faith and fear
As an English major at UCSB, I had the opportunity to be a Research Fellow through the Arnhold Undergraduate Research Fellowship between 2021-2023. During my junior year, I wrote “The Invisible Minority”, a hybrid project also published on this website that examines the erasure of Filipino-Americans and their history within literature and society.
For my second year in the program, I decided I wanted to pursue a creative project in which I detailed the importance of cultural myth-making to the overall female identity within literature. The following short story is the final product of my research this quarter, illustrating the life of Luzviminda Flores as she calls upon her culture in order to situate herself between her childhood in the Philippines and her future in America.
I was inspired to write this story by the traditional Filipino myths and legends that we pass on through generations, as well as Mia Alvar’s novel, In the Country Stories, which details the story of the White Lady on Balete Drive.
Heat and sunlight–that was all there was for miles, and it seemed as if that was all there would be for the rest of August. Los Angeles still had room to grow into the metropolitan that it would later be, but where buildings had yet to be grounded and roads yet to be paved, the historical heatwave of 1955 blazed its way through the city and took inhabitants by surprise.
In Little Manila, Rosemont Avenue was bare and deprived of the normal bustling of people and automobiles. The main road was home to a thriving community of Filipino migrants that came to the States within the past decade–all fleeing the impact that World War II had on their home country to establish better lives for themselves and their families.
Little Manila was a fitting name to describe the neighborhood with panaderias and modernized sari-sari stores that provided community members with goods and products from back home. Dance halls played old Celeste Legaspi classics that attracted manongs and manangs to sway and slide lively under flashing lights and across the wooden floors. The streets were lined with boxing gyms that were home to up-and-coming Filipino fighters, working for a chance to rise to stardom in the U.S. and giving mainstream media a face to represent the Filipino community. Other buildings in the area included post offices and freight services for shipping money orders and packages back to the Philippines, allowing those who had made it to America to throw a lifeline back to their homeland and those they left behind.
Today, the absent sidewalks wavered like a mirage with the intensity of the heat. Blinds were drawn tightly on all of the houses in the neighborhood, and the only sound to be heard was the buzzing of AC units working full time.
It made Luz laugh to herself as she walked towards the elementary school where she worked as a nighttime janitor. Since when were Filipinos deterred by the heat? Hadn’t we endured much more?
She imagined Santa Monica’s shores were currently crowded with the majority of the city’s population hoping to escape the sun’s wrath, and that the employees at PG&E were probably working overtime to maintain and stabilize the city's power grid.
Once upon a time, Luz thought to herself as she walked, the heat was nothing to me.
She tried to trick her mind, closing her eyes momentarily to make believe that she was standing on the corner of Escolta Street, toes centimeters away from a stampede of carts, taxis, and moving foot traffic, readying herself to buy fried fish from a hardworking vendor or glance at the tables laden with handmade jewelry. The only thing that stood between her and the illusion of home were her eyelids.
But, the spell was broken easily as she reopened her eyes and winced at the reflection of the heat against the sidewalk.
She’d been up early this morning, noting that the glare of the late afternoon sun was still as blinding as it had been when it rose on her commute to her dayside job. She'd examined the company's payroll diligently, the bright morning sunlight making the financial statements blur together as she worked her way through them.
“Once upon a time” was a dangerous phrase to entertain as the sun began to sap at her strength and sweat began to bead quicker on her forehead.
Once upon a time, a walk much farther than this used to be much easier, no matter how hot it was outside.
The droplets began to fall, splattering onto the pavement and making their mark briefly before dissipating into nothing.
But that was when you were home.
Home.
Could she call the Philippines her home anymore? Her parents’ house in Manila seemed like a place that she’d dreamt up long ago. The memory of her homeland was like a static radio channel, and Luz was always fumbling desperately with the knob to sharpen the sound. Ten years was certainly long enough to drive a wedge between her and the homeland that had raised her.
Well, it wasn’t up to me, Luz decided, as she saw the elementary school come into view.
The War didn’t discriminate. Months before the Battle of Manila, Luz’s father had already begun introducing the idea that she would have to leave for the U.S. soon–an idea she steadily opposed even until the moment her foot stepped off of Philippine soil and into the land of the free. Her father was adamant that she’d be better off with his brothers and sisters in Los Angeles where they’d already established lives for themselves and their children too. She was only fourteen at the time, but the night she left her homeland haunted her relentlessly.
Walang nakasisira sa bakal kundi sariling kalawang, her mother had said.
Nothing destroys iron except for its own rust.
The sentiment made Luz steel herself and hug her family fiercely before her departure.
Saya Flores had told her daughter that they would live together in a place where they didn’t have to be scared of anything anymore, that it wouldn’t be long before they’d be able to embrace one another again. She'd spun stories of Hollywood and California, giving Luz the courage to step onto the plane.
Three months later, the Battle of Manila began in February of 1945, and the Manila Massacre followed suit. Luz watched helplessly from the other side of the world as her father, mother, grandparents, and siblings fell victim to the mass mutilations of hundreds of thousands of Filipino citizens at the hands of Japanese soldiers.
No, Luz reaffirmed as she walked up to the front of the vacant schoolhouse, it really wasn’t up to anyone.
She pulled open the doors, and tucked the thoughts away for the time being.
Night had fallen over the city, providing momentary relief to the scalding temperatures of the day. Luz stepped out of the schoolhouse to lock it shut until the principal arrived in the morning. It was hours after she’d arrived for the start of her shift–nearing ten–but she hadn't been able to scrub away the thoughts that plagued her mind like the dirt she'd removed from the floors.
The cooler temperatures under the dark sky also revived the neighborhood; blinking signs and Tagalog love songs echoing down the streets signified passersby that the dance halls were open and in full swing.
She decided that she’d walk a while before returning back to the home she'd shared for the past ten years with her father’s eldest brother, his wife, and their children. She loved her tito and tita and was eternally grateful that they’d been able to take care of her with the death of the rest of their family, but privacy was hard to come by in the two bedrooms they occupied. She began towards the end of the main road, closer to the distant shouts of joy and the nightlife that the community boasted.
It was never truly dark in Los Angeles, it seemed. Lights illuminated the sky with an artificial haze, giving the impression that it could almost be the break of dawn in the deepest hours of the night.
It is incredible that I am here, Luz mused, when nothing about me suggests that I should have any business in this country.
It was true.
No matter what, Luz knew that the only person that could think she belonged in the States was a fool. Her voice was laden with a strong accent, harsh Tagalog syllables clashing over the fluidity of English letters. Rocks railing against a river.
Her skin was a visual testament to a land that was far away from the streets of Los Angeles, browned by a different sun and weathered by storms that demolished islands. And, no matter how many years had passed since she’d first come to the U.S., she was always aware of the perpetual awe that permeated her expression that screamed Lost! Lost! Lost! any time she looked at the world around her. What a pitiful existence.
Her mother and father just wanted to save her from the war. They placed faith into her, prayed for her safe departure from the islands. Did they know that they were sending their daughter far away to another island, her own island, where she’d stand alone, unable to retrace her steps back to where she came from?
Luz shook her head and remembered her mother’s words, hardening her insides once again, just like the last time she saw her family.
Walang nakasisira sa bakal kundi sariling kalawang.
Nothing destroys iron except for its own rust.
America was no longer a faraway place that she’d heard her titos talking about over a cigar and a game of mahjong; it was now her reality, and had been for ten long years.
When she’d stepped off the plane as a teenager, Tita Alice helped her trade her Maria Clara dresses for poodle skirts with frills, the excess fabric acting as a shield for her to hide behind in this new world she knew nothing about. She may have looked the part, but Luz remembered the feeling of being plunged headfirst into a rage of rock’n’roll and rebellion that had taken American pop culture and her American counterparts by storm.
“Then to be keep being here, I’ll have to let go of who I am,” she affirmed aloud, “Or who I thought I was.”
And who was she, anyways? There was nothing, not even a person alive, that could root her back to where she came from, except for herself.
She stopped in her tracks, breathing heavily, and realized she’d covered a lot of distance since leaving the school. She’d already made it to the edge of the main street closest to the neighborhood, looking around at all the grocery stores and markets lined up next to one another. The signs in the darkened windows advertised Filipino favorites–pan de sal, tocilog, and dinuguan.
There was one panaderia with a soft light illuminating its storefront, allowing Luz to peer inside at what was going on.
Two young girls with concentrated expressions were kneading dough furiously, bundling sections of it in saran wrap at the counter and placing them into two separate piles. Luz knew that expression: competition. Her younger siblings’ faces would be ablaze with the same look when they would play tag games like araw-lilim–sun and shade. Artemio and Filomena desperately tried to evade their older sister under the light of the sun, but Luz would always tag them swiftly the second they stepped too close to the shade of the trees.
A middle-aged woman waddled into view from the back of the bakery, hoisting a metal tub filled with more dough. She placed it down on the counter next to her daughters with a grimace before admiring the work they’d already finished. Both girls turned to their mother eagerly, jumping up and down and pointing at their respective piles of wrapped dough.
Luz heard the woman laugh from where she stood outside, the sound so full and moving that it carried underneath the door and wrapped her up entirely in good feelings before it dissipated into the open night air. She couldn’t help but smile, too.
The woman continued to talk to her daughters before mischievously picking up a dusting of flour from the counter. She flung it at them playfully and the dust rained down on the two, covering them in a light dusting of white powder and making them squeal happily. The noises from the front of the shop caused a ruckus loud enough for a man to emerge from the back, clad in a white apron with various stains and disheveled hair.
Luz read the words coming from his lips as he said them animatedly through a smile: Anong nangyayari? What’s going on?
It was such a mundane sight to any other passerby: just a family in their small shop, preparing to make their living for the next day.
To Luz, it was a reminder. She remembered her own father, how he always wanted to know what was going on so he could assure that everyone was safe and taken care of.
Luz remembered her mother, Saya. Happiness. Cheerfulness. Luz recalled how her mother’s playfulness and strength burned brightly against even the angriest monsoons, turning the raging rains into rainbow mist with her versions of myths and legends that stunned Luz and her siblings into amazed silence.
In that moment, Luz remembered what it felt like to belong. She remembered what it was like to be whole again. She remembered what it was to be herself.
As she ripped her eyes away from the scene inside the bakery, she looked around at the rest of the street and realized in a single second that a part of herself was weaved into Little Manila–its pavement, the smells of the restaurants, the laughter of families who came to the States for the same reason that she did.
Time seemed to bend back into shape, and Luz realized it was probably closer to ten thirty now. She could turn around now and be home within minutes, but the thoughts she’d chosen to entertain that night provided her with enough fuel to put one foot in front of the other and continue down the block towards the dance halls and night clubs. She would allow herself to reminisce a little longer.
The dimmer lights of the closed shops and stores turned into bright, neon signs that pointed towards the doors of dance halls that breathed smoky air onto the sidewalks, giving life to the neighborhood at the late hour.
She passed several entrances of lively clubs playing Sylvia La Torre classics and admired the synchronized dancing between guests before retreating back into her mind.
Luz continued to think about her mother, who she remembered had an affinity for dancing the classics. Luz was thankful her mother had gotten the opportunity to teach her all of the essentials–Pandanggo, Cariñosa, swing dancing, and more.
“You never forget how to dance, Luz,” her mother would say, adding a turn or a spin to show off and make Luz exclaim in awe, “Once you get it, you never lose it!”
There was a larger comfort in those words. Maybe there was nothing and nobody to tie her back to the Philippines, but her mother's memory was something she'd never lose, regardless of where she was in the world.
Luz had made it to the end of the avenue. There was only one more open night club on the main road–Ang Maldita– but she knew of a side street around its corner where she could take the route back home through the neighborhood again. She knew she should start back home before her uncle and aunt worried too much.
Upon approaching the club, Luz realized that there was a group of three men sitting on wooden crates outside of the entrance. Smoke spiraled upwards from their cigars and empty beer bottles lay haphazardly at their feet.
She approached them and nodded once, keeping her steps brisk as she let out a quick, “Have a good night.”
“Uy, we can make it one,” one of the men slurred, making the other two snicker and toast the bottles they held in their hands.
Luz’s footsteps remained consistent. She didn’t dare look back or give any indication that she heard the statement.
“Think you’re too good for us, maldita?” A different voice this time, but to Luz, all three of them were one and the same. Danger.
The other two began to grunt in agreement and as Luz continued down the block, she heard the shifting of the wooden crates against the sidewalk and footsteps in her pursuit.
“Hey, we asked you a question, bitch!”
The footsteps were now more urgent, and Luz knew that there was no mistake that they were following her. She didn’t want to run, to give them a reason to move any faster than they already were. The side street back home was still another block away.
“There are other ways of making you open your mouth!”
All of the walking Luz had done throughout the day was now catching up to her. Her feet pounded and she felt tense pressure in her ankles as she tried her best to stay out of reach of the men behind her. Her eyes began to prick with tears. She’d just wanted to go on a walk.
Suddenly, out of the corner of her eye, Luz saw a glimpse of bright white on the opposite side of the street. She knew it wasn’t an angel, but it may as well have been.
A white woman clad in a puffy, white skirt and pink blouse seemed to be strutting on air towards the nightclubs Luz had just passed. Her long, shining hair obscured her eyes, but Luz saw from afar how her skin was powder white and highlighted by the shock of red lipstick that glinted in the low streetlights. She walked effortlessly in her heels, oblivious to Luz’s life-or-death dilemma that was unfolding on the other side of the street. Luz continued to put one foot in front of the other with purpose.
Then, she heard the men whoop loudly, and the sound of approaching footsteps stopped altogether.
Luz took a brave glance behind her, and realized that the three men had abandoned their chase and directed it towards a different target.
Instead of cat-calling creeps they were only moments ago, the men had miraculously sobered up enough to slick their hair back and tidy their worn jackets, following the heels of the white woman eagerly.
Luz heard them faintly break out into poorly sung love songs, trying desperately to win the attention of this white lady that happened to find herself in Los Angeles’ Little Manila on a summer night.
She hadn’t realized that her hands were shaking, but Luz shoved her hands into her uniform pants pockets, steadying them along with her breath. She finally reached the side street and made a left on the sidewalk down the road that would connect her back home.
What could have happened? Had that lady not walked by–
Luz shuddered at the thought. I don’t want to know. Dios, what would Ma say?
She realized her mother never had a conversation with her about these things. Maybe she’d thought she’d have more time to tell Luz the truth about the world outside, the monsters that walked alongside them.
Monsters. Luz’s mother used to tell stories about duendes, Aswang, gabi ng lagim–all mythological creatures that Saya’s creative tongue reduced to nothing but characters playing a part in the plot. No matter how terrifying the tale, her mother’s words made Luz abandon all fear and anxiety. She could do nothing but sit, stunned in awe, as her mother set the scene.
There was one specific legend that Saya had introduced to Luz at a young age–The White Lady on Balete Drive. The renditions of the story were endless: She was hit by a taxi cab at night on that road, so she haunts every driver that passes through. Her husband broke her heart by having an affair so she killed herself in despair and hasn’t left since. A group of drunkards passed through late at night and killed her, disposing of her remains in the canal, so she haunts anyone that travels through town.
No matter which version Luz heard, she was always the same. She was a tall, slender lady clad in white robes with skin so white, it glowed. Her face was hidden by her black hair, but it was only composed of her gaping mouth. She had no eyes, no nose. The only features on her face were jagged, vampirical teeth that jutted out from between her blood red lips.
There was another element to the story that was always constant, one that Luz secretly loved: The White Lady always got her revenge, even in death.
It was both thrilling and terrifying to Luz that an entity, a woman, could be that powerful.
In the Philippines, the fear and fascination were real. The White Lady was closer than kin to many people. She was everywhere. Her revenge didn’t discriminate. Mothers told her story at every bedtime. Children solidified her face in their nightmares. Even men avoided the streets once it grew too dark. Nobody wanted to chance being the next unlucky victim.
There is nothing like that in America, Luz thought to herself.
But she wished that there was. In America, there was no deterrent for the other evils in the world. There was nothing to discourage men that sat on the sidewalk, drunkenly slumped over crates while they preyed on people that passed by.
In the Philippines, the word was bond. No one had to see her in the flesh. To know of her existence was enough. People recognized that there was faith laced into the fear. It was almost reverential.
There is nothing like that here, Luz realized, because in America, everyone is their own God.
Luz could see her tito’s house from the entrance of the cul-de-sac. All the lights were turned off except for a dimly lit one in the living room window. Another minute and she’d let herself in, finally able to rest after what seemed like a lifetime. Was it really only a few hours ago since she’d left the school house?
Luz’s head still spun the events of the day around in her head, but they’d wove themselves into a web that seemed to connect the answers to all of the questions she’d asked herself today. Her thoughts were sharper and more coherent. She wasn’t restless anymore.
The White Lady had followed her from Balete Drive, from Manila. She’d followed Luz across the skies on that airplane to America, all the way to Los Angeles. She had taken a different form, and played a part in the plot of Luz’s life. She had been the deterrent that saved Luz from the unknown. She was proof of a faith and fear that was taught to Luz in a previous life and still existed in America.
Luz walked up to the front door of the house, shuffling with her keys. She opened the door as quietly as she could, glancing into the living room where the single light was still on. There was nobody in sight, but she smiled at the gesture. Tita Alice must have left it on for her.
She stepped into the living room fully and sat on the couch, letting out a big breath. On the coffee table in front of her, pictures of Luz’s family were illuminated by the lamp.
Luz stared hard at a picture of her and her mother at their house in Manila. Saya had taken Luz to the backyard to hose her down and give her a bath, and Luz was trying hard to evade her.
Five year old Luz ran towards the camera, mouth wide in what was presumably a laugh and scream combined into one. Saya had the hose in her hand in the background, mouth open in surprise and eyes alight with mischievousness.
Her mother had given her so much in the little time they’d had together, but that was all she could ever offer Luz. It was, and had always been, up to Luz to keep those things alive.
Sitting in the living room, Luz recognized that it was time for her to stop sifting through the past to find answers to her future. There was nothing more she could take from it. There were still sari-sari stores in the U.S., even if they stood small in comparison to the skyscrapers and never-ending skyline. Seven thousand miles away from the islands, people donned long skirts and tweed suits in Downtown Los Angeles instead of barongs and Maria Claras, but they were still dancing the Cariñosa. She imagined the White Lady against the backdrop of the Hollywood sign, looking down on the foreign freeways and wondering how she'd made it there from Balete Drive.
Luz saw herself alive in the White Lady, an outcast misremembered. She remembered her mother's stories and myths, how they'd been told a million times before but were brought to life by Saya's voice and animation.
She could never be separated from her home; they were one and the same. Luz recognized her purpose now was to move forward with all she'd been given, to tell her story even if it had been told a hundred times before across different lifetimes. For the first time in years, Luz was content.
“Ma,” Luz said aloud, settling into the couch cushions and making herself comfortable, “Sasabihin ko sa’yo isang kwento, okay? I’m going to tell you a story, but I don't think you've heard this one before.”
