How responsible are we as American citizens? Do we vote?
WHILE grocery shopping at a major seafood market, Filipina shoppers hesitated to pick up the free community dailies. One said, “They do not report the news, they change the news.” Philippine News,...
View ArticleWildfire jazz at its best: democracy in music
“AND the thing about jazz, through all the business involved in practicing and improvement, it’s always sweet: the improvement that you notice in the ability to express yourself, the feeling of...
View ArticleIt’s on us to see her
[Editor’s note: This column was originally published in the July 30, 2016 issue of the Los Angeles Asian Journal Weekend edition] “MANY women are caught up in ‘not being equal’ dilemma. The moment...
View ArticleAmplifying truth in the 2016 presidential election
“Why do people exhibit racism or commit hate crimes? These things occur when we are split off from our own shadow, our inner pain. When people and circumstances press our buttons, we can easily believe...
View Article#WeAreWithHer: The comprehensive presidential platform of Hillary Clinton
“I AM voting for Hillary because she has always stood up against inequality. She did that as President of her high school class . She has done that and continues to do so for children and families; she...
View ArticleRyan Cayabyab and RCS: A summit of excellence and artistry
(Part 2 of 2) “Genius has no country. That’s Juan Luna (Referring to the Filipino painter of Spoliarium, who got the gold award in Madrid’s National Exposition of the Arts in 1884.) Genius is embodied...
View ArticleHappy, helpful citizens vote for America’s future
“OUR objective, therefore, is a happy citizen of this country that is equally a happy and helpful citizen of the world. He lives free and secure not in national isolation but in international...
View Article‘We are Americans first’: Surrogates of grace and hope
“OUR campaign was never about one person or even one election. It was about the country we love — and about building an America that’s hopeful, inclusive and big-hearted…To all the women, and...
View ArticleCarol Ojeda-Kimbrough’s aloha-full life
“OHANA generally percolates on aloha, the Hawaiian ideal of love and compassion. “I for one don’t think that I could describe it [aloha],” she says. I think it’s in the person. I think you are blessed...
View ArticleA canopy of twinkling stars
“WHEN you are seasoned with the salt of Truth, your own body of knowledge suddenly reveals a new dimension. The principle of relativity is mad practical in a new concept of unitivity. You will come to...
View ArticleSal Malaki’s self-confident voice rise to world’s center stages
“NO one can tell you what you really hear when you dream music. The impression can seem more vivid than music, as if coming from somewhere inside it. But the stuff of dreams is more rarefied than the...
View ArticleWhat is a good homily?
“WE need to realize that God is much closer than we think and to recognize when we have arrived in the presence of God. When you arrive in God’s presence you often experience a kind of serenity and...
View ArticleAnnie Nepomuceno: The village of sounds is in her
“The truth is, the line between what is uniquely yours and what is given to you by your culture is invisible to you. Don’t worry about it. Your village is inside you. Your work is to go inside and...
View ArticleThe Family of Jesus Christ: A Simbang Gabi homily by Rev. Fr. Rodel Balagtas
“CAN you by worrying about yourself, change the person you really are? Does your anxious thought help to pay bills, does it make your work succeed, does it reap the harvest or fill the barn? You are a...
View ArticleWhy I go to Simbang Gabi every year
[Editor’s note: The writer reflects on and re-shares a Simbang Gabi experience she had three years ago that continues to guide her attendance to the mass celebration every year.] Do you recall a...
View ArticleHow African American women rose above indignities
“My investigation became more like an obsession; I would walk any trail if it meant finding a trace of one of the computers at its end. I was determined to prove their existence and their talent in a...
View ArticleAmericans face a challenge
“The lotus is the most beautiful flower, whose petals open one by one. But it will only grow in the mud. In order to grow and gain wisdom, first you must have the mud — the obstacles of life and its...
View ArticleA new social contract for America: Towards equanimity from 2017 to 2020
“HOW do I strengthen the better angels of our nature? And how do we tamp down our tribal impulses?” — Pres. Barack Obama, 2017. “The highest good for humans is to love and take joy in the whole course...
View ArticleThe challenge for citizens to be guardians of democracy
“KNOWLEDGE has, in our time, triumphed, and is triumphing, over distance, over difference of language, over diversity of habits, over prejudice, and over bigotry. The civilized and Christian world is...
View ArticleYosemite National Park: The site of the magical firefall
“YOSEMITE Park is a place of rest, a refuge from the roar and dust and weary, nervous, waiting work of the lowlands, in which one gains the advantage of both solitude and society. Nowhere will you find...
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