I went to a beach on the California central coast just to feel like I was on an island again. As the marine layer cleared, I could see the sun shining on Morro Rock in the distance — 576 feet of dark stone at the edge of this continent, an imposing fist of ancient earth rising from the waterline. The Spanish renamed it El Morro in 1542, a crown-shaped hill; mariners navigated by it for three centuries; between 1889 and 1969, settlers quarried 250,000 tonnes of it to build the harbour jetty. To the tiłhini people, the natives of this area, it is Lisamu, a sacred place. And it is sacred to Filipinos too. In 1587, Filipinos arrived here as part of a Spanish expedition — the first recorded presence of Filipinos on the continental United States.
I had come because I’d been feeling lost at sea. As someone from the Filipino diaspora, I found the tang of salt water, the rhythm of wash on the shore, the sand, warm underfoot, a respite from living in what felt like an ocean of white. Standing there, I thought about everything this rock holds.
A few months earlier, I had stood near the base of Lisamu with a gathering of Filipino Americans holding a moment of silence for the Filipinos who crossed this ocean in 1587 and found themselves in a foreign land. They arrived in California as part of a Spanish expedition, when the islands were a colony of Spain. We only know about this first historic landing through a Spanish document — one that called Filipinos “Indios Luzones” to distinguish them from the Native Americans that the Spanish encountered. On the third day of the expedition, a skirmish broke out, and one Filipino died in the fighting. No one knows if they were buried there. Standing in that silence among my community, I wondered — were we celebrating the first landing or mourning it? I am still wondering.
So much about the Filipino American experience is about silence, a silence that rolls like the ocean’s current, gaining momentum over time, culminating into a collective amnesia of how we got here, where we go now. I teach Filipino American studies at a nearby university, and for many of my students, Filipino history — our experiences in the U.S. and beyond — was never taught in schools or passed down by their families. I tell them it was the same for me. When I was born in Dameron Hospital in Stockton, a Northern California city that once had the largest population of Filipinos outside the archipelago, my parents named me Ryan, an all-American name. For them, my name and the expectations that came with it was a prayer that my life would be easier if I didn’t know the language, didn’t know the stories. This prayer and the silence I inherited were meant to grant me safe passage in this country, steering me away from what could have been a more perilous journey.
*****
I close my eyes against the wind, cool salt air on my face. If I didn’t know any better, I could have been standing on a ridge on Tantalus, overlooking Mānoa Valley in Honolulu, the trade winds embracing me, like a relative I haven’t seen in a long time. When I was a child, my grandmother would wrap her arms around me, pressing her nose and lips against the top of my head, affirming that I was one of hers. I breathe deeply like I’m trying to memorize her scent, the smell of foliage after the rain, something to hold and remember when I leave.
Opening my eyes, I snap out of it. Though I was born a few hours north, the land still felt alien to me: I don’t have a name for the wind, the cold that rises from the ocean prevents me from entering the water. I can’t shake the feeling I’m missing something, something I’m not able to describe.
I hold onto the knowledge that Filipinos are part of a larger group called Austronesians, a language family that encompasses peoples from Southeast Asia to Oceania. I hold onto the idea that Austronesians are travellers who navigated their way across the ocean, which is why words in Tagalog can have the same or similar meaning to words in other languages despite the vast distance. Lima is one of these shared words: in ʻŌlelo Hawaiʻi, it means hand and in Tagalog, five, a connection that may come from the five fingers of our hands.
Once, in a cafe overlooking Lake Rotorua in Te Ika-a-Māui, two Māori friends and I talked about our shared connections, how the word mana in Tagalog means inheritance, a treasure that is passed down, and how it is the same in Te Reo, depending on how the word is used. I cling to these connections like a rope cast into the open sea but remember to loosen my grip. Even though we share these connections, I’m not Māori or Kanaka ʻŌiwi. I can’t and shouldn’t claim these lands as my own. Maybe I am an outsider just like other outsiders. And yet, I feel that I have a place in this extended family, that travel is a part of my genealogy, too.
In the Philippines, even the soul travels. In Ilonggo, the language my dad speaks, the soul is called dungan. Invisible to the eye, the dungan can leave the body and travel with the wind. While we sleep, our souls go on a journey. When we dream, what we experience is the view of the dungan in transit. We are often told to wake our loved ones gently and with care, to allow time for a travelling soul to return to its body. But there are other times when a soul might be prompted to leave. It might leave, due to fright or shock, if our bodies are badly treated, if we aren’t nourished properly. Sometimes the accumulation of silence feels like too much weight for a soul to carry. I wonder if mine has been scattered—fragmented like the diaspora itself—and my travels across the Pacific are my attempts at piecing it back together.
*****
I walk along the central coast shore until I reach a rocky part of the beach. These rocks are smooth from the years under the ocean’s tide. I bend down and press my hand against one, a rock the size of my torso, and suddenly, it’s as if I’m under the banyan tree in Puna’auia again.
July in Tahiti: rocks ranging from 40 to 130 kilos lay scattered beneath the shade of the tree. A crowd watched athletes from across Oceania, including Bora Bora, Tahiti, the Cook Islands, Aotearoa, and Hawai‘i, taking turns lifting the rocks. I competed among them, shirt off, brown skin glistening with others under the sun. We gathered in Puna’auia to train for the largest rock lifting competition in Oceania, set for the following day. The sport is called the amora’a ‘ōfa’i, an ancestral sport for Polynesians, meant to honour the strength of the ancestors and their journeys across the land and sea.
I trained for months, conditioning myself to shoulder rock, to withstand its pressure bearing down against my body. At this competition, I learnt that the rocks have names and come from sacred places in Rurutu, an island in French Polynesia. I learnt that the rocks are alive, that they are an extension of the land, that I should greet and approach them humbly before any lift. I also learnt that brute strength is not enough: to lift heavy rocks one must be in dialogue with the land given their irregular shapes and densities. Proficient athletes know this: you must conform to the rock as the rock will not conform to you. Holding it too high may result in the rock slipping through the arms; holding it too low can make the rock fall forward. I saw an advanced athlete take his time to observe one of the heavier ones, studying it closely. When he decided that he was ready, he simply picked it up and generated so much force that the rock, for a brief moment, floated in the air.
Immediately after his successful lift, I felt eyes beginning to stare at me, signalling that it was my turn. I hurried to one of the practice rocks and yanked it off the ground. As it rested on my shoulder, relief settled over my body.
As the training session started to wind down and athletes began heading out, I seized the chance to speak with an elder, a large Tahitian man and a long-time champion rock lifter. There as an organizer, he made sure athletes were safe, placing his hand on their backs to prevent anyone from falling backwards. We had only exchanged a few words, as I don’t speak French or reo Māʼohi, and he doesn’t speak English. Still, he checked in with me throughout the day, asking, “Ryan, how are you feeling?” to which I would respond, “I’m feeling good,” with a thumbs up. Seeing him loading up his truck, I decided to catch him before he left—I had a question on my mind.
A friend relayed this question to him in French. I wanted to know what the elder thought of outsiders like me—Filipino, not Tahitian—taking part in the amora’a ‘ōfa’i and whether my presence there was welcome. The elder studied me as my friend interpreted, and I could already see in his eyes that he understood the weight of my question.
As my friend finished, the elder responded immediately: “Most youth in Tahiti aren’t interested in traditional rock lifting anymore, but outside athletes are helping to revitalise the sport. The amora’a ‘ōfa’i is now growing because of this, and I am hopeful that younger people will be drawn to this practice once again.” The elder paused, then mentioned that Hōkūleʻa, the deep-sea voyaging canoe from Hawai‘i, had landed in Tahiti just days before, and that Filipinos were a part of its crew. “We are all in the process of finding each other again,” he said. He hugged me and continued to pack his truck.
Cold water rushes over my feet. I’m back on the California shore, alone, my hand still pressed against the large rock. I whisper: My name is Ryan. I come from the Filipino diaspora. An ancestor of mine died on this land in 1587. I don’t know your name, but I promise to learn it soon. I notice the nuances of the rock’s shape, the places where it curves, the part of the rock that holds most of its weight. I start rolling it to a flatter part of the beach as more and more sand coats its wet surface. I try dusting it off; it feels like sandpaper against my hands and I know it will hurt if the rock scrapes against my body. I’m determined to lift it anyway. I set the rock upright and balance it so its heavier end points towards the sky. I bend down to embrace it, my right hand gripping my left wrist.
Hugging it close to my chest, I stand up with as much power as I can muster. In one motion, I confidently hoist it to my shoulder, and for a brief moment, it feels like I am carrying all the things I couldn’t name, the history I didn’t know, the feeling of not belonging. At the same time, it feels like I can bear and carry it all, this archipelago within me. In that brief moment, I hear nothing: no wind, no ocean. As I let the rock fall to the ground, I hear the sound break the silence.
