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Mga Lola of LILA Pilipina Fight for Justice in Manila

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An Excerpt From Maria Rosa Henson's autobiography, COMFORT WOMAN: Slave of Destiny

Maria Rosa Henson, or Lola Rosa, was the first Filipina Comfort Woman of WWII to come forward publicly on September 12, 1992 . Because of Lola Rosa, many other Filipinas who had been living with this secret for over 50 years found the courage to come forward and finally speak their truth, finally ask for their apology, finally free themselves from the stories. Here is an excerpt from her book, COMFORT WOMAN: Slave of Destiny (Philippine Center for Investigative Journalism, 1996). This passage occurs in 1943. She's 16 years old and she has just been abducted and placed into a garrison, a former town hospital close to Magalang, Pampanga near Manila. Without warning, a Japanese soldier entered my room and pointed his bayonet at my chest. I thought he was going to kill me, but he used his bayonet to slash my dress and tear it open. I was too frightened to scream. And then he raped me. When he was done, other soldiers came into my room and they took turns raping me. Twelve sol

Unveiling

Jennine Ventura, M. Evelina Galang and host Sophia Hussain at Lolas' House launch, AAWW, NYC. As Gabriela New York's Jennine Ventura and I took the stage at Asian American Writers' Workshop on Friday, September 22, to launch LOLAS' HOUSE: Filipino Women Living with War, another work of art was also being launched. Unveiling of the "Comfort Women" statue in San Francisco . When I began my research in 1998, I could not find any text books with the women's stories. I could not find a memorial to their legacy anywhere. I could not find a photograph of the women, save a single black and white photo of four surviving Korean "comfort women," and one smiling soldier. On Friday night, as I read from my book, a book that took eighteen years of researching, interviewing, transcribing, translating, writing and revising, I was well aware of the historical significance of this day. I was sharing the day with artist Steven Whyte, who was also laun

The House We Built

When I first began my journey with the lolas back in 1999, I was researching their experiences for a screenplay, a story made up of the facts of their lives. They allowed me and the girls, the dalagas, into their world to do that project. On the day of our despedida party, the lolas circled me, tugged at my dress, said, "When are you going to write our real stories?" I have been working on those stories ever since, on documenting the testimonies of 16 surviving Filipina "Comfort Women." I have more than 40 hours of interview tapes, mostly in Tagalog, a smattering in other dialects like Ilocono, Visayan, and Waray, and on a few occasions, English. The labor of this work was in the transcription, the translation, and then the issues of structuring the book. I visited the women as often as I could on grants, and fellowships, on eight months of funding from Fulbright, just so I could verify the testimonies, hear them more than one time, and on seven occasions

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