TO THE FRIENDS OF MELISSA ROXAS:

Thank you for your email. I would be honored if you posted my note on her page.

Always, in solidarity and support,

M. Evelina Galang

Friends of "Comfort Women" from Australia

Friends of "Comfort Women" from Australia video

I received a request to share this amazing youtube video from Friends of "Comfort Women" in Australia. I'm grateful for the opportunity to do so. It warms my heart to see that there are so many activists working for justice, working not to argue or force an issue, but who are patiently educating those around them, especially our governments.

No matter how long it takes, Lolas. No matter how difficult, there are many who support your truth and who are working to make sure it never happens again.

Best wishes from Miami,

M. Evelina Galang
Friends of Lolas

Happy Birthday Anniversary, Lola Cristeta Alcober

Here is an excerpt of Lola's story. I've been working on it all week. Today is the anniversary of her birth, 83 years ago. And though she never got her apology, I know she wants one still. Not so much for herself, but for the future of all girls and women and children who live in a constant state of war. She wants that apology to heal the tired souls of victims and soldiers alike.

Happy Birthday, Lola Iyak-Iyak! Mahal na Mahal kita!

From an essay in progress, for your birthday and all days:

Out on the balcony she talks fast and when all I do is listen, she tugs on my arm and points at my camera. The Dalaga Project have only been in Manila a week and we are just getting to know the women. Since some of the girls are fluent in Tagalog, some only passive in their understanding and others English only speakers, we thought it would best not to conduct formal interviews, but to find activities like dancing and painting and drama to help us learn about their lives and their stories. Formal interviews are so cold and intrusive. We have made a choice not to conduct them at all, but here we stand in the beautiful afternoon light of Lola Cristeta’s cement balcony, surrounded by palm trees and ferns, and other lush greenery, on the verge of just that. She insists I turn on my camera.

“She wants to tell you her story,” Maribel tells us. “She wants you to tape her now.”

“Now?” I look at Lola Cristeta, at the very center of her graying eye and there it is, the first sign of a tear. She smiles at me then. I look over my shoulder to Eliza, who is just behind me. She says nothing. Then Lola Cristeta coaches me, “Sige, e on mo na.”

I obey. I flip the screen open and nudge the switch. The light flashes green and the mini monitor lights up blue and then softly, her face emerges in the tiny screen. I hit the record button red. I pull back and she begins in a calm way.

Ako si Cristeta Alcober.

She gives her testimony slowly and in Tagalog, calling out her birth date – July 26, 1926 – and her hometown, Barrio Cogon, San Jose, Tacloban City, Leyte. She tells us about her mother, the laundry woman, and her father, a womanizer with many mistresses from Leyte to Manila. She names her sister, her two brothers and she tells us she was the ate.

The camera zooms in tight on her face because the sunlight is so golden, revealing all the lines on her beautiful brown skin, sometimes drifting to her silver white hair tucked behind a thick earlobe. The voice is soft and rough like a dirt road scattered with fine pebbles. Her words float out of her slowly. I hold the camera with my hand and I watch her, not the viewfinder. I watch the light in her eye, how it dances as she speaks. How relief washes over her entire body. She smiles as she talks. Her arms wrap around herself – the right arm reaching up across her chest to the left shoulder and the other cinched around her waist. Now and then the hand on her shoulder goes up to gesture at the camera.

One day, when she was sixteen years old, she and her 14 year old brother Marianito, were sent to the market in town on an errand and when they returned to the barrio around three in the afternoon, the small village was empty. No one walked the pathways, no one stood in the center of the town. Someone told them that the Japanese soldiers had come while they were gone and that everyone who had not gone into hiding was taken to the Japanese garrison set up in San Jose, Leyte.

As Lola Cristeta speaks to us, her breath goes short. Her words falter and then suddenly she’s speaking quickly, no longer in Tagalog, the language we speak, but Visayan. Maribel does her best to interpret Lola’s dialect, but only because she knows Lola’s testimony.

We step closer to her, the camera shooting her mouth, her eye, the inside of her ear. We are with her. We become her. Eliza and I exchange glances and we see that we too have tears streaming down our faces.

And this is where we lose her. The deeper she goes into her experience, the farther away she seems, lost somewhere on the island of Leyte, in the center of its green wilderness. She hiccups, she tears. The words tilt left and right. Grow harder to decipher. She paws at her collarbone and winces. Slips back and forth between Tagalog and Visayan and even as we cannot understand her, we find ourselves slipping into the past, feeling the weight of the experience. We enter the small house in Cogon only to find the Japanese soldiers waiting for us, swooping down on us, dragging us down the road. It is in her eyes. It is in the lapses of her breath. Eliza and I, like the brother and sister are torn apart, one made to turn left and the other forced right and the heart raw like meat ripped in two. The tears wash Lola Cristeta’s face and the breathing grows shallow, but she does not stop talking. We are at the airstrip by the water. She keeps talking. We are in a pit of sand dug for fish. We are thirty girls thrown together, like catches of the day, imprisoned by barbed wire walls and bamboo locked doors. She talks over her own crying now. Faster and louder and now she is going into Waray, a native dialect, a language so deep and so intense that it must be coming from her very core.

On this day, she tells me everything, mixing all her words together like a giant batch of alphabet soup, the Waray and Tagalog and Visayan, the occasional English word tossed in for flavor, all holding their shape, translating her two years in that fish bin, drowning with thirty other girls. She tells me all I need to know, though I understand nothing but the tears rolling down my own face.

Going Home (to the heart) for Melissa Roxas

Something happens to you when you are born outside of your parents' mother country. You are born with a longing to go home to a place you've never been. You go about your business, being all American and knowing nothing else, ignoring all that talk about how it was when they grew up "back home" how things were, who your ancestors were, but inside you, they've planted that seed, and it's growing. You pretend you don't want to know like a good teenager, but you want to know. You want to be a part of it. And if you somehow find your way to writing stories and poems and making films and art, that hunger grows. And you want to go back home. You want to see it for yourself. And it is not enough to visit. You start to write about it. Draw it. Make music about it. And then that is not enough to just visit your family, your lolo, lola, titas and titos all your pinsan, you want to know more. You go historical. You find the stories of the earth. You sit with all the kapitbahay. You speak your bad Tagalog. And stories come out of you, poetry, things you never imagined you housed inside of you and there you are -- an American, digging up a past only your soul comprehends. Not your MTV self. Not your Boomerang kid self. Certainly not your wild American Self. If you're lucky that spark hits you and somehow the art you make does something more than sit pretty on the page. It moves you to act.

I sit in solidarity with you Melissa Roxas. Speak up, speak your truth without fear. For you represent us all. All of us who long to go home, to find our true Selves and in doing so discover that in fact, despite the fact we were not born on that island or if we were, we have not lived on that island for a lifetime, we have a devotion to it, a commitment to it. Make it clear, we have a right to come home, to serve our people with our words and to do it without savage acts of torture, or corruption or imprisonment.

With much love, sincere respect and absolute solidarity,

Evelina

HEY NYC! RALLY TO SUPPORT THE SURVIVING COMFORT WOMEN OF WWII 7/23

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Comfort Women Dying for Justice: Japan Still No Apology

Contact: Valerie Francisco, Chair – Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment, 925-726-5768 , firenyc@gmail.com

The 44th Session of the Committee for the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women has convened at the United Nations in New York and FiRE demands that Japan address the issue of wartime comfort women.

Progressive Filipino women’s organization, FiRE-NYC (Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment), demands justice for the surviving comfort women as Japan’s government presents its 6th periodic report on the implementation of the Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women (CEDAW) to the 44th session of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women at the United Nations this week. During WWII, the Japanese Imperial Army abducted and repeatedly raped a reported 100,000-250,000 young girls and women in Japanese occupied colonies and territories including China, Korea, Taiwan, Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philippines.

Since Maria Rosa Luna Henson, the first Filipina comfort woman to publicly came forward in 1992, more of the remaining comfort women in the Philippines broke their 50 years of silence since WWII. With the handfuls of grandmothers coming forward with their stories, LILA-PILIPINA was formally launched and founded by comfort women survivors and members of the Task Force on Filipino Comfort Women in 1994, and remains one of the largest Philippines-based organizations working toward this cause. To this day, hundreds of surviving comfort women in the Philippines demand the apology and acknowledgement for the atrocities they experienced at the hands of the Japanese government, and seek adequate compensation for themselves and their families to live the little time they have left with dignity.

FiRE-NYC condemns the Japanese government for its careless disregard toward the surviving comfort women, their war crimes, and the international community. The United States, Netherlands, Canada and the European Union have already passed resolutions insisting that the Japanese government address the demands of the surviving comfort women. Cities within Japan have also passed resolutions locally urging their national government to acknowledge the comfort women issue. Yet, all these resolutions remain overlooked, and the Japanese government continues to blatantly deny the systematic rape of comfort women all over Asia, executed by its Imperial Army during the Second World War.
Because about a third of the 174 surviving Filipina comfort women have already died, the urgency in the Filipino community has increased. After the passing of HR 121, Representatives Liza Maza and Luzviminda Ilagan of Gabriela Women’s Party demanded that the Government of Japan “FORMALLY AKNOWLEDGE, APOLOGIZE AND ACCEPT ITS RESPONSIBILITY OVER THE SEXUAL SLAVERY” and “PROVIDE COMPENSATION TO THE VICTIMS.” House Bill 1136, “An Act Providing for the Inclusion in the History Books of Elementary, Secondary and Collegiate Curricula the Lives and Heroism of Filipino Comfort Women during the Japanese Occupation and Appropriating Funds Therefore,” has also been filed through the GABRIELA women’s party list, in the hopes that the remaining grandmothers can inch closer toward dignity and justice.

FiRE-NYC, as an overseas chapter of GABRIELA National Alliance of Women, remains in solidarity with the surviving comfort women as they struggle for the justice and acknowledgement they deserve. The challenges faced by the remaining comfort women is part of the ongoing fight for justice and women’s rights resurfacing in current matters of military sexual violence, a battle rooted in the systematic abuse and exploitation of women at the hands of the military worldwide. We entreat the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women to urge the Japanese government to immediately address their war crimes against women by responding to the demands of all surviving comfort women.

Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment (FiRE) invites you to stand in solidarity with GABRIELA and Lila Pilipina for a public action which seeks justice for the comfort women, and demands that the Government of the Philippines must not overlook the wartime atrocities suffered by the surviving Comfort Women. As Filipinas who defend the rights and welfare of women all over the world, we must understand that the fight for justice coincides with the Japanese government taking accountability for its actions. Join FiRE at the United Nations where representative of Japan’s government will be reporting during the CEDAW session, and demand the issues of Japan’s wartime comfort women be addressed. Anyone who wants to defend the victims of military sexual violence and wars of aggression must pressure Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo’s regime to evict all US troops out of the Philippines, and refuse the creation of another generation of comfort women!
New York – FiRE (Filipinas for Rights and Empowerment)

RALLY TO SUPPORT THE SURVIVING COMFORT WOMEN OF WWII
Thursday, July 23 — 430pm
1 Dag Hammarskjold Plaza
[47th between 2nd & 3rd Ave.]
Directions: 4/5/6/7/S trains to Grand Central Station or E/F trains to 51st St.
Enter Dag Hammarskjold Plaza on 2nd Ave between E 46th & E 47th, walk to 1st Ave.
Look for the bright orange FiRE flags!
Contact: Hanalei Ramos – 201.790.0995
fire.nyc@gmail.com
www.firenyc.org
NO TO WARS OF AGGRESSION!
NO TO ANOTHER GENERATION OF COMFORT WOMEN!
US TROOPS OUT OF THE PHILIPPINES!
###

V-Day for the Lolas in NYC

I've been quiet because I've been writing, working on the stories of 15 surviving Filipina "Comfort Women," stories of my lolas. So there hasn't been much on this blog. Sorry. I'm working on it.

But here's some great news, the V-DAY performance of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES at the Philippine Center, Kalayaan Hall on 556 5th AVE, NY, NY will be sending part of their profits to the Lolas -- also the Women of Democratic Republic of Congo, and the NaFAA Legal Defense Fund.

Come check us out!

Images of LILA Pilipina 2002

I spent most of 2002 with the lolas of LILA Pilipina during my Fulbright. I got to, as Barack Obama would say, got to know their stories. That year I spent with them is captured in these images. The photos in this montage show the women of LILA six years ago and most of them are of the protests, rallies and campaigns they have participated in in their fight for justice. They are still waiting for that official apology from the government of Japan. Despite the numerous international resolutions from governments everywhere, Japan has remained reticent. Most of the women in these images have passed on and I can guarantee that they are still fighting for justice, for peace, for women everywhere, but not from here. When you get to know their stories, you see they are simply women, grandmothers, mothers, sisters. They are human. And if you know their stories, you will love them as your own. This year, I am sitting down to write their stories. I have made a promise to the lolas to fight for them in my own way, to educate others about their plight, their stories so that it may not occur again. As they would say, Never again. Their stories carry many wise teachings and from them we come to understand the meaning of war, of self-respect and of love and forgiveness. I share these images with you now, as I am writing, so that you may think of them now in their late eighties and nineties. Still fighting for justice as they are still cooking for their loved ones, still running their households, still dreaming of peace. And if you feel so moved, take a look at the sidebar and write down the address to their new space. Write them a letter. Offer your support. I'm sure they'd love to have you as one of the Friends of Lolas.

PS: The traditional love song "Dahil Sayo" (Because of You) is performed by Charmaine Clamor, Freeman Records. Charmaine is an amazing singer and warrior woman herself. Thanks for letting us use your song, Charmaine!

FROM THE PHILIPPINE IQUIRER, August 16, 2008: Filipino women seek Japan's apology for WWII rapes

Former Filipino comfort woman Piedad Nobleza, 86, holds slogans during a demonstration outside the Japanese Embassy in Pasay City Friday. Elderly Filipino women and their supporters demanded Tokyo's clear-cut apology and compensation for wartime sexual slavery by Japanese troops. AP/AARON FAVILAAssociated Press
First Posted 17:41:00 08/15/2008



MANILA, Philippines—Two dozen elderly Filipino women and their supporters protested outside the Japanese Embassy in Pasay City on Friday demanding a clear-cut apology and compensation from Tokyo for wartime sexual slavery.

Japan has acknowledged its troops forced women into front-line brothels across Asia during World War II, and its leaders have apologized.

But last year, many surviving "comfort women" were outraged when then-Prime Minister Shinzo Abe said there was no proof the women were coerced, adding to suspicion that right-wing politicians in Japan refuse to face up to wartime atrocities.

The US House of Representatives and the Dutch and Canadian parliaments have passed nonbinding motions urging Tokyo to offer a formal apology, but Japan has refused.

"The Japanese government should publicly apologize and put in history how the women were abducted and forced to serve in the comfort women system," said Rechilda Extremadura, head of a group called Lila-Pilipina that has documented 174 cases of Filipino women who were forced into wartime brothels. About 100 women remain alive.

"This is a war crime," Extremadura said. "But the Japanese government continues to be deaf."

Virginia Villarma, 79, said she was victimized between 1943 and 1944. "We can never forget what they did to us. Until now, it's been a wound in our chest."

The Japanese Embassy in Manila refused to immediately answer a request for comment and asked that questions be e-mailed.

Tokyo has generally refused to pay damages to individuals for the war, saying the issue was settled between governments in postwar treaties. Japanese courts have rejected a number of lawsuits brought by former sex slaves.

The left-wing women's group Gabriela, which joined Friday's protest on the 63rd anniversary of Japan's surrender in World War II, criticized the Philippine government for not acting on a draft resolution seeking Japan's apology that has been filed in the House of Representatives.

This is How We Do it (Update on the Lolas of LILA)

Party at Lolas’ House

I’ve been in Manila for the last six weeks, contemplating and writing LOLAS’ HOUSE: Women Living with War. I’ve been researching this book now since 1999 and I have over 100 hours of taped interviews. In the book, I focus on 15 of the Lolas – once victims of the Japanese Imperial Army, then survivors and now, in their late eighties and nineties they have blossomed into wise heroines of unimaginable energy.

This year, I did not conduct any interviews. My mission was just to hang with the Lolas, to visit with them and to sing and dance with them. Every year it’s been about digging up the past, but this year, as I think about the shape of this book, as I review and try my best to understand the stories of these women, I decided to give it a rest and to just be with them. Anyway, since I am well aware that every time they reiterate their past, they live it again, I saw no need for it. It was time to party with the Lolas.

When I arrived in June, I visited them after their general meeting and I literally picked up the microphone and looked into the television screen and I sang “Come Together” and “Baby You Can Drive My Car” to the Lolas via videoke. Their response? They danced. They told me I had grown taller. They told me my teeth were so pretty – were they still real?



The Lolas have moved to a new center on Narra Street. It’s a space that several private Japanese citizens who believe they deserve that apology from their government, have helped them to attain. On one side, it’s still Lolas’ House, a place where they can have their gatherings – meetings and parties and sleepovers – on the other side LILA Pilipina has cleared a wide space and organized the materials, stories, photographs and numerous articles and artwork by and for the Lolas. It’s a research institute that will hold the history of the brave women of Liga Ng Mga Lolang Pilipina.

Already, Friends of Lolas in Miami has a stack of their own letters and petitions, photographs and t-shirts that they have donated to the Lolas in the last two years. In the short semester (where we experienced many obstacles), the University of Miami Friends of Lolas chapter was able to raise and donate about $700 to Lolas’ House.

This research institute is the dream of executive Director Rechilda Extremadura and all the supporters and pamana of the Lolas. It will be a way to preserve and document the women’s lives – not just that historic and tragic time during WWII, but their lives as women or as Rechie puts it, characters.




Creating such a place takes time and money, of course. And these days there is not that much of it and there is still so much to be done. The center has yet to establish a working computer/internet system, for example. And the records are kept in filing cabinets left from the daycare center that used to inhabit the space. It costs about thirty U.S. dollars a month to provide Lolas’ House with their daily sustenance.





During my stay, I went with the Lolas to SONA – President Arroyo’s State of the Union Address. 15 of the women along with another 20 or so of their grandchildren and children boarded two very crowded jeepneys and arrived in time to join protestors at the People’s State of the Union stage.





The jeeps were barred from coming all the way down Commonwealth Ave. So we had to step out and walk about a quarter mile to the stage. Of the 15 women, only Lola Pilar’s knees were strong enough to make the walk, so while the women could not be in the crowds, they showed their support at our jeepney base camp. LABAN!



Then on my last Tuesday, we had a despedida party at Lolas’ House and I made two large calderas of chicken adobo, and sautéed petchi. At Lolas’ House the staff cooked pancit and rice while Filipino American students from the Amado V. Hernandez Resource Center’s PEACE Program brought the Lolas sweets, soft drinks and two bottles of wine.



I won’t forget dancing with my lovely Lolas to videoke songs by the Carpenters, the Beatles, and their most favorite, ABBA! They are the ultimate dancing queens, my lolas. The other night, poet Neil Garcia said that I have the best lolas – the best grandmas, and I do. We did not hesitate to dance and sing to one another. We did not hesitate to hold onto each other and give kisses freely. I even shared a shot of wine (though we sipped it) with Lola Pilar.



There was a moment when I was getting the food out while the Lolas and their Fil Am student visitors were singing songs to one another when someone said, “Your turn, Evelina.” So I said, “Okay.” So I grabbed the mic and I thought, what, what? And I sang a family song – one that my father sings to our mom and we sing to our nephews and nieces. It started out as a lullaby – kind of quiet and slow but as I sang they began to clap and so I sped the song up faster and by the second verse of “You Are My Sunshine” the lolas were on their feet, dragging the Fil Am students onto the dance floor and they were all dancing. The whole room.

Rechie is so right. In the ten years I have been visiting the lolas of LILA Pilipina they have transformed themselves from victims to survivors, to heroines to wild and wise characters and counselors.

Everybody raise the roof, raise your glasss to the Lolas!




TO DONATE TO THE SUSTENANCE AND DEVELOPMENT OF LOLAS' HOUSE WRITE SEND CHECKS TO LILA Pilipina, INC. 120 Narra Street, Brgy. Amihan, Quezon City Project 3, Metro Manila Philippines.

Giving Asian Women A Voice: University of Miami A&S Magazine

Click on image to read this article from the University of Miami's Arts and Sciences Magazine, Spring 2008. Laban mga Lola!

Lolas Join Global Action for Justice

FROM: LILA PILIPINA and GABRIELA
For Immediate Release
March 5, 2008

Reference: Rechilda Extremadura, Lila Pilipina Executive Director, 0915-5379579
Emmi de Jesus, GABRIELA Secretary General, 0917-3221203

The elderly women of Lila Pilipina, organization of former comfort women in the Philippines together with the militant women's group GABRIELA held a picket in front of the Japanese Embassy this morning as part of the Global Action Seeking Justice for Comfort Women.

"None can be a greater tragedy than to be denied justice half a century after being abused and violated," said Rechilda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilipina. referring to the elderly women victims of sexual slavery by Japanese Imperial Army during World War II.

Extremadura added that while the Japanese government has yet to give justice, they also hold the Philippine government accountable for the continued denial of justice for the elderly women. "Prior to People Power 2, Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo promised to take up the issue of Filipino comfort women but she failed to deliver just as she failed to fulfill all her other promises to the people."

"The military abuses borne of the military culture of sexism and violence that drove them to commit sexual violence against women in WW2 continue to this day,” said Emmi de Jesus, secretary general of GABRIELA. De Jesus cited the recent case of sexual assault of a Filipina by a US serviceman stationed in Okinawa, Japan following the rape of a 14-year-old Japanese girl by a US Marine.

“By continuing to turn a blind eye on the violence committed against its women by foreign troops, whether recent or in the past and by perpetuating immense poverty that drives Filipinas into foreign lands, the Philippine government serves as accomplice in the sexual abuse of Filipinas everywhere," added de Jesus.

“For as long as the military of the superpowers deem themselves superior might over sovereign nations and peoples, for as long there are imperialist wars that seek to undermine the independence of a nation for plunder of their resources, peoples will be subjugated and women will be exploited and abused,” added de Jesus.

On March 8 International Women's Day, Lila Pilipina will be joining GABRIELA in the national women's action against Arroyo. “Pres. Arroyo lied to the elderly women of Lila Pilipina and abandoned the cause Filipino comfort women. For this, Lila Pilipina joins the growing number of women wanting her out of Malacañang."
###

WOMEN’S GROUPS PROTEST HOUSE “REVOTING” ON COMFORT WOMEN RESOLUTION

NEWS RELEASE
09 April 2008

Reference: Retchilda Extremadura, Executive Director, Lila Pilipina
Lana Linaban, Deputy Secretary General, GABRIELA

WOMEN’S GROUPS PROTEST HOUSE “REVOTING” ON COMFORT WOMEN RESOLUTION

Lila Pilipina, organization of former comfort women, expressed apprehension at the recent development regarding House Resolution 124, authored by Gabriela Women’s Party Representatives Liza Maza and Luz Ilagan. The House Resolution, demanding an official apology from the government of Japan regarding the sexual slavery of Filipino women during the Japanese occupation of the country in World War II, is being returned to the House committee on foreign affairs allegedly due to lack of quorum when it was adopted last March 11.

“We believe that the question of process is just an alibi to delay, if not, to overturn the positive decision. As they have done in the past, this is but another attempt to take away a significant gain in the long struggle for justice of Filipino comfort women,” said Retchilda Extremadura, executive director of Lila Pilina.

The women’s group GABRIELA, meanwhile, calls on the members of Congress not to succumb to any pressure coming from the Japanese government. “HR 124 is long overdue. Instead of delaying this, the Congress should be spurred to hasten its implementation. The legislators of USA and Canada have long adopted a similar resolution. It is ironic that such a resolution would meet such encumbrances here in the Philippines, where its citizens were the actual victims,” said Lana Linaban, GABRIELA spokesperson.

Both groups vowed to remain vigilant and enjoins Filipino people to join the lolas in their action should the House Resolution be revoked due to pressures from the Japanese government.
###

V-Day for the Lolas in NYC

Mga Lola, dearest lolas,

Here are some photographs of the production of THE VAGINA MONOLOGUES in NYC. The women are Filipina Women's Network members and they are not professional actors, rather they are professional anti-violence advocates. They put in so many hours and so many weeks to raise awareness about your plight and the plight of surviving Katrina Warriors, women in New Orleans who suffered after Hurricane Katrina washed their lives away with baha.

Remember when Eve Ensler came to visit you, back in 2001? Nandoon din ako. She saw you at Lolas' House in the morning and I came later that day. You told me all about the way she interviewed you about your puki. How you all giggled when she asked you if you had ever had pleasure during intercourse. Of course, that's not exactly how your conversation with her went. I know you've given lots of interviews, but probably none like that. None about sensuality and sexuality and none about discovering the pleasure of the body: kasi lolas kayo, at seguro that's not usually what people want to know from you. They want to know your stories, they want to know what happened during WWII. Rape isn't the same as sex and its the antithesis of love making. But I wonder how often we realize how deep the affect of those rapes during WWII affected your love lives, the way you hold a man, or feel your own body, the way you think about sex at all. Too often we think about the past and are not conscious of what it has done to your present perceptions of your own bodies.

So anyway, that interview, that time she asked Lola Narcisa to explain what happened back then, so we could understand what happens now, in your fight, in your quest for justice and in the bedroom. The audience watched a clip from that film, listened to the giggling and the way you uttered puki. And after that lightness was gone, they got serious when they heard Lola Narcisa explain what happened to you then and what your rallies are about now.

The first time I saw that clip was when we ran the production of VAGINA MONOLOGUES in San Francisco. I was squatting on the stage, looking up at your familiar faces. I saw so many of you -- Lola Urduja, Lola Precilla, Lola Remedios, Lola Cristeta -- so many that I might list here and now -- so many smiling faces, serious faces, living and breathing there in 2001. After the clip, I was so moved because of the some thirty of you on that clip, all but 15 of you are gone. All but a small handful and even that handful has weak members -- in your late 80's and 90's you have good days and bad days -- your bodies give out too often now. Sometimes your minds too.

The audience fell in love with you all -- how could they not -- they were moved by you. And then I told them, many of the women you saw up there -- wala na at walapang justice -- are gone now and no justice, still no justice.


The directors cast me in your monologue, "Say It for the Comfort Women." You know these days, I am asked to speak about your stories and there is no hesitation on my part when I do. So I didn't think anything of it. But at rehearsal, when I read these lines, and I put myself in that woman's voice, her experience, I trembled. I could not get through the manuscript. I cried. I could not get through the manuscript. As close as I am to your stories, I cannot stand in your shoes. No one ever will. I cannot begin to imagine it. But come the night of the performance, I placed a shield around my heart and I took off my shoes and I read your part. I did it. I read it for you. Like the piece says, "Say it for the Comfort Women." No tears, but no shield around the heart either. Impossible.

Anway, the great thing about these productions is that they have chosen you to be one of their beneficiaries, and these great hearts will be sending funds your way soon. Marily Mondejar, president of FWN, was so excited to tell me they had chosen you to benefit from their work. I know you need the help too. I know your funding is dwindling and there is so much to tend to -- the rent at Lolas' House, the food and transportation for the lolas, the electricity and phone -- and that's just for the operation of your space. There is still your campaign for justice, the travels to Japan and other places where you must go, no matter how old or tired, to make your stories known.

Don't worry lolas, we are praying for you. We are here for you. Laban mga lola!

Postcard for the Lolas of LILA Pilipina

Mga Lola,
Kamusta kayo? We are busy doing so many things, trying our best to share with others your stories. Itong litrato -- kita ninyo? This is a picture of the young women from the University of Miami -- many of whom are part of the Yellow Rose Society -- at their Women's History Month event, In Her Shoes. They asked me to tell your stories so they could stand in your shoes and so they could know what you have been through. Of course, nobody can really stand in your shoes for your experiences are too horrific to imagine and KNOW. When we recount them, when we try to imagine them, when we dream of them, it is still too unreal for any of us. Maybe, when you think of that time, you feel the same way. Did that happen? How could anyone -- man or woman, Japanese, American or Filipino do this violence on anyone -- man, woman, Japanese, American, Filipina, Korean, Chinese, Indonesian -- WHOMEVER? How?

Now these young women here, who heard the story of your friend, Urduja Samontes, (oh that lovely character of a woman) were so moved, that next week they are going to host a read-a-thon. I know you are asking yourselves, ano ba yan? Several of the women will get their friends to sponsor them to read one of your testimonies in a public reading. Say one peso per reading, or five pesos per reading. Really dollars, so maybe more like 100 pesos a reading or 500 pesos a reading. And they try to get as many friends as they can to sponsor them. Maybe get 25 sponsors. And if they do one reading that's 100 pesos times 25! We will gather in a public space at the University of Miami -- a place they call the Rock -- and the dalagas will read your testimonies into a microphone -- and your words will reverberate throughout the campus, hitting banyan tree barks, and library walls and reaching for the sky. We will speak your words with the reverence of prayer.

We want to share your lives experiences in order to learn from war. In order to be better warriors who fight for peace, for decency and justice.

We know that your Lolas' House has fewer inhabitants these days, but for those of you who still organize and protest and fight for justice, we know your resources are dwindling. In this way, we are hoping to raise funding for you. So you may continue your fight and we might join you.

I love you all, lolas. And the young women in this photo, who are meeting you through your testimonies and your photos and your experiences with me, they are falling in love with you too.

Mahal na mahal kayo, mga lola!

Evelina

PS: For the women and men at the University of Miami who are interested in participating in our event, Read it for the "Comfort Women," on Tuesday April 15th, please email Rhea Olegario (r.olegario@umiami.edu) or Elysse Phillips (e.phillips4@umiami.edu).