This essay was originally published on Sojourners Magazine on July 28, 2021
On July 9, Illinois became the first state in the U.S. to that require Asian American history be taught in public schools. For Asian Americans, this was a moment to celebrate our stories and cultures entering into the mainstream. Indeed, hearing the news helped me remember the stories of my childhood in the Philippines, especially those of my lola (grandmother), Mama Lilia, whose wisdom and poetry continue to strengthen me today.
When I was a child, I would wake up every morning to the pleasant aroma of freshly brewed coffee. Mama Lilia was preparing for a busy day ahead. After raising 10 children, she had turned her attention to growing papayas, duhat (Java plums), ferns, and beautiful gumamelas (hibiscus). As the sun rose, she’d water her children with outstretched arms; the plants waved in thankfulness. Indeed, Mama Lilia spent so much time in the garden that her name became synonymous with “gardener.”
One day, I saw her speaking to the plants. With shears in her hands, she pruned and cut away long branches and dry leaves. But with every snip, Lola apologized to the plants, “I’m sorry, my darlings. I’m sorry.”
When I asked why she talked to inanimate objects, she paused for a moment. And with sweat dripping like tears down her cheeks, she smiled gently. “The plants breathe like us, too. Like us, they can feel pain.”
She looked to the sky and closed her eyes. “But also like us, they need to be pruned. Because without pain, one can never know what growth is.”
I grew up in Misamis Oriental, a province on Mindanao island in the Philippines, near the Gardens of Malasag Eco-Tourism Village, an attraction that promises visitors a chance to enjoy gardens, nature trails, and the culture of Indigenous people like the Higaonon tribe — whose ancestral lands have been exploited by agribusiness. Malasag is located on a mountainside, filled with trees, waterfalls, wildlife, and the sound of Indigenous drums and dances. The Higaonon people call it home, but it often struck me how everything in Malasag was designed to be seen by outsiders.
As the Higaonons sang and danced, white people would watch from the sides, grinning. Deer, snakes, and birds were confined in cages for the enjoyment of others. Trees were tagged with their scientific names instead of what the Higaonons originally named them. Exiled from the very land they belonged to, Indigenous peoples, wildlife, and plants have been reduced to tourist attractions, providing resources, food, and vacation spots for white people to enjoy.
“We all long for Eden, and we are constantly glimpsing it: our whole nature at its best and least corrupted, its gentlest and most human, is still soaked with the sense of exile,” wrote J.R.R. Tolkein in a letter to his son Christopher. But for Black and Indigenous people groups, whose Eden was taken away from them by Western imperialism, this deep-seated longing for Eden runs especially deep.