My first Hustler and Healer feature is my ancestor and paternal grandfather, Lolo Lorenzo. Our family's roots here in America began with him. He passed away way before I was born but his legacy lives on through the countless stories I hear from my dad, my Uncle Ben, and our other relatives. He was the academic, the scholar, the intellectual pioneer of our family. Lolo Lorenzo was from a remote village, Aringay, in La Union (the ancestral home of aborigines and headhunters), which is several hours north of Manila, the capital of the Philippines. The oldest of seven children, Lolo Lorenzo sought out to come to America in order to obtain a good education and job. To afford the expenses to travel and establish his new life, his village took up a money collection which included not only monetary donations but also chickens and eggs.
My grandfather was a provincial boy with big aspirations.
Lolo Lorenzo arrived to the US in 1929, bright, eager and ready to fulfill his iteration of the American Dream. He first arrived in Chicago, a bustling city where Filipinos go to get a good job and education. For the next few decades, my grandfather would go to school and work through the Great Depression, serve in the Navy during the Second World War, and all the while continue to mentor other young Filipinos who migrated to Chicago. Lolo Lorenzo obtained a Bachelor of Arts in English and a minor in Journalism from Washington University in St. Louis, Missouri and then went on to obtain a Master's and Ph.D. in Economics. He had a special interest in history and how nations prospered. What resonates with me the most wasn't that Lolo Lorenzo found success in America, but that he shared that success by returning home to the Philippines and providing for his community and his village.
Lolo Lorenzo believed, "The worst of all sins is the sin of ingratitude."
Lolo Lorenzo later met my grandmother, Margarita, in 1942 during his time in the Navy, eventually getting married and having four kids of their own (one of which is my dad) in addition to raising four kids from my grandmother's previous marriage. After World War II, my grandfather returned to the Philippines with his family to pursue his ultimate goal of becoming an educator. He was hired as a Professor of Economics & History at one of the top universities in the Philippines and was later invited to join the Philippine Government as a Staff Economist in the Budget Commission.
At one point, Lolo Lorenzo ran for public office in the Philippines and although he was unsuccessful in becoming a public official, he managed to petition the Philippine Government to construct the first paved road to his village in the mountains. Most importantly, he was successful in establishing electricity in the town for the first time.
These are some of the notable stories I learn about my grandfather. If you asked me who I would meet, dead or alive, it would be him. Throughout this year, I have been feeling his ancestral energy and it coincides with me launching this blog and telling these stories.
Never forget your roots. And if you don't know what they are, explore it. There is always a buried story waiting to be unrooted. As descendants of our family's history and legacies, we are manifestations built from what was once our ancestors' hopes and dreams. There is something powerful and liberating about unearthing pieces of your family history. In school we learned about the histories of great historical figures across various nations, but a lot of that history didn't stick with me because it wasn't personal. Sure, now that I'm older, more mature and maybe a little wiser, I can appreciate the history now because I can make sense of it. History is personal. History is storytelling and being able to preserve it is just as important. To me, Lolo Lorenzo is my notable historical figure, our founding father of our generation. He is my original Hustler and Healer.
Acknowledgements
A thank you to my Uncle Ben for enriching me with an archive of Lolo Lorenzo's narrative and our family history and to and Cousin Stephanie whose biography of Lolo Lorenzo for a class provided me with material I could draw from
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