10/08/2025
GROUP 1: Saber, Piramide, Sadol, Lopez, Gonzales, Palisbo
“Holding On”
Representation of Each Object
1. Tape Recorder (with worn play button)
Nights spent pressing “play” again and again to hear voices from decades past family
laughter, old love songs, static-filled conversations until the button wore smooth, like the memories themselves fading at the edges.
2. Old Filipino Newspapers (yellowed, folded at the corners)
Brittle pages filled with events long outdated, kept not for the news but for the smell of the ink, the feel of Tagalog headlines under his fingers a fragile tether to a homeland that changes without him.
3. Immigrant Green Card (slightly bent from years in his wallet)
A card that opens doors and closes others; proof that he belongs somewhere, yet
always as a visitor. Its creases and scuffs map years of searching for a place to call
home.
4. Old Watch
Its hands still turn, but the time it keeps is personal, measured in years since his last
Christmas in the Philippines, in hours spent waiting for letters, in seconds that stretch
too long on lonely nights.
5. US Army service medal
A polished token of service to a country that is both refuge and stranger. He wears it in his heart not as a badge of patriotism alone, but as a step taken with the hope of
returning to the place where his own roots lie.
6. Snowglobe of Chicago
The city frozen in a swirl of white, the skyline forever locked in winter. He shakes it sometimes and watches the flakes fall, wondering if he too has been sealed inside a man looking out from glass walls, his heart still miles away.
Three Objects of Significance
1. Tape Recorder (with worn play button) The tape recorder still works but its recordings are grainy, with static-filled voices of relatives, old radio shows, and songs from another life. He can hear the laughter, music, and speeches but cannot see the faces, streets, or sunsets they describe. The Philippines has become an echo for him, familiar sounds blurred by distance and time.
2. Old Filipino Newspapers (yellowed, folded at the corners) Relics from decades ago, with headlines frozen in a different era, entertainment gossip long forgotten, and sports victories from players who have since retired. They remind him of a time when he knew what people in the Philippines cared about. Now they lock him in the moment he left, making him a citizen of a past Philippines.
3. Immigrant Green Card (slightly bent from years in his wallet) Proof that he made it in America, granting legality and stability. Yet it also marks the cost, the language he
speaks less, the holidays spent alone, and the faces of nieces and nephews seen only
in photos. An achievement laced with quiet sacrifice.
