Dark Blue Suit

• “From places as different as San Francisco and Walla Walla they came to Seattle, just as they had for twenty or more earlier springs, laying down their dishrags and field knives – the tools of dead-end jobs – for a chance to go north and make Union scale.” (pg 4) What does making “Union scale” mean? Is that a slang term for money? It must be important if they were willing to come all the way from places like San Francisco to Seattle for it.
• “All Filipinos, all Communists, all part of the Union, or so the government said.” (pg 21) Why did the government equate Filipinos with Communism? Was there something going on with the Philippines at the time that would make them think that? Or was it just the government being racist and using any excuse to get rid of Unions and “foreigners”?
• “ “Government say they’re Communist. We get rid of ‘em, they get off our back.” … “They’re good men strong for the Union. Besides, who’s nex’ we do that? You? Me?” ” (pg 22) This is something that we’ve seen played out throughout the years, even currently. If the people in charge can get minorities to turn on each other, they’ll be easier to control because they won’t have support from each other to bolster their strength and numbers. It’s sad that this keeps happening.

Rico

• “Like many Filipinos, Rico was short and wiry, but he made up for it by being strong, fast, and clever – traits that earned respect even from the bloods, and they were always the hardest to impress.” (pg 27) Who are the bloods, and why was it important to impress them? Are they a gang, or some other kind of organization? Or is that a term for a specific demographic?
• “I felt heavy, like a bunch of men each the size of Buddha had jumped on my back and stayed there.” (pg 32) Is Buddhism common in the Philippines? Or is this like when some Asian groups tend to become Christian after coming to America, only with Filipinos and Buddhism?
• “He didn’t care whether the girls were black, white, yellow, whatever – a fact attested to by his multicolored progeny and their angry grandparents who universally threatened to harm him.” (pg 36) At first when I read this, I just assumed that the grandparents were being really racist towards black people. But then I realized that depending on what point during the Vietnam war this story takes place, the Civil Rights movement may not have happened yet, so there may still have been segregation and Jim Crow laws and things like that. So of course the grandparents would be furious, because they were still in the mindset of not considering black people as people.

The Second Room

• “Consistent with that theme, the instructors weren’t paid. Almost three decades later it’s still the same.” (pg 39) Having a school last for that long with unpaid instructors surprised me, as it seems like it would be really unlikely to last for a long time if it was started in this day and age. How did instructors make ends meet if they weren’t being paid? Were they volunteers, and did they have other jobs? How did they make ends meet if they didn’t have other jobs?
• “But everything else was okay, which made the atmosphere electric – almost, but not quite, out of control. In that sense, the school resembled the African plain, its hierarchy denoting predators and prey.” (pg 40) This feels like it’s perpetuating stereotypes about Africa and how “primitive” it is compared to “civilized” countries. I don’t know how different it was back then, but nowadays I’m pretty sure most places in Africa have cities and technology just like we do.
• “His answer stressed simpler moves, functional in a crisis, aimed at addressing one question: Does it work? … I applied it first to martial arts – training sessions, boxing rings, and short fights (short punches, uppercuts, and hooks work) – and eventually beyond to religion, marriages, and careers.” (pg 43) This is a really practical way of looking at things, and I’m both impressed and intrigued that this kind of way of looking at life developed out of martial arts. I think this is a question that people need to ask themselves more often, as what works for one person doesn’t always work for another person, and it’s difficult to be happy when you’re continuing to hang on to things that don’t work for you and/or never did.

August 1968

• “Bloods spoke that way; Filipinos, too. That’s how we grew up. …And although we had both become bilingual – over the years we’d learned how to speak to whites – when we got back home and together, we fell into our language of choice.” (pg 57) I thought it was interesting how they refer to it as becoming “bilingual”, even though it’s still (presumably) English. I’m guessing this is referring to how white people tend to look down on people who speak more informally and how minorities often have to change how they speak in order to be treated with dignity and respect.
• “First his manhood, then his hair. Music was next. … Hangin’ with rich, polite white kids had got him out of practice.” (pg 57-58) Is it a common custom among Filipinos to insult your friends this way as a greeting, or is it just something these two do as an inside joke or something? Judging by the way he says that being around white kids made Aaron out of practice makes me think it’s the former.
• Since Buddy and Aaron call each other blood as well as others, I’m assuming blood means something like calling each other brother, as in you’re family because of shared backgrounds or experiences? Especially since at the end, after Buddy calls Aaron the n-word, Aaron says that Buddy’s not his brother anymore.

Home

• “…he rolled his eyes toward tables full of young folks with long hair. A few were sneaking hostile glances at this young old man who didn’t fit. … “You ain’t been back long enough,” I said. “That, plus your fatigues, your haircut, and that damn Marine bulldog you got painted on your arm.” ” (pg 68) I’m assuming that the people glaring are all other minorities, either Filipino or otherwise, so I wonder how much of their hostility is due to seeing a military uniform rather than because of his haggard appearance. How much hostility was there from minorities concerning the war back then?
• “He said that, by coming home, he’d come to grasp a disturbing truth: in this, his hometown, none of it would’ve mattered. He felt that no one – except his family, me, and a few other friends – would have cared, or cried, or even known his name.” (pg 70) I know that when soldiers return from war, there’s often difficulty in readjusting to civilian life. I think this shows how war can really traumatize a person and how depression and PTSD can make things feel pointless.
• “Rico was dead, killed in a flophouse fire in Stockton, California.” (pg 76) What is a flophouse? Since he mentions that immigrants used to work in asparagus fields in Stockton decades ago, are flophouses related to that in any way? Or is it a slang term for something like a halfway house or something?

A Life Well Lived

• “And compared with what he’d faced in earlier years – the beatings, jailings, attempted deportations – this bout with the county was a summer picnic.” (pg 82) I’m assuming that the beatings, jailings and deportations referenced here were connected to what they mentioned in the first story about the government thinking that all Filipinos were Communists? I’m assuming between then and when this story takes place, those issues were either stopped completely or winding down?
• “The Community was the umbrella organization for all other organizations and served as the official representative for Filipinos in Seattle. Its headquarters were in a former bowling alley on Empire Way, and it resembled, and does to this day, a bowling alley on Empire Way.” (pg 84) I’m assuming that it was either easier or cheaper for them to repurpose a bowling alley? Does it still look like a bowling alley because they don’t have the funds to remodel at all, or is it just because it doesn’t matter too much what it looks like to them? If it’s because they don’t have funds, is that because they’re a minority and nobody’s willing to fund them, or is there another reason?
• “And worse than that, he realized his people had forgotten, or never knew, their common purpose. Even those who should have remembered had chosen to forget whatever it was they stood for.” (pg 89) What was the “common purpose” for Filipinos? If most immigrants came to America for the chance to have a “better” life, does this imply that Filipinos weren’t coming here for that purpose? What is the context for this?

The Wedding

• “Pictures, they say, don’t lie. But his one did, or at least it said something to the old man that it said to no one else.” (pg 93) Why did Leo so easily believe that the baby was his when she didn’t look like him at all? Was he just so desperate to believe that the baby’s mother actually loved him that he was willing to believe anything? Or was he aware that she wasn’t his and was just willing to ignore that for a taste of having a family of his own?
• “It was his point of honor, grounded in poverty and a deep Filipino sense of pride, never to need, even from those he loved.” (pg 96) This seems to be a pretty common attitude for people of older generations in general, but also for men especially. I wonder how much of this attitude is Leo’s Filipino values and how much is older beliefs about masculinity?
• “ “We gotta take a look at her; check her teeth. She got ‘em, don’t she? Being an import an’ all. You know, quality control.” (pg 100) Why would they need to check her teeth? Is it a Filipino custom to check a bride’s teeth? Or is this a reference to something that I’m unfamiliar with?

A Manong’s Heart

• “His one-room Chinatown apartment was a shrine to the ring, its walls plastered with the posed photos of boxers…” (pg 103) Are many Filipinos fond of boxing, and if so is it because of having something similar in the Philippines? Or is this just a case of an individual relating the sport to his own life because he’s dealt with some rough times?
• “For the next two hours, Uncle Kikoy guided me through a thrilling and violent new world, from his own menacing pose – taken, he said in 1929 – to glowing newspaper accounts of Pancho Villa, Ceferino Garcia, Small Montana, Sammy Santos, Young Tommy, and, of course, the sainted Speedy.” (pg 105) I’m not familiar with any of these people, but I’m assuming from the names that at least some of them are of Hispanic or Latinx descent? Were there ever any Filipino boxers?
• “In the ring, a Filipino could beat a white man with his fists and not be arrested.” (pg 110) This says a lot about the racial tensions of the time, where Filipinos were feeling the oppression of white people. He says that boxing felt more equal to them, but this also shows that this was probably one of the very few outlets for these injustices available to them at the time.

Stephie

• “The years had brought security and perks, protection against layoffs, a better paycheck.” (pg 113) I was surprised it didn’t really address how he became a teacher. Did he face a lot of racism in the process? Was he a teacher for minorities only, or was he a teacher for whites and non-whites alike? What was the situation regarding segregation and things like that at the time?
• “She was my teenage love, the first and maybe the best.” (pg 115) Wasn’t Stephie the girl who might have secretly been his half-sister because Buddy’s dad wasn’t sure if she was his or not? Did Buddy forget about that, or did they sort that out before dating each other?
• “She always said I should use my being half-white as an advantage. I could grab some rich guy and lie to him, tell him I was Spanish, Hawaiian, anything but what I was.” (pg 121) It’s really messed up that her mom placed so much emphasis on not admitting to being the “wrong” race and not just letting Stephie be herself. Even if the mom was justifying it as doing it to try to protect her from people who do look down on Filipinos, and not intentionally being racist herself (which was my first impression), that can really mess someone up.

A Matter of Faith

• “ “You get stuck there, brother, you’ll need all the coin you got. That happens, man, stay away from hungry-lookin’ toothless hillbillies. They’ll eat you Buddy. It’s cultural.” ” (pg 127) Is this a belief about hillbillies in the mountains and woods in general, or is it a specific stereotype concerning the Pacific Northwest? Either way, I suppose this is an indication that the idea that there are hillbillies living in the wilds was prevalent enough for him to be concerned about it?
• “Damn, I thought. I didn’t know his first name. To me, he’d always been “Kikoy” – a nickname. For Filipinos, nicknames meant closeness, a key granting access to the intimate. I didn’t know his real name, didn’t have to.” (pg 128) This seems like an example of how cultural differences can cause obstacles and issues in people’s lives, even when they’re seemingly minor. I also thought it was interesting that nicknames are considered so intimate that he didn’t know Kikoy’s real name. In a way it almost seems like the nickname was more real than his given name because only people he was close to calls him that.
• “Uncle Kikoy was family, the bottom line. I owed him. For the first time that night, I relaxed. Then I laughed. All this fuss, and there was really no choice. Carefully, I laid the medal on the bedstand and got ready to pay a debt.” (pg 132) It’s interesting how, even though he is no longer religious, he sees the medal of Saint Chris as a gift that he owes a debt to Kikoy for. At the end, it seems like he is intending to let himself believe in religion again for a chance to see Kikoy again, or at least to say goodbye, but it’s unclear whether he’s only letting himself believe for a short time in order to see him, or if he’s intending to stick with it as a way of repaying his “debt”.

Dancer

• “Yet even before she’d gone, there were signs that all wasn’t right. She’d leave for days, sometimes longer, always in the company of an adult, a tall, thin Filipino. … She hugged me close and said I’d be fine, just fine, cross her heart.” (pg 135) This paragraph was really unsettling to me. I can think of a few reasons she’d disappear after crying and saying something like that; either she was set up to be married to the guy, or he was manipulating her somehow, or maybe he was threatening Buddy and she left to protect him? That’s what this paragraph makes it seem like, anyway.
• “ “Mom had a will done and left Alex some money,” she said calmly. “It was for me, really, but he couldn’t touch it unless I was livin’ with him.” (pg 138) Is/was it normal to have stipulations like that in a will? Why would Sonia’s mom have a requirement like that if Sonia was living with her and Buddy’s father at the time? Was it supposed to be just-in-case something happened to Buddy’s dad and she didn’t have anywhere else to go?
• “We traded phone numbers, promising to stay in touch. This time the words were pleasant and harmless, good only for killing time, the countdown to the end of our time together.” (pg 139) The trading of phone numbers seems to indicate that they’ll rebuild their relationship, but the following sentence feels very final to me. If they’re exchanging pleasantries and killing time until it’s time to part, it seems like they aren’t ready to leave just yet because they know they’ll never see each other or talk to each other again.

A Family Gathering

• “The newcomers didn’t know what the old men had done and, quite frankly, couldn’t care less. They wouldn’t see the connection between their own comfort and what others had struggled to build.” (pg 143) This reminds me of how older generations always tell younger generations that they don’t know how good they have it, but this is interesting to me because it has the extra dynamic of immigrants who have lived in America for decades to immigrants who are brand new to America instead of parents and grandparents to children and grandchildren. So it feels like there might be an even bigger disconnect between generations because they might not be immediately confronted with evidence of what came before like the ones who were born in America probably were.
• “ “Your name,” he’d hiss, and shake his head. “It’s who you are, who we are. Don’ never shame it.” ” (pg 144) This seems to indicate that the idea of family honor is present in Filipino culture in the same or a similar way as other Asian cultures like in China and Japan. The part before this sentence also gives an indication of what kinds of things are considered shameful, such as not being “successful” enough in school or careers, or having a failed marriage.
• “It’s like our old neighborhood, reassembled plot by plot; all that’s missing are the sounds… Friends in life, we’ve chosen to be together again.” (pg 145) I’ve never really thought about this before, but it makes sense. For a tight-knit community that had a deep bond like trying to survive in an unfamiliar country, and didn’t know anyone but each other, it makes sense that they’d want to stick together in death too. I wonder if most or all immigrant communities tended to do this, whether they still do, and whether their descendants will continue to be buried in the same areas if so.