Grown intro
imma 1st generation filipino american. with everything happening in LA, I can’t help but wonder what if someone I knew and loved was deported. my parents came to america from the philippines, started a family, n worked hard to make a beautiful life for themselves. i’m exceedingly blessed.
these faces are part of my family tree when they were starting a new chapter in america. all 4 of my grandparents, may they rest in peace, are in the beginning of this video. the 1st lady in pink is my beautiful mother along with all of her sisters and my older brother when he was a baby. the hand behind the camera is my father, who I rarely see in any of the footage i’ve been combing through. getting to see through his eyes at the time and piecing together some of these moments to my music, years later, is a way for me to honor my family. (the instrumental playing in the background is from my upcoming album, Grown)
my grandparents on my mom’s side, my mom’s youngest sister, my mom n dad, and my older brother before I was born, San Fernando Valley
i’m just another thread in the fabric of all those who came before me and those that came before them, whose stories are unknown. so many lives come and gone, taken, buried or washed away like the mist that dissolves in the sand with each passing wave. the same essence that breathed life into them lives on through me. how many artists or musicians were in my bloodline, I wonder? one day i’ll be an ancestor too.. i gotta leave more art behind; clues, messages back home, evidence that we survived, that we arrived and existed in a new way. what a privilege to tell my own story instead of having it erased or changed altogether. this is a timeline of generational healing and reclamation for sure.
our family archive
12 yrs old, Hawaii
i’ve always been different than the rest of my family; different than most people in general. grew up witnessing the world around me through a lens of not fully belonging. I’m sure other 1st generation children from immigrant parents might relate; born on stolen land, yet of the earth. no person is illegal!
oh to be alive and full of imagination and hope in this broken ass world. we are nothing without each other.
