A Clan Gathers
By Jon D. Melegrito
Contributing Editor
DENVER, CO–Every two years, the Dizon Clan – named after my maternal grandfather, Marcelino Dizon – gathers for a family reunion. On this July weekend, we’re being hosted by my neices here in the Rocky Mountain state.
Family members take turns hosting these well-attended reunions – typically a long weekend affair of heavy feasting, chatting, kodakan, worshipping together or just simply fooling around. And lots of ribbing and remembering.
Here in the U.S., we come from all over: New York, New Jersey, Maryland, Missouri, Ohio, Texas, North Dakota, California, Guam. But our clan’s heritage has its proud beginnings in a town called Guimba, in the Central Luzon province of Nueva Ecija, known as the rice granary of the Philippines and a cradle of the New People’s Army (NPA).
We are four generations of teachers, nurses, soldiers, politicians, farmers, lawyers, ministers, writers, social workers, doctors, domestic workers, engineers, secretaries. Aunts and neices have won beauty pageants and civic awards. Uncles and nephews have excelled in various fields. Some have served time behind bars.
Our family history is a story of guts and grits, glamour and glitz, struggle and sacrifice.
My uncle Gil, who died at the age of 57, endured the Death March with my dad, escaping his captors and later leading a guerrila army to fight the Japanese occupiers. His courageous and daring raids of enemy-controlled rice granaries earned him notorious fame as the Filipino Robin Hood. They called him “Tapok” (dust) because that’s all his enemy pursuers would find when they thought they had him cornered. A cloud of dust. My uncle Gil became Mayor of our town for many years, trading his horse for a fancy car, always moving about with heavily-armed body guards. But he was more a warrior than a peace-time elected official. Convicted of killing his political opponent, he served the last years of his short life in Muntinglupa, the notorious national jail. But he remains a hero and a legend. To this day, people continue to elect a Dizon as Mayor of our town.
My great grandmother – Lola Lelang – was the mistress of the Spanish Governor-General of Abra. She was a burlesque artist entertaining the elite class of Abra when she caught the eye of the Spaniard who apparently admired her beauty, singing voice and dancing prowess. They had a tempestuous affair. A love child followed, and another and another. And that’s how the Dizon clan started. Our colonizers may have been mean and cruel but they were something else in bed.
I can see Lola Lelang in my sisters, cousins, aunts, nieces and grand daughters. They are talented musicians, dancers and performers. Sometimes we kid ourselves for being “bastard” children but thank God for Lola Lelang who passed on good genes.
I always look forward to these reunions for stories about my ancestors — especially their secrets and scandals, their trials and triumphs, their struggles and successes. I like to know them as human beings, not only for their Christian virtues and heroic deeds but for their extraordinary efforts as ordinary people struggling to survive.
Today, the oldest surviving member is Aunt Adela who is 94. The youngest is 16-month-old Jacob Corbin Aguilar, great grandson of Aunt Adela and Uncle Tinong of Bayombong, Nueva Vizcaya. Born to a Caucasian-American mother and a Filipino-Mexican American father, Jacob is the typical “mixed up” kid among the third and fourth generation of Dizons – thanks to inter-racial and inter-ethnic marriages. We’re now a family of Asians, Germans, African Americans, Hispanics and Caucasians – in addition to being Ilocanos, Tagalogs and Cebuanos. While our “Filipinoness” remains a glue, it’s our family relationships and the values we share that keep our bonds strong as ever.
When American missionaries came to the Philippines in the 1920s, the Methodist Denomination was assigned to evangelize a portion of Central Luzon, which included Guimba. With the country’s educational system run by the Americans, my grandparents and their children – including my own parents – were trained in the precepts of U.S. education and the spiritual traditions of the Methodist Church. This explains why my parents, aunts and uncles all came to the U.S. to study, under Methodist scholarships. Many of us remain faithful Methodists to this day.
They first came as students in the 1950s, attending religious-affiliated schools in Missouri. Their children followed. By 1965, with the passage of the landmark immigration reform bill, many in our clan – including myself and my siblings – all came to the U.S. to study or to work as teachers and nurses, later applying for permanent residency and subsequently taking the oath as naturalized American citizens. With marriages and intermarriages, families grew. Today, all four generations of Dizons in the U.S. number more than a couple hundred. Thanks to the immigration bill that prioritizes family reunification.
In these reunions, I strive to learn more stories about my ancestors and the next generation of Dizons. As always, the sound of the youngest family member crying reminds me that a fourth generation has now added fresh blood to a proud clan that immigrated to this country more than 60 years ago. And the sight of my aunts and uncles singing and dancing so freely and unabashedly with their American-born grandchildren assures me that the spirit of Lola Lelang will always enliven our gatherings and strengthen our connections to each other. •