chevy screeched to a halt. The young white man opened the door and started running toward us. You little motherfuckers, he screamed. We scattered running through backyards, jumping fences and disappearing into the woods. After several minutes of hiding in the trees and behind blackberry bushes, we eventually reemerged. And I bumped into Alan Burgano, my friend neighbor and pea shooting dead eye. Alan was worried. Do you think he'll go to our homes and tell our parents, I sure hope. Mine are out shopping. I walked a few steps to the stop. What's a motherfucker, I asked. Although it's been more than a half a century since I've been inside our old house, I remember my new details of each room, closet and milk, as if I had visited yesterday. Most of my memories of where we live are comforting and warm, but not all. Like late one night when I was eight, I woke up to the shape of a woman standing in the foot of my brother's bed. I blinked at first, unbelieving and unsure, hoping I wasn't seeing what I was seeing. I took a deep breath that closed my eyes and opened it. I go, I was seeing what I was seeing. She was translucent and her hands were joined together, fingers pointing up as if in prayer. She didn't move or speak. I didn't think she was evil, small comfort, but I was still terrified. Worse, I had to pee and she didn't seem to be in any rush to leave. But I didn't want to get up and draw attention to myself, having her float after me through the room, down the hall into the bathroom. No thanks. Nor did I turn on the lamp on my bedside table, figuring that if the light went off and she was still there, I could be in trouble. Dear Jesus, I whispered, help me. My fear was exhausted. At some point, I even fainted or fell asleep. To this day, I'm not sure which. When I came to or awoke the next morning, she was gone. I quickly scanned the room and jumped out of bed and raced to the door. I still had to pee. As I looked back, I kind of clue that the ghost visit was really a blessing. It was the first episode of a life full of moments. I cannot explain. It has left me open to the inexplicable. To an ongoing and deep sense of wonder and surprise. From that point on, I've avoided certitudes and written stone unbending dogmas, never once claiming that I now have all the answers. This is why things happen. Trust me, I figured it out. And then there was a time when I was nine and the Catholic priest molested me. I came home one day after school and there at the table sat this odd-looking child-sized Filipino man who was sipping a coke and chatting with mom in Bessiah, laughing at everything she said. I'd never heard a priest like that, at least not the white ones I knew. Maybe they weren't supposed to. I'd never seen a Filipino priest. There he was, his miniature black uniform, complete with white collar. Oi, Peter, mom said. This is Father Veronica. He's from Cebu, he's visiting the archdiocese. He's our guest tonight. I just stood there unable to stop staring at this strange little man. Mom nodded her head. That's it. She whispered, don't be rude. Come here and introduce yourself. I walked two steps toward him, stopped, and extended my right hand. Veronica reached forward and grabbed me, pulling me in. Nice boy, he said, give me, and he held me tightly. Nice boy, I went limp. I was in my pajamas and lying in bed when Veronica walked in. He was beaming, giggling, and holding in his tiny hand the black rosary. Your mother says you pray. Yes, Father, but I've already prayed. Veronica looked at me, said, my son, you can never pray enough. He said to just look from beside me. Our father, he began as a blister hand on my brother. Who art in heaven, I do, if you replied, as his short fingers started massaging. And so it went. We finished the rosary and he left the room. I turned over on my side, fell asleep. More than 60 years later, my initial reaction to this incident puzzles me. Unlike other victims of sexual predation, I had no recurring nightmares, no suicidal thoughts, no feelings of guilt or shame or violation. For me, it was just an odd moment with a strange little man. It happened and moved on. I never told mom and dad. But over the years, I think I found the answer. Because of my mom, ours was a deeply religious one. Sex, as far as I can remember, was never mentioned or ever done within these walls. In our impenetrable sex-free bubble, people did not do what people do. In my nine-year-old world, sex and sexual monsters did not exist. After all, Mary, a virgin, gave birth to Jesus. Did it happen again when my sister, Irma, was born? I had no clue as to how that came about. At age nine, I was asexual and innocent. And that invincible Catholic innocence I am now convinced is what saved me from the residue of Veronica's heinous crown and sin. Years later, I was in Seattle visiting her. She was at the stove, tending to an almost-done chicken adobe. I was sitting at the kitchen table, enjoying the fragrance, sipping coffee, and reading the newspaper. Then the headline caught my eye. Pedophile lawsuit rocks archdiocese. My heart started to race. Mom, whatever happened to that priest, I casually asked. Which one? That little guy from Cebu. Oh, father Veronica. Yeah, father short eyes himself. My mom was short eyes. Oh, nothing, mom, nothing. She hovered over the pot, dipped a spoon in a sample of sauce. Almost done, she said, put her back still turned. She added a pinch of salt. Oh, so what did he say? Ooh, Veronica. He says he's well. And he's in charge of an orphanage of Cebu city. Oh, he says he loves his job. Oh, that. I then turned to the son. Vernon, how I whispered, you mother fucker. Mom turned around, she was smiling. Yeah, don't go son, it's ready. Now I'm going to shift a little bit. To a story that I kind of like, in a way. It's called The Fishing Night. I think Bruce, you've seen this one before. I've read it before. But I'll read it for the rest of those gathered here today. Hope you enjoy it. As a young boy, I love to read from books and newspapers to magazines, especially magazines, and especially field and stream, with his glossy pages in which my 11 year old eyes get ha and view, at photos of red striped tail walking trout in the distant, pure mountain performance. Next came the story of the intrepid fly fishing, whiteness, the pot, and sometimes at least nature as it should be, such noble, beautiful fish, such noble and handsome man, none of whom I was sure called Seattle Central District, Chinatown, South and home. I wanted to join the ranks, the first I had to research how to become one of them. I grabbed the dog ear and seared his catalog on the coffee table on our living room, skipping pass for the first time. Women's summer beachwear. I'm going straight to the sports section, the realm of the regal Ted Williams. And there he was, Boston's Teddy baseball himself. Fly fishing pole in hand looking straight at the camera. Looking straight at me. Ted winked and smiled. Mr. Williams, I said. Forget it, kid. I don't care how many paper routes you have or how much your allowance is this pole just by itself. Look at the price for pricing. You can't afford this. Nope, no way. And then there's the travel cost, a lot of money to get to Montana or Idaho or Wyoming where the pretty fish live. No way. I nodded. The great Williams pause and stared at me fondly. Like maybe he was worried that speaking an obvious truth had hurt my feelings. Or like maybe this conversation mattered. He smiled. Hey kid, how old are you anyway? 11, but I'll be 12 in a couple. Hey, don't feel bad. When I was your age, I couldn't afford to see her. My mom, she's Mexican, but she didn't know that that frown in her shirt. You know, back in my day, being Mexican in San Diego wasn't easy, but I lucked out there as baseball, of course. And I was better than anyone else, but Williams, hey, just like any Angle Dave, right? So I had a little easier. Now, what about you, kid? You're what? Filipino. Hmm, I thought so. Plenty of those where I come from, hard working friendly nose and the dirt sweating out in the fields every damn summer day, just like Mexicans. Just like Mexicans, they barn poor, they die poor. Hell, none of them are rich. At least not the ones I knew. The head closed his eyes, again, he shook his head. I was lucky, kid. Baseball, my last name, got to avoid much of that. We took a deep breath before we focusing on the... You love baseball? Yes, sir. You love fishing? Yes, sir. What do you use? A hand line. My dad and me on Sundays, after Mass we go to the dust, what's downtown on Elliot Bay and Jig for Shandwich? Sometimes we get lucky and catch a perch. It's fun. Dad says he did this a lot during the depression. And sometimes on Saturday, if we ain't playing ball or something, me and my pals, a bunch of us, we just hopped to Madrona, get off downtown, walked to the dock, and we do the same thing. That's not an approval. Well, it's not stream fishing for Browns and Montana. That's for sure. But it's a start. A lot of poor boys get started that way, he said. But what you need now is a pole, just not a fly pole. You can get one cheap, at least cheaper. And all you got to do is toss the bait from shore where the bigger fish are. Just sit back and wait. Thanks, Mr. Williams. I said, you got poles in front of you. Turned and walked out the window. Any time, kid heard him say, I needed a pole, Mr. Williams told me. How to get one? No, that was another issue. I knew that the basic fishing pole, spinning real combos of chubby and tubby out on Ridney, around about $20. Not expensive, much less than fly gear. But at that moment, 20 bucks was 20 more than I had. It was a sunny late afternoon, so I walked outside, sat on steps. My mind was focused, buried and thought, as I raced past a moment of money generating choices. Weekly allowance, not money. Borrowed money from friends, broke like me. Lawn mowing from neighbors, allergic to grass. Moral allergic to manual labor. What then? The answer came the next afternoon, Saturday, when my favorite uncle, Kihua, his uncle Rico, dropped by the house. Kihua, my dad's cousin, lived in a shabby Chinatown hotel, a cramped one-room hot plate walk-up. As kids, dad and he had come to this new land together full of hope. But the decade since, they'd lived their lives in America's dark margins, in West Coast fields, and in Alaska's canneries working dead end, backbreaking jobs. But unlike dad, Kihua had never married. He didn't have much money. As a cannery worker, that was a given, and even I knew that. But what he did earn, he spent on nice clothes, nice horse, and me. Over the years, he treated me as his chosen son, not just a nephew. When I was young, uncle Kihua was my benefactor and my babysitter. He taught me how to curse. When he babysat me, he'd get dressed up, completely crisp-dressed shirt and borsalino hat, and we would prowl his favorite Chinatown haunts full of other old binners. Like Kihua, they were all Natalie dressed, serenely confident, speaking different languages. Their words sounding like notes. They were glad to be together. They were glad to be alive. Why not? Many like Kihua were combat veterans. All of them had survived hard lives and racial hatred. Yet here they were, the kids later, still joking and laughing, and living in the land that didn't want them. On me, these old Filipinos left an impression. That's what I wanna be when I grow up. Most of us, like I said, crocks up the son of a bitch motherfucker. They're among Kihua's favorites, his friends, too, and were usually bellowed at the pool hall, at a card table in the back victory bath house on King. Unlike Kihua, uncle Kihua was also my beloved giver of gifts and surprises. And lucky me, today was no exception. Dad and Kihua were sitting at the kitchen table, chatting and laughing, eating apple pie and drinking coffee with lots of cream and sugar. As usual, I was camped nearby in the living room in front of our tiny black and white, watching a show with a white boy in his horse, or maybe a collie, I forget which. Oh boy, come here. I rose and walked toward them. Your uncle, we did well at the track. Kihua smiled and nodded. Really good, he said to see round his hands together. Hit the trifecta. First time all my years gone, boy, oh boy. You wanna geeky something, dad said. Uncle Kihua reached under the table and handed me a new two-piece fiberglass rod, completely with spin casserole with a covered front and a snazzy newfangled push button release. I recognized it too, a zebco combination that I'd first seen in the fishing near Isle at Chubby and Tubbies. It caught my eye, a black beauty I thought, more than my folks could afford. And just like that, now it was mine. My jaw dropped, oh wow, I missed a moment. Dad looked at me sternly. Boy, you've got something to say. Thank you, Uncle Kihua. Thank you. Kihua giggled and extended his right hand, palm up and shook it. His wordless way of saying, there's nothing kid, nothing. But to me, there was nothing. And that day on, if I had free time and wasn't playing baseball, I'd go on the screen. I was on my bike, the price of the zebco dismantled and took it to the crossbar, peddling hard to some secret or not so she could spot on the Seattle side of Lake Washington. In those days, the lake was polluted, the destination of untreated human waves. But being a kid, I just didn't care. It didn't look polluted, especially on clear early mornings when the lake listened to the snow cascades in the background. Health concerns settled off of my bike, I'd go on more days a month. From our little house in the central district, it's about three miles to Lake Washington. For me and my young legs, it needs to be stretched by any measure. But it may as well have been 300 across the street from the lake, with the mansions and fancy houses of Seattle's best. But those people, the white movers and shakers who ran the city, they were rarely seen, at least not by folks in the central district. But I wasn't curious about them at all, their great houses, their wealth, their large lives and grand grains and their great futures or heroic past. All I knew was that rich folks didn't own the lake and they didn't own the view. In my grade school years of fishing, the life of before I was consumed by high school sports. My favorite spot was a dock next to Madison Beach. For me, it wasn't the most productive, but that's why I met the fishing man, a stocky and older African-American. Every time I went to that spot, he was there sitting on a folding chair, bending forward if it was cold, leaning back if it wasn't. He wasn't a man of many words, so intent was he on catching fish. But over time, he was sometimes shattered. One afternoon, he told me he was born in Louisiana, came up during the war, served in the Pacific and returned to Seattle to sit and settle in here. Before he retired, he'd worked the shipyards and his wife died and his kids grew up and moved away. Why Seattle, I asked. He looked at me. Louisiana adds a hard place to be if you call it. One day, late afternoon, I arrived at the dock. The fishing man had already caught a mess of her, many more than usual. I watched him reel in his line and rebate the hook, worm and salmon eggs, the staples, then he added a marshmallow. Perch eat marshmallows. These ones stay here. He stood and passed as far as he could and settled into his chair. He ate this, bitches. I heard him mow. Almost 60 years later, I'm sitting on the dock on American Lake near my home outside the terminal. I carefully baked the hook. Worm, salmon egg and marshmallow. A food combination, not normally found in nature, but it works. And for me, that's the bottom line. I cast out and hear the plonk and watch the ripple, I tighten the line. This morning in early May is warm, so I sit back and relax. And then a fleeting memory, a glimpse, filled in string and the white fly fishing man. Nope, never became one of them. Then I take out a camel, I light it, welcome the first drive and smile. My eyes now focus on the tip of the phone. Eat this, bitches, I say. I wanna move to something really kind of like, it's called bad attitude. And this is for you Phil Ames. The last part in particular, I think is important because it shows a very clear record of resistance. It's just bad attitude from the first generation passed on to their American-born sons and daughters. And there will be a little bit of cursing in here, so it's necessary to the telling of the story. There was an American-sharing beloved by my dad and his generation and passed along to the American-born sons, it's this, fuck you. It's what they said to white men on racist and violent west coasts, although on a racist and violent west coast, and the doors were zutsuts hung out on street corners and dated nothing married white men. Monkeys, you call those niggers, fair enough. And we will use our secret jungle potions in our jungle bookie, dancing to lawyer women nothing than white men will break your laws against race mixing. We'll mongrelize your tribe and as you get older, we'll live in our cities and towns, maybe even your neighborhoods. You'll watch our children grow and have better lives so we could never have been shriveled in your hatred. May you die on more, on more, fuck you. That's also what the Manung said in the 1930s, when they formed a militant labor union and striking sometimes wild cat-striking, the way to better wages conditioning the fields in Sam and Kenridge. Finally, it's what the legendary labor leader, Larry Etliang, told farmers in Delano when he led Filipino rape pictures off the fields in 1965. The ongoing strike caught the nation's attention and led to the pop culture beatification of the humble bias made for television's face, our Shavas, led the Mexican workers. In too many narratives, Filipinos played a marginal role or ignored altogether, but make no mistake. It was the younger, less certain and less experienced Shavas who followed Etliang off the fields and not the other way around. This defiance was inherited by their American-born sons. Flash forward to what a Pinoy buddy said about the U.S. Army when he got his draft notice during the Vietnam War. Fuck the Army, he said, finally, I'm joining the Marines. To me, the first part made sense. It's not good, maybe not so much. But I understood the attitude, misguided, maybe. The defiant, like father, like son. Very Pinoy. It's also what another friend, Eddie, said a second before he punched an off-duty cop in the head. I shouldn't have even been at the scene in that junior high gym on a weekday night. I was in law school, prepping for the next day's class. One of my buddy Steve called. Grab your tennis shoes, he said, wreck the league game. Let me know he's got a couple of dude shorts. Be by intent. Why not? I needed right from wills and trunks. The Filipino team was a motley crew, a changing cast of characters who smoke cigarettes and never practice between games. They shared shorts, cut outs, and sweat-parted pants who are uniformed for the night. My playing days, years, but that's lovely to take a spot on the bench. Catch up with friends and watch the game on mismatch from the start. The Filipinos are much shorter and thinner than our beefier and taller opponents, but the differences didn't end there. The cops actually called out and ran plays, set screens, and looked for the open man. They played defense, wore matching uniforms, and practiced during the week. In contrast, Pinoy ballers were not inclined to pass or to pay attention to the basic aspects of team life. On offense, dribble and shoot was how we played, which meant that the first one to touch the ball was also the last, which was cool because we understood it. Our style of play was less about winning, although sometimes that happened. And more about highlighting the individual skills and doing all ooze and pause from appreciative teammates and fans for the distance-defying jump shot or better still, a quick drive to the hole, avoiding flailing defenders to slow to respond. In other words, art versus function on this junior high school basketball court. And tonight, art was getting stonked down by 10 after five minutes. I knew it would only get worse. I leaned back on my chair and turned the ray if I hadn't seen them once. Hey, man, I began but didn't finish the sentence. Motherfucker, fuck you, a familiar voice from the court screen, followed by a loud whack. Ah, man, I said, it's Eddie. Eddie's victim bent over and moaning, held the hand over his eyes, but the cops formed a protective circle around him. Like yaks, I thought, but smaller, whiter and not as furry. One teammate handed the wounded cop a towel to stop the bleeding from the cut above the eye. Another walked him off the floor. Your boy hit me in the balls, Eddie screamed, glaring and pointing angrily the cops. What the hell would you do? At 5, 10, 170 pounds, Eddie wasn't physically imposing. Other dangerous men were bigger and stronger, but no one was as fierce. He was a berserker and would gladly find anyone dumb enough to step forward and take him on. No one did. As the impasse continued race, I then stood up and walked onto the court. Come on, brother, may need some backup. The rest of us joined him. As it turned out, Eddie didn't need our help. The cops turned and walked toward the bench, picked up the bags and looked. Suck this one screen as he walked out the door. You just lucky. Sure, I thought an embarrassing off duty brawl. Consequences, bad publicity, letters of reprimand, maybe even suspensions will pay. Consequences considered, no doubt. But also considered a snarling, dangerous Eddie, a foaming, two-legged dog, willing to fight anyone or all of them, one on one or all at once. Almost 50 years later, my bottom line, the cops were lucky too. I'm sitting here remembering, knowing that the first generation has vanished and that the children have had children, perhaps grandchildren too, and that these stories are stories while they have much in common with the stories of other immigrants from Asia, the Manong's attitude to defiance is unique. Such stories have not been told or have told, have been forgotten or not listened to by too many younger Filipinos. But that indifference may slowly be changed. Young Filipinos have gone to Delano, visiting, writing about and producing films focused on the area of film and the pivotal role in the 1965 Delano Grip Strip. In terms of shining defiant moments in Pinoy history, it is hard to top it down with the Delano Pinoy's for what they did in 1965. But such a moment does exist. In Seattle, it's all but forgotten details as described in a lawsuit argued before the U.S. Supreme Court, ILW Local 37 versus Board. Every spring, Local 37 sent thousands of Pinoy's North to the Alaskan Salmon Canneries, Salmon Canneries. But the United States was the middle of a communist hunting tsunami unleashed by Senator Joe McCarthy. And Boyd, the Seattle-based district director of immigration and naturalization services was more than happy to do his part. His target, Local 37. In 1953, Boyd's office twisted federal immigration on threatened with end quotes to treat aliens domiciled in the continental United States for training from temporary work in Alaska as if they were aliens entering the United States for the first time. In 1953, many of Local 37's members had become American citizens. And soon Boyd's threat would not apply. But others were not. The Philippines became independent in 1946. It cut the legal tie between America and its former colony. It also changed the status of thousands of Pinoy's. Overnight, and despite decades in America, they lost their status and protection as American nationals. Aliens is what they became. And under American law, aliens seeking entry to this country for their first time could be excluded for any number of reasons, including disfavored political affiliations. Chris Menzalves, the local's president, was the unreachable itch, the tricker Boyd's obsession. Among Filipinos, the one-legged Menzalves was legend, committed, courageous, and tough. Pinoy is no stranger to hardship. Admired he's face. He was also an unabashed communist, unforgivable during the paranoia of the McCarthy era when Americans yearned for peace and for simple answers to the questions raised by an increasingly complex and hostile post-war world. In 1945, the US and its allies had defeated fascism. That just the next year, Winston Churchill warned of an iron curtain caused by the Soviet Union's aggressive Westward expansion. Then in 1949, China, an important wartime out. Felt the communist forces in the country's civil war. Finally, in 1950, American soldiers were battling Chinese communists on the Korean Peninsula. Speed and sheer scope of the global change is breathtaking. Not at all to America's life. Within this unsettling mid-U, Senator Joe McCarthy provided the snake oil to suit the nation's angle of nurse. Subversives explained the problem. And he knew who they were. Communists and sympathizers could be found at government universities, labor unions, the arts. Discharges, most of which were unfounded, were dutifully reported by meek and uncritical American press. But the early 1950s, the McCarthy era had shaped the tenor of American life, giving rise to blacklists, the risks guilt by innuendo and association terminations. And that's how we grew in lives. Those days, the INS building, local 37 headquarters, were within walking distance of each other. It must have galled boy, other immigration officials, that a communist-led unit could be so brazen as to openly operate and thrive the agencies back here. And so threatened in 1953. INS's goal, I am sure, was to force the American file to remove men's solace. But he continued as president until 1959, or five years after McCarthy was censured by the Senate in two years after his death in 1957. In each spring, and despite the threat, local 37 would send the Penoise North for decades to come. But why would these warfish most of them not communists, so unfailingly loyal to a marked man? For starters, group solidarity, strengthened by years of racial hostility, had become an article of it, shared by members of the first Penoise generation. This is how we survived. But that's not all. In 1984, I wrote this about men's solace. They say loyal to Chris because he understood them and their needs, and he spoke their language. That was his magic. He could speak to anyone that a person would believe, or would at least want to believe Chris's talent that human touch worked in spite of his ideology, not because of it. In retrospect, the rank and files of defiance was both brave and audacious during time when other Americans drew their shades and cowered in their homes. And turncoats kept busy naming names, but not at local 37. Reunion members made abundantly clear that they, not the federal government, would choose who they wanted to lead them. That's our decision. It's who we are. One more thing, Mr. Boyd, Mr. Big Shot. Mr. Paulish Floor Shine Shoots. Take a deep breath now. Any questions? Just real quick. I'm gonna find the last story that I'll read to you. And it'll take us up to time when we begin a conversation. I'll read eulogy. That's to my mom. First, you need to, where are you? Okay, this is the last of the readings I'll teach you today. Mother, about nine years ago, your advancing years formed a posthum to kidnap your mind while hidden in a loop from which there is no escape. During this time, I would visit as I always have and each smile and each cute to me, not to me, but to those who had done of your brothers and sisters, your brave and persistent wartime generation, you were the only one left, the last woman standing. This is life as it has too often been and even when you were alive, I spent the last few years mourning your passing. Knowing that I wanted to create a song and prose, perhaps an audio that would have pleased Freddie Mercury. For me, you are the best mother I could have ever imagined. It's modest a collection of anecdotes. Anecdotes will help explain why. This is act one. When I think of your appellage memories crowds my mind of me or three listening to you play the piano and sing your song about how melancholy you were, truth you could neither sing nor play the piano. But I could feel your sorrow now, but I know. Best friends, now is your confidant. And a little later, when I was constipated and sitting on the stool, you poked your head inside the bathroom. Your face etched in motherly concern. Don't push so hard. You saw them and said, why not? Your stomach will come out. Oh, the next day you and dad had some Filipino friends over a mix of old timers and your arrivals like yourself. You're all in the living room chatting, laughing, munching on Lumbia. Several times I had grown and pushed and grown and pushed, nothing would come out. I was concerned, maybe I'd gotten too far. I walked over to you, pulled down my pants, bent over and asked, did my stomach come out? No, son, you can't reply before kissing me on the head. Now pull up your pants and go to the kitchen. But I'm passing and I were just remembering life back home. She bought her Lumbia, your favorite, the fat ones with chicken and lettuce and raisins. Posing nodded and smacked, just for you. Don't get some before they're all gone. You then poise, oi, and stop eating so much cheese. Relieved, I pulled up my pants and you were seeing me from chatting and laughing and munching on Lumbia, just a day in the life. As I loaded my plate with freshly cooked Lumbias, I promised myself I would stop eating cheese. Then was the time I think I was five and you spanked me for some trans regression I don't recall, dad was Lord of Discipline. An old school cat who used the bell, twisted his waist and followed through like Mickey at the plate. But for whatever reason he was gone that day, maybe to China found my cards and visit pals. Whatever the reason I knew I'd cut a brick. You were bad, she said sternly. No reply, I said, I looked down and flipped the switch to lip quiver mode. Are you sorry? Yes, I'm on my head still down. When you do it again, I shook my head. I still have to spank you. I know, I said sadly. You raised your right hand and aimed a slap on my butt. Ouch, I said, although it stung but didn't really hurt. Again, ouch, I screamed, screech, although this one hurt even less. Now go to your room, said. Head still down, lower lip, reliably quivering. I started walking to my room, wondering if my trove of tiny German-American soldiers camped in separate shoeboxes, were ready for yet another American. Yet, were ready for yet another epic showdown. Then on my seventh birthday, I was happy and full of expectations. Maybe a new captain, a train engine or cowboy of that. Or if I lucked out perhaps all three. I blew out the candles, a round of applause. Then you and dad brought inboxes crammed with volumes of funk and wiggles. The entire encyclopedic set. Read it, dad said bluntly. It was an order and I now tried trying to hide my disappointment. Mom tousled my hair and kissed my forehead. Happy birthday, son, I'll finish your cake. You don't have to start reading today. Eventually, out of boredom I suppose, I did start reading inside the computer. To my surprise, I found myself enjoying it. Especially when I discovered new things like the battles and the names of the generals of World War II. My tiny German and American soldiers could now re-fight the Allied land they didn't know today. More than 60 years later, I still have a passion for history, my first academic life. I am still curious about the hounds and whys of significant events. Funk and wankers and you and dad gave me that gift and your son thanks you. In 1972, I was no longer a child, back to, but a somewhat serious young man starting my second year of law school. That fall, though, the uniform commercial pool took a back seat to political organizer. The drama of the next several weeks started quietly enough. An announcement by King County at a dome sports stadium built next to Chinatown. Stay the art, or so it's backed with brag. A sure-fire door for big-time baseball and football franchises. The stadium would proclaim to the nation, of the world, of Seattle, then a drab and modest mid-sized city with a drab and modest reputation had finally arrived. The site was chosen because Chinatown residents were too poor and colored, too powerless, or so county officials thought. The stadium would also drive up property values and rent, forcing the elderly to move out of a neighborhood they call home for 40 years or more. Some of my dad's old cronies had left the Philippines and come to this land as young men. I knew many of them. Their lives are dingy, roach, infested hot plate rooms, the poverty and the ministry, and those days, Chinatown was a neighborhood with smoke-filled joints, the pool hall and dive bar here, the Minola Cafe, the Virtue Rathouse, and a card room there. It wasn't much, but it was all the old Pinoys had left. As a child, I knew all of these places, no patrons, well, mother, you did too. How could I not fight back? How could you not fight back? It was a sentiment shared by young Filipino and other Asian-American activists, as well as many Chinatown residents. We held community meetings. We organized the local media notice momentum built. Early that year, I had asked legal services to intervene on behalf of the residents of the several researchers. We lost them for no surprise, given the potent political and economic wins pushing this project. That left plan B. Forget the kendo, my, or argue, it's a done deal. Instead, pressure local and federal agencies to cough up enough federally subsidized housing for Chinatown. That meant marching on the Seattle Office of the Department of Housing and Urban Development. After one of those meetings, you said you'd be on the march. But I said, knowing that what starts out peaceful can sometimes result, you said, dad's friends, they're my friends too, at least I can do it. And marches what you and hundreds of others did on November 12th, from Chinatown to the HUD office on Second Avenue. An iconic photo captured you near the front of the march, stardlessly dressed that brisk, breezy morning from your winter coat to your fur hat, like you're going to mass at a mackey. You're also carrying a sign, humbows not hot dogs. Inside the building, we crowded into meeting. We sat across the table from nervous hard officials, dressed in blue and gray polyester suits. And my best Mao Mao imitation, I kept jamming my thumb on the table, demanding that federal government pay attention to the housing needs of Chinatown's poor. And within a few years, federal removal funds started pouring into Chinatown, the money going to fervor show units and expand the stock of subsidized housing. That meant that the old Pinois, your old Pinois wouldn't have to move and they could live out their lives in decent apartments, not hot plate rooms in living conditions much better than they'd know. For you, the Chinatown march was just a start. You kept going as part of a group that founded the International Drop and Center, which provided services for Chinatown's elderly and poor. We stayed for more than 30 years. I don't know how many helped apply for citizenship, get veterans benefits or apply for Social Security, but more than 1,000 sounds about right. She or their advocate, their angel, who spoke English well enough to say, I want to speak to your supervision. Then there was the time I came home to find two women, the 30s Filipinos, I didn't know, sleeping on the living room floor. Mom, I said, who are these? That says the shorter one, that's Stella. They looked up, shorter Stella rubbed her eyes. This is my eldest, Peter, you said as I bust you on the jeep. He's going to be an attorney. I wave and Charlie wave, very Charlie wave. Now go get something to eat. Mom, they left the Philippine consulate a few days ago, claiming abuse and poor working conditions. They had nowhere to go. It's in the papers. No other Filipinos will take them in too dangerous. So Father O'Connor asked me and I say, why not? You shrugged. How can you say no to a priest? What did dad say? Dad was seated at the kitchen table, sitting coffee and reading the Seattle Times. Her feet granted without looking up. He didn't say no, you said with a smile. And I thought, how could dad say no to you? He never does, I said, another smile. Your decision meant that you and dad could be facing serious consequences. You had property in the Philippines family too, that the Philippine dictator, Ferdinand Marcos could have moved against you, but you were the only one in this community who went ahead and you dragged dad with you. Marcos was ruthless and booed, but he shunned you how to suck a tip. That meant keeping the Americans happy, and the Amani pipeline open. No bad press, the appearance of the form. Fascism with a smiling, brown face. The story Stella and Francis told wasn't part of Manila's sunny narrative. Should they be forced to return to the Philippines for leaving the consulate and violating the work visas? They would have been in danger for embarrassing the regime. That meant keeping them here at all costs. During the following months, there would be immigration hearings, petitions for asylum, and your old standby. Marriage to old Filipino men who also happened to be citizens. You'd arrange the last one thanks to your deep pool of drop-in center clients who were old Filipino men who also happened to be US citizens. In the end, Francis and Stella got married, stayed out, stayed booked, and Stella and her soon-to-be-dead citizen husband, the Unbada House, both of the women had you to think. And I thank you as well for this crystalline moment of moral clarity. As your son, I have never been proud. One night, October or Sunday, before you'd lapsed in the darkness, I came by for a visit. You were seated at the dis-titching table, sipping tea, and reading the voters pamphlet. I kissed you on the head and joined you at the table. You smirked. I always vote for Democrats, she said it to me, why? They helped little people. You picked up the pamphlet and slowly turned the page. Like us, you said without looking at it. This is the other part. In my mind, there you are, mom, playing the piano and singing your sad, besieged song. A little off key and missing a note or two. My dearest wish is to see and to hear you sing and play the piano again. Thank you so much, Peter. That was wonderful. And just hear it. Oh, thank you. Just, and you know, folks want to do a round of applause via your Zoom chat or Zoom reactions. Please feel free to do so. I hope that you enjoyed that. And now we're going, we have about 20 minutes or so to, for questions and things like that. And we can open up the floor. You can either put them in the chat or raise your hand via the Zoom so that we can call on you. Yeah. And as we wait for folks, I actually, I'll ask one question just to kind of start things off. And this is kind of my nerd historian kind of place to be. I'm a historian by trade like Abe had mentioned. And you know, as a writer, how important to you is it to infuse your work with history? History has touched all of my writing. I mean, history is, history was my first love. And you know, the dilemmas that people find themselves in are basically the source for a lot of fiction. A lot of fiction. So this was particularly important because it's a history of my community. And it's not just my community, but my family and community and my city. So it's absolutely important, particularly in this work, to infuse it with as much history as I possibly can. I noticed that there was, I was thinking of so many parallels as you're reading the last one, thinking about gentrification and how we've seen that here in San Francisco happening, whether it be the I-Hotels fight in the 70s or even what's been happening in terms of the Filipino community in the South of Market community recently. And so just kind of thinking about how important is and how we think about those stories recurring in working class and lower income communities and the work that we need to continue to do. Yeah, well, that's absolutely true. But what happened in Seattle is that we had a plan B. You know, it wasn't as dramatic as the I-Hotel, but the plan B was basically to ignore the stadium that it was going to go up anyway, but to fall back on pressuring local officials to kick over the dough for decent housing for the old time, it's been that happened. You know, I can't take a sole responsibility for a lot of other people who worked on it, particularly the late and revered and great Bobby Santos who was a pretty much a community activist and knew how to pull the levers to get the support so that that older generation was taken care of. Bobby was the magic man that did all of this, but we helped set the groundwork. That's amazing, it's really amazing. And let's see, it looks like there, so I have a question from some of you from Capcomoi. I found your short story, The Second Room, excellent. Do you have any short stories of your first ring time at the first hill basement of the characters you taught and fought? There's a story in the collection called Van the Man, and to have him email me and I can send it down to him. I'll put my email in the chat. And Teddy Devina is there, and we go back more than half a century. He was my running buddy, and I love him deeply. And he was part of the group, and the story was in Van the Man. I was supposed to box some guy at the UW, but we'd spent the afternoon drinking. Van was our boxing coach, and he says before I enter the ring, he says, oh boy, you've been drinking. I say, yeah, I guess, I look over at Teddy, Teddy smoking, he turns away. And I boxed this guy's ears off, but first round he couldn't hit me, and I was just kind of snacking, and I'm moving around in circles and so forth. And I go back to the corner and I said, hey, Van, man, how am I doing? What should I do? What advice you got for me? He says, oh, man, you don't listen, no, how? Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha. That's hilarious. It was funny. It was funny. It looks like, let me say it. Richard Fabian asks, have you ever been associated with the beats? Your work reminds me of the burrows. Oh, thank you. That's a good company to be associated with. I mean, burrows is a legend. Oh, I don't know. It's like I have my own internal rhythm. If it sounds good, it goes on the page. What I do late at night is, I'll read it for rhythmic quality. That's the last thing I do to a piece. And one of an interview was, I listened to a number of years ago on NPR. And I think the poets, the slam poets have got it down, but novelists and prose writers haven't quite figured it out yet. Yeah, and that is that whatever you write, you should also be able to perform. You should read it. You should be able to read it. It should have a rhythm to it. And I'm not saying the good prose should make the audience want to get up and dance, but the audience should feel something from the rhythm and the cadence. And I heard an interview once with one of the poets. And the question was, well, what do you see when you see an empty sheet or an empty page, right? With no markings on it. And the poet responds, I see a sheet of music. Which is how I look at an empty sheet. I see a sheet of music. Not only does it have the substance, but it has to have the tonality, the resonance, the beat. Because everything I write down, I should be able to perform. I can definitely, I think when I was reading, Uncle Rigo's Encore, and even your earlier works, I could definitely feel that. As a former spoken word artist in my younger years, that was one of the things that I always kind of thought about is what I'm reading performable in many ways. And even as a, honestly, as a professor now, as an educator, those kinds of things kind of run through my head too. Because in many ways, being in front of a classroom, you're kind of a performer. But yeah, so Jason Reddick asked, how important is your sister writing and when do you break the rules? When you feel like it. And that comes with time and experience. I've been in this business of writing, creatively for more than 20 years. And if you're serious about it, you develop almost a sixth sense in terms of when you know what the rules are. First of all, you have to know the rules to break the rules. And the inspiration comes, but it's not inspiration out of the blue. It's inspiration that's formed by years of practice and holding the craft. And so I won't know until I actually begin the process of writing when it's appropriate to break the rules. This doesn't work. This is what's traditional, expected. But how about if I fickle with this a little bit? Oh, that's much better. Did you ever take writing courses yourself before you started getting into writing? No. No, I just woke up one morning and figured out I'd write a novel, which is the dumbest thing I've ever concluded in my life. It's just so fucking stupid and arrogant. But I'd been playing with words for a long time. I was writing for the national journals on politics, particularly on the Philippines for about five, six years I was being published. I was being published, you know, Montur was my main page, but I was writing for CIS Review, which is John's Hopkins Journal of International Affairs, which is a Columbia University. Folks like this, Marcos is bad. The U.S. needs to change policy, that sort of thing. After a while it became a little bit too routine. And I think the lure of creative writing with the fiction of creative nonfiction is simply this, it's divinity because you've created the universe. And you populate it with souls and you determine what happens to them. It becomes really kind of spooky because you know everything about them. You know what their outcomes are gonna be when you hear their voices and so on and so forth. And it just becomes this two, three year wrestling match where you know everything about the characters you put in one paper and you feel an obligation to them to not short shrift them, even if they're bad and do bad things. You wanna be able to fully tell their story. I feel like I wanna ask a question about ghosts but I'm not gonna go through right now because it feels connected to what you're talking about. But Bruce Johnson was asking after the fair housing laws were passed, our buddy Allen, and I'm guessing... Brugano. And his family moved to the North end. Did your family move? If so, were there interesting stories on your neighborhood? Yeah, about 71 when the Bruganos was like Filipinos all decided to move at the same time. Some decided to stay behind. But, you know, to a bigger house, the neighborhood was going through all kinds of upheaval and changes and my parents weren't comfortable with that. And so they decided to move from about 71 on we're in the North end. But the neighborhood that we were in for 20 years was just a very, very good place to move. It was like Mayberry, but integrated. It's an integrated Mayberry. And it was just very safe and very protective sort of place. I loved it. That's wonderful. It's Mayberry. I'm sorry, my head went somewhere else. And kind of piggybacking on that question, the people who show up in your narratives, have you, the ones who are still around, have you talked to them? What are their actions have been to your stories? Well, I sent Teddy, I mean, it's like, he's a farm boy from Waputo, right? And I knew him before the army sucked him up and shipped him to Vietnam. He became friends in about 67, renewed our friendship when he got back. But Teddy's in a lot of these stories. And I said, man, you and so many stories. You and so many stories, I might as well rename the collection, you know? Teddy DeVina, the boy who loved goats. Those Pinoy's from the countryside, that's what they eat. They love goats. Goat, what are you talking about goat? Don't they go, how can you do that? Man, go eat this goat, they go, do it. Oh, that's fair enough. Because when I was reading through it, I'm like, oh, I know the Percados. And this is all kind of in the spirit of thinking about all the work of the Filipino American National Historical Society and just seeing names. And I think for me, that's what was so special about this collection as well. I could actually, I've been to Seattle a few times, but you know, it's the people and the naming that you did. I'm just like, this is like, I can see this happening in my head. And really the story about a young Alan Bergano and Peter Baccio with the P-shooters. Oh, that was a real story. That really was, that was real. You know, I mean, the stuff with Ted Williams, that you know, I mean, that's where you get the mostly true. And there's such a fine line between fiction, good fiction and creative non-fiction. I mean, they call memoir creative non-fiction and they call it for a reason. And that is that no one's gonna challenge a conversation you had 50 years ago. That is very true. And just checking to see if we have a couple more questions in the chat. Okay, I actually have another one. And I've just, your mom is so present in the stories. And I was just wondering if you thought about, you know, what would your mom say about some of the stories that you shared? Because you know, in my head, particularly, I was thinking about the one where she talks about, you know, her marriage with your father, but then also the narrative that you read in terms of the priest, and I'm just curious what you think she might have said. But she didn't know. I mean, that didn't exist. That kind of abuse didn't exist for her. And she was the one that bestowed this really powerful religiosity on the family. And ironically, that was the trait that saved me. It saved me from the ramifications of violation. It doesn't happen. It didn't happen in that house, but not possibly happen. So it didn't happen in my mind. It had no significance whatsoever. Just a little bit strange, other things were strange too. But I think that that's what's, for me, what's really fascinating in terms of how powerful the belief is. And then, you know, you talk about leaving the church as well and, you know, what her reaction was to that. It's, what I found interesting was, I don't know how much that affected her, but it was more of, as long as you understand what your responsibility and obligation is to me and the family, we'll not talk about that, you know, the part where you're no longer going to church. That's true. That's true. She drew a line there. I never forgot. I didn't have an obligation to the church other than, you know, adherence to Catholic sporting teams. Vatican basketball, right? Vatican basketball. Basketball. That is one, because a lot of what you also talk about is sports, boxing, basketball, baseball. And I found it interesting how you kind of went from one to the other, and even fishing, right? That's how I expressed myself when I was a kid. I was a pretty good athlete. I was shy, but a pretty good athlete. This was a form for selfless expression, particularly basketball. And you stuck with basketball for far more than you did with baseball, correct? Yeah, I couldn't hit the curve. I remember that. I couldn't hit a breaking pitch. I couldn't hit a breaking pitch. And the thing is that, you know, the black and Filipino communities back in the day as I was growing up, they were very close. There were all kinds of friendships across racial, ethnic lines. And that was something I, you know, my best friend as a kid was a guy, George Newsom, who's mentioned quite frequently on this. Just very, very close. Good relations, good friendships. And you grow up in a situation like this. You don't fall prey to this kind of BS that's happening from the right wing, you know, because you're new people as human beings and they were good trusted friends. So it's like, you're talking nonsense. But did you see it, because one of the things, again, you talk about that you see a shift as newer immigrants come in from the Philippines post-1965. And do you see that sort of inter-ethnic, interracial camaraderie and friendship? Do you see that kind of go away? Kincea? You know, I don't know. I mean, I think the kids of that post-65 generation, I think they have been able to reach across. The racial boundaries, but it takes maybe a little bit more work because it's like, I grew up in an integrated neighborhood. You know, my friends came in all shapes and sizes from all kinds of backgrounds. And I was blessed to have had that experience. I wouldn't have traded it for the world. I think about that because as I was growing up, I grew up in a predominantly Filipino neighborhood. So kind of thinking about how stereotypes and prejudices and perceptions really impact, particularly our parents who come from the Philippines, and that influencing how they try to help us figure out, okay, well, you need to make sure that you're making friends with these people or that people or avoid these people, and it's an interesting thing to kind of see how that emerged in your own narratives. Well, I mean, in terms of where I grew up and the context within which I grew up, you developed kind of an empathy for the underdog, wherever the underdog was. Nowadays, as Ukraine getting invaded by its neighbor and so on and so forth, this ain't right. Well, it is 427, and if I could ask Abe Ignacio to kind of come back, if that's possible. Are there any final questions for Peter that folks wanted to ask? Yeah, no, this has been great. There you are. Hi, Abe. Hey, you guys were fantastic. Did you enjoy it? Oh yeah, I can't wait to go back up to Seattle. You gotta give us the full on tour, Peter. Okay, my pleasure. I should be out and about by then. I mean, I've been playing it really cautious during the last two years, but I'll be less cautious this summer. We all have, this pandemic ain't no joke. Yeah, ain't no joke. Ain't no joke. Well, thank you so much to everybody. Again, thank you for joining us. Thank you to the San Francisco Public Library. Is there anybody else, Abe? Anisa, particularly for being the background. Yeah, thanks guys. Checks in the mail, right, Abe? Yeah. Excellent. And thank you, thank you Berkeley Public Library. And of course, thank you so much, Peter Baccia, for being with us today. Thank you for hosting me.