by Vener Cabana
August 8, 1968, a few days after a huge earthquake collapsed the Ruby Tower in Manila, I landed in Chicago to a metropolis of overwhelming skyscrapers and complicated highway system. Fortunately, my cousin Emilio and his wife Erlinda, then taking their residency at the Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital, were around to help ease my transition to this foreign city that was to be my home. Expectations and reality did not match. Battle-clad police clubbing a rioting crowd during the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago filled the TV screen shortly after I arrived. My first public transportation ride to the University of Chicago campus was a rude awakening. The litter-strewn streets, boarded up businesses and burned out buildings shattered my mental picture of beautiful America and introduced me to the grim possibilities that could befall anyone in South Side Chicago. Those were the times of Civil Rights upheavals.
Nevertheless, the University of Chicago was impressive, its gothic edifices an island of class and culture in what was once the millionaires’ row of Hyde Park. The bronze Atomic Bomb Mushroom Cloud sculpture stood as a solemn reminder that the brains of the Manhattan Project led by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi worked at the basement of the Searle Chemistry Laboratory to develop that unequaled weapon of destruction of World War 2. I was soon to learn that half of the Nobel Prize winners in physics and in economics have come from the University of Chicago. True to the times, the social atmosphere was liberal. “So you are a virgin?” a classmate asked. I was as shocked with the question as she was shocked by my response. Then there was this professor who would say to the class, “Smoking causes cancer” while puffing on his cigarette. That was before smoking was banned at public places.
Arriving at the height of summer, I was glad for the time to adjust before winter arrived. I had no idea how brutal Chicago winters could be. Seeing the first snow flurries, I thought they were sawdust being blown from a construction site. But then the big flakes poured down and soon all my effort was concentrated in keeping from freezing alive, or so it seemed to me. Arctic air howling across Lake Michigan dipped the mercury in this Windy City so low that a cup of water iced faster outside the door than inside the freezer. When spring finally came, I felt so light I wanted to jump and shout for the freedom from the heavy Siberian outfit. Someone sent us a copy of Manila Times with the headline, “Freezing Cold in Manila, Temperature 60 degrees.” I had come a long way!
There were yet few Filipinos in Chicago and those we met became extended family bound by the common longing for home. I roomed with Flora, a fellow Quezonian from Lucena, a Cytotechonologist working at the School of Cytotechnology of the University of Chicago. One Sabbath morning in the city’s CTA train on my way to church, an older Filipino gentleman told me of his niece who “just arrived from the Philippines, a CPA, and a Seventh-day Adventist.” Excitedly the next Sabbath I picked up Purita. It felt like home to have a fellow Pinay go with me to church. Soon we were both active members of the Austin Seventh-day Adventist Church, a congregation newly organized by peoples from the warring nations of the Far East, bonded by faith and common struggles to take root and flourish in a foreign land, all grateful for the leadership of the beloved Japanese minister, Elder and Mrs. George Shigeru Aso. Upon Flora’s marriage to physical chemist, Dr. Pabitra Datta, Purita and Venus, another Filipina CPA, moved in with me to the one-bedroom 3rd floor apartment where now stands the Center for Advanced Medicine of the University of Chicago, the building pictured in the advertisement that proclaimed, "There is no number 2.” Two single beds and a cot in a 12’ by 14’ bedroom, we literally had to crawl over each other to get anywhere. At the living room of that apartment one night (July 20, 1969) we heard Neil Armstrong’s famous “One little step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” and watched him on the moon talking with President Nixon at the White House. America was a great place to be.
There were lonely times. And we missed the familiar foods. One day, smoked chubs were sold at the local grocery. Like famished orphans, we gorged ourselves until we gagged. But then, $20.00 was enough to fill a grocery cart. Cheap and abundant, good food soon had its telling effect. Our clothes were shrinking! However, aside from the food and the cold, and the constant trying-to-reach or fit (because most structures and shoes and clothes were made for taller statures and bigger sizes), we did not have much adjustment to make, giving credence to the criticism that the Philippine educational system prepared graduates more for life in the United States than in the Philippines.
Now, after 40 years, I have lived longer in the United States than in the Philippines. Sometime ago at Montemorelos where I was invited to give lectures, I was standing on the doorway of the guest house viewing the lush tropical scenery outside. "Just like home," I mused. Then the thought came, "Where is your home?"
August 8, 1968, a few days after a huge earthquake collapsed the Ruby Tower in Manila, I landed in Chicago to a metropolis of overwhelming skyscrapers and complicated highway system. Fortunately, my cousin Emilio and his wife Erlinda, then taking their residency at the Rush Presbyterian St. Luke’s Hospital, were around to help ease my transition to this foreign city that was to be my home. Expectations and reality did not match. Battle-clad police clubbing a rioting crowd during the 1968 National Democratic Convention in Chicago filled the TV screen shortly after I arrived. My first public transportation ride to the University of Chicago campus was a rude awakening. The litter-strewn streets, boarded up businesses and burned out buildings shattered my mental picture of beautiful America and introduced me to the grim possibilities that could befall anyone in South Side Chicago. Those were the times of Civil Rights upheavals.
Nevertheless, the University of Chicago was impressive, its gothic edifices an island of class and culture in what was once the millionaires’ row of Hyde Park. The bronze Atomic Bomb Mushroom Cloud sculpture stood as a solemn reminder that the brains of the Manhattan Project led by nuclear physicist Enrico Fermi worked at the basement of the Searle Chemistry Laboratory to develop that unequaled weapon of destruction of World War 2. I was soon to learn that half of the Nobel Prize winners in physics and in economics have come from the University of Chicago. True to the times, the social atmosphere was liberal. “So you are a virgin?” a classmate asked. I was as shocked with the question as she was shocked by my response. Then there was this professor who would say to the class, “Smoking causes cancer” while puffing on his cigarette. That was before smoking was banned at public places.
Arriving at the height of summer, I was glad for the time to adjust before winter arrived. I had no idea how brutal Chicago winters could be. Seeing the first snow flurries, I thought they were sawdust being blown from a construction site. But then the big flakes poured down and soon all my effort was concentrated in keeping from freezing alive, or so it seemed to me. Arctic air howling across Lake Michigan dipped the mercury in this Windy City so low that a cup of water iced faster outside the door than inside the freezer. When spring finally came, I felt so light I wanted to jump and shout for the freedom from the heavy Siberian outfit. Someone sent us a copy of Manila Times with the headline, “Freezing Cold in Manila, Temperature 60 degrees.” I had come a long way!
Monday, April 20, 2009
Getting to the heart of heart disease
by Katie Lechler, visiting instructor of composition. Union College, Lincoln, Nebraska
When asked the traditional back-to-school question about how he spent his summer, Eric Gren is one of the few students who can say he was helping prevent America’s number one killer: heart disease. A senior chemistry and biology major, Gren accompanied Veneracion Cabana, professor of biology, to spend the summer in a laboratory at the University of Chicago where Cabana worked before coming to Union College and continues to conduct research. Each year Cabana selects a few Union students to assist with her genetic research and learn hands-on about DNA isolation. “I happened to mention my interest in biomedical research to Dr. Cabana,” Gren said. “She’s very well respected in the field of pathology, and I couldn’t pass up the opportunity to get real world experience working under her in a cutting-edge lab.”
Read the rest of the story here:
http://www.ucollege.edu/news/2009/04/20/edge-through-research
There were yet few Filipinos in Chicago and those we met became extended family bound by the common longing for home. I roomed with Flora, a fellow Quezonian from Lucena, a Cytotechonologist working at the School of Cytotechnology of the University of Chicago. One Sabbath morning in the city’s CTA train on my way to church, an older Filipino gentleman told me of his niece who “just arrived from the Philippines, a CPA, and a Seventh-day Adventist.” Excitedly the next Sabbath I picked up Purita. It felt like home to have a fellow Pinay go with me to church. Soon we were both active members of the Austin Seventh-day Adventist Church, a congregation newly organized by peoples from the warring nations of the Far East, bonded by faith and common struggles to take root and flourish in a foreign land, all grateful for the leadership of the beloved Japanese minister, Elder and Mrs. George Shigeru Aso. Upon Flora’s marriage to physical chemist, Dr. Pabitra Datta, Purita and Venus, another Filipina CPA, moved in with me to the one-bedroom 3rd floor apartment where now stands the Center for Advanced Medicine of the University of Chicago, the building pictured in the advertisement that proclaimed, "There is no number 2.” Two single beds and a cot in a 12’ by 14’ bedroom, we literally had to crawl over each other to get anywhere. At the living room of that apartment one night (July 20, 1969) we heard Neil Armstrong’s famous “One little step for man, one giant leap for mankind,” and watched him on the moon talking with President Nixon at the White House. America was a great place to be.
There were lonely times. And we missed the familiar foods. One day, smoked chubs were sold at the local grocery. Like famished orphans, we gorged ourselves until we gagged. But then, $20.00 was enough to fill a grocery cart. Cheap and abundant, good food soon had its telling effect. Our clothes were shrinking! However, aside from the food and the cold, and the constant trying-to-reach or fit (because most structures and shoes and clothes were made for taller statures and bigger sizes), we did not have much adjustment to make, giving credence to the criticism that the Philippine educational system prepared graduates more for life in the United States than in the Philippines.
Now, after 40 years, I have lived longer in the United States than in the Philippines. Sometime ago at Montemorelos where I was invited to give lectures, I was standing on the doorway of the guest house viewing the lush tropical scenery outside. "Just like home," I mused. Then the thought came, "Where is your home?"
1 comment:
Ate Vener,
..love your story of your first 40 years in USA!
Dr. Ben
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