Let Freedom Ring

By Virgilio I Gonzales

My dream of freedom and better opportunity for my family came true. America is still the land of opportunity and freedom. I remember when the Philippines was still a commonwealth of the United States, and I was in grade school, we sang "The Star Spangled Banner" and "My Country 'Tis of Thee."

We did not come here on the Mayflower, but America has become our adopted country. Let freedom ring!

"My country tis of thee,
Sweet land of liberty,
Of thee I sing.
Land where my father died!
Land of the Pilgrim's pride,
From every mountain side,
Let freedom ring!"

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Feb 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781504970129

Virgilio I Gonzales

“Virgilio I. Gonzales was born in 1932 in the Philippines and grew up during the Japanese occupation in World War II. He has written and published how his family survived the war in his autobiography “Waiting for General MacArthur.” He studied and graduated with a chemistry degree from the University of the Philippines. He married a fellow chemist Maria Corazon Jimenea, and they have three children -- Arsenio, Leilani and Leo. In 1978 he emigrated to the United States and was employed by Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., who relocated his family from Manila to Danbury, Connecticut. “Let Freedom Ring,” his second book, is an affirmation of American as the land of the free and the home of the brave.

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© 2016 Virgilio Gonzales. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 02/03/2016

ISBN: 978-1-5049-6986-4 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-7012-9 (e)

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CONTENTS

Foreword

Dedication

Acknowledgement

Chapter 1

Welcome to America

Chapter 2

General MacArthur Fulfills His Promise I shall return

Chapter 3

Boyhood in the Philippines – Living under Japanese occupation

Chapter 4

Heady days of Liberation

Chapter 5

A Near Family Tragedy

Chapter 6

Thanks Ken Burns for the Memories

Chapter 7

Remember Corregidor and Bataan

Chapter 8

Learning to Write in America

Chapter 9

Virgilio’s Story Had to Be Told

Chapter 10

Working in America

Of Lobsters, Shrimps and Clams

Chapter 11

On A Clear Day – My friends At Work

Chapter 12

Our Dear Parents —

Consuelo and Arsenio Gonzales, Angela and Sofronio Jimenea

Chapter 13

War Is Hell – For Solders and Their Survivors

Chapter 14

Lourdes Tuason-Sadanaga has a story to tell.

Chapter 15

The Oldest American Bataan Death March Survivor–Major Albert Neir Brown, 105

Chapter 16

The Woman Who Came In From The Cold

Chapter 17

Building Bridges with Dr. Jefferson Wiggins

Chapter 18

Remembering Pearl Harbor and Bataan

Chapter 19

The Philippine-American War

Chapter 20

The Philippines and Israel Story

Chapter 21

The Fear of Flying

Chapter 22

A Misadventure in Costa Rica

Chapter 23

Three Years of Living Under the Japanese

Chapter 24

Betrayal in Manila

Chapter 25

Life Must Go On In Strife-torn Manila

Chapter 26

The Bases of Discontent

Chapter 27

The Role of the Victim

Chapter 28

Christmas in the Philippines

Chapter 29

A Filipino Soldier in Baghdad

Chapter 30

American Kids Love Pancit

Chapter 31

A Filipino Saint In An American Church

Chapter 32

A Filipina in Peru

Chapter 33

A Filipina in Honduras — Brittany Mortera’s Mission to Honduras:

Chapter 34

A Young Girl in a Hurry — Our Neighbor Alexandra Prendergast

Chapter 35

The Rite of Spring

Chapter 36

Years of Singing in the Shower Pay Off

Chapter 37

No Wonder The English

Chapter 38

Nagoya Revisited

Chapter 39

Looking Back at World War II

Chapter 40

Benjamin Netanyahu’s Finest Hour

Chapter 41

A Stranger in the White House

Chapter 42

Holy Crows

Chapter 43

A Single Mother of Four

Chapter 44

President Obama’s Legacy

Chapter 45

Man’s Inhumanity to Man

Chapter 46

There Is No Substitute for Victory

FOREWORD

On Sept. 21, 1972 President Marcos staged a coup against himself and declared martial law in the Philippines to perpetuate himself into power. He had already served the two legal terms as president.

I waited for him to lift the martial law, which he used to imprison his arch rival Senator Benigno Aquino and other political opponents. But I waited in vain. There was no light at the end of the tunnel.

On December 16, 1978, six years of living under the dictatorial regime, I could not stand it any longer. I left a good position with a pharmaceutical company, activated my US visa, (which I obtained ten years ago as a hedge against the future), and boarded a Northwest Airlines flight to America.

I left behind my wife Baby and three children Arsenio, Leilani and Leo, with the plan to petition them once I landed a job in the land of the free and the home of the brave.

My port of entry was Chicago, and from there I took a connecting flight to Boston. When I landed at Logan’s Airport I found my brother Cesar and his wife Gilda waiting for me. I embraced them for I have not seen them for ten years since they left the Philippines. They live in Quicy City with their their four children.

I worked as a bench chemist with a chemical and pharmaceutical consultant Herbert Shuster in Quincy, then with GCA Corporation, an environmental Laboratory in Bedford, Mass. Then I saw an advertisement for chemists in the Sunday New York Times. I applied with Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc., but I did not accept their offer of the same salary I was already receiving at GCA Corporation. Two years later in 1980, the company called me back and offered me a higher salary. I accepted and moved to Danbury, Connecticut.

Boehringer Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals, Inc. is a German family-own, people-oriented corporation. In 1982 it relocated my family from Manila to Danbury, Connecticut. I was lucky and grateful that I worked for this company. I did not expect them to bring over my family from across the Pacific Ocean to be re-united with me in Danbury, but they did.

The family is of paramount importance to a Filipino. As my friend Fr. Rene Mangahas wrote in his Ph D dissertation on the overseas Filipino workers: While Filipino immigrants individually cherish the ‘American Dream’, their dreams of success are usually not self-serving. In fact, ‘family, not self’ ranks high as the motivator. For most, if not all, Filipino migrants, it is difficult to imagine anything more compelling and more important than family ties. Amen.

My dream of freedom and better opportunity for my family came true. America is still the land of opportunity and freedom. I remember when the Philippines was still a commonwealth of the United States, and I was in grade school, we sang The Star Spangled Banner and My Country ’Tis of Thee.

We did not come here on the Mayflower, but America has become our adopted country. Let freedom ring!

"My country tis of thee,

Sweet land of liberty,

Of thee I sing.

Land where my father died!

Land of the Pilgrim’s pride,

From every mountain side,

Let freedom ring!"

DEDICATION

This book is dedicated to my family — my wife Baby and our three children Arsenio, Leilani and Leo.

And also to my brothers and sisters — Reynaldo and Fely, Mario and Pat, Umberto and Nelia, Ofelia and Marte, Cesar and Gilda, Celia, Lydia and Cora.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

To Jacqueline Smith, managing editor of the Danbury News-Times for her review of my first book "Waiting for General MacArthur, to Lourdes Sadanaga for writing about her experience during the Japanese occupation of the Philippines in WWII, and to Brittany Mortera for writing about her adventure in Honduras.

CHAPTER 1

Welcome to America

On my first day in America I met two individuals of such contrasting personalities — one worked on the ground and the other in the air – that I thought their difference in attitude could ascribed to their occupational altitude.

Together with other immigrants, I landed at Chicago O’Hare Airport, our port of entry. Weary and disoriented from the long flight, our group proceeded anxiously to the Immigration section located at the far end of the terminal. As we walked down the long corridor s, we clutched at our travel documents, which included a large X-ray film, as though our very lives depended on these papers.

At the Immigration section we had our first official contact with the government of our adopted country, and immediately we became aware of our alien status. It was not the immigration officer in blue and white uniform that made us conscious of our alien status, but he surly photographer who took our pictures for the green card. When he called our names he shouted in a voice and tone so harsh it sent chills through me as icy as the wind that blew on the tarmac outside.

I could see no reason for his harshness or brusqueness. He could smile a little to the burden in our hearts and his. He could have made us feel welcomed. He could have made us feel at home. He saw to it that we did not smile for our first photograph on America soil. Apparently he did his duty as he saw it, no more, less.

A few minutes ago my spirit was soaring in the stratosphere, buoyant and happy that I was going to live in the land of the free and the home of the brave. It took only a few seconds for this dour and sour fellow to bring me down to earth. His photographer talent appeared to be better suited to taking mugshots of convicts and criminals than newly-landed and bewildered immigrants. I walked from the Immigration section, confused and crestfallen. My first experience in America the beautiful.

I trudged my way through Customs, took a shuttle bus to the America Airlines terminal and boarded Flight 28 to Boston, the last leg of my journey. I sat back in my seat and contemplated the darkness outside. Except for a few patches of clouds, I could not see anything, not even a star. It’s going to be a bleak Christmas, not a White Christmas, I said to myself. I shut my eyes and tried to get some sleep.

As I drifted off into drowsiness, the public address system crackled with static, and a voice, the pilot’s voice, pierced through the gloom of my thoughts.

This is your captain speaking. Welcome aboard American Airlines. We are now cruising at an altitude of 39,000 feet, and in two hours we land in Boston’s Logan Airport. The weather is clear, the temperature in Boston in the high 30s. Although it is still nine days to Christmas, I can detect some activity in the northern sky. If you look out your window, you might catch a glimpse of a rosy-cheek chubby fellow in red and white, driving a sleigh of reindeers across the sky. We wish you he best this Christmas, and we hope you enjoy your trip with us.

I wish I knew the name of the pilot and remembered the words the way he said them that night 38 years ago. His little speech may not mean much to the other passengers, but to me it was balm to my wounded spirit after the sorry experience at the Immigration section in Chicago. It restored my spirit and my sense of humor.

I found myself smiling once again at the