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Bridge Generation News

BG Personality of the Month:  Mercedes “Meding” (Arro) Concepcion, 92:

A Filipino Community beauty queen in her teens, Meding, as a nonagenarian today, is still attractive.  She has done well and is comfortable in her golden years.  But it was not always so.  She was born in 1932 in Gilroy CA – the youngest of seven children of Eugenio Evangelista Arro of Cebu, Philippines and the former Timotea Banios of Dimao, Bohol Province.  Her father died when Meding was only sixteen months old. The family moved to Hawaii in the 1920s to work on sugar cane plantations.  They then moved to Davenport CA, a tiny Central Coast community north of Santa Cruz, to join relatives.

When Meding was four, the family returned to her mother’s ancestral home in Bohol through a provision in the Filipino Repatriation Act of 1935 which paid for their Philippines return trip — if they promised never to come back to America. A return to the Philippines at no cost made sense — America was still reeling from the Great Depression.  Sadly, their return was disastrous.  Chickens and pigs, which were their livelihood, were lost in a storm.  The family then moved to the northern coast of Mindanao only to be caught up in World War II and the Japanese invasion.  One of the first areas invaded by the Japanese, Mindanao quickly became a hotbed of guerilla resistance. As Americans, her family was a prime target of the invaders.  The next five years were spent on the run. Meding recalled, “Sometimes we could hear the Japanese questioning neighbors next door, raping women, and killing people on the street.  We lived day by day, capturing loose chickens to eat, and depending on the kindness of people.” The family was never caught.

After WWII, they returned to America — thanks to Meding’s two older brothers Phil and Bobby Arro who, as dual citizens, had joined the U.S. Army at the outbreak of the war and were able to send for them.  They returned to the small coastal town of Davenport.  While she was happy to be back in the U.S., school was another matter.  WWII had taken time away from her education.  Meding had to repeat several grades.  Having left America at four years of age, she had forgotten most of her English.  She began relearning English on her own, mostly by reading comic books.

The family’s move to Isleton in the California Delta, was a godsend.  Her uncle, Pedro Evangelista, who owned a combination grocery and soda fountain, gave Meding a part-time job — and an opportunity to improve her halting English.  During weekends and summer vacations, she also worked in the fields and canneries picking and processing fruits and vegetables. On Sundays she made biko (sweetened rice) and fried chicken to sell at the weekly sabongs (cockfights.)  Meding ran for queen in a statewide contest sponsored by the Legionnarios Del Trabajo, a Filipino fraternal organization — winning the top prize over twenty other pinays.

Going to Rio Vista High School was another godsend.  There, she quickly bonded with other Bridge Generation classmates. However, she also felt the sting of discrimination from White high school classmates and got into fights with girls.  After one of her fights, a boy yelled, “I wouldn’t’ want to to go out with someone like you.”  Consistent with the 1950s Filipino youth club movement, she and her new friends organized the LVM (Luzon, Visayas, Mindanao) Girl’s Club which gave Meding an opportunity to make additional friends at Filipino Youth Club athletic tournaments and dances.  Isleton, had a reputation of having many attractive dalagas (girls).  On weekends it was not unusual for many out-of-town young pinoys to be in town. The popular Meding had many suitors.  I often visited Isleton to see her best friend, Terri Romero, who I was destined to marry in 1953.

Following her high school graduation, she met Danny Concepcion, recently discharged from the Army. Her uncle considered Danny to be a “good catch” and made sure that Meding was one of the first persons Danny met.  Danny was from an Isleton family of achievers, a graduate of UC Berkeley, he worked as a specialized medical technician.  They married a year later.  In the space of a few years, they became parents to David, Michael, Cindy, and Ron.

While Danny worked, Meding went to cosmetology school which led to a job at a neighborhood beauty shop.  When the shop became available for sale, she bought it.  By a happy coincidence, one of her best customers at the beauty shop was the well-known folk singer, Bridge Generation legend, Vangie Buell.  The business thrived.  Meding had a good head for business, learned after years of working at her uncle’s store.  Business was so good that it helped send their four children to private schools and colleges.  The combined income from her beauty salon and Danny’s employment also permitted them to purchase a number of residential properties that were sold and reinvested.  Sadly, she lost her beloved Danny to cancer in 1992.

Now retired, she still resides in the beautiful home in El Cerritos overlooking San Francisco Bay that she and Danny purchased years ago — enjoying her children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren.

Tribute Recognizes Elders/Bridge Generation:

August saw the death of two beloved, beautiful Bridge Generation women — Eleanor (Gorre) Spratt of Murietta CA and Arlene (Lagrimas) Dark of Stockton CA.  Eleanor, 90, the proud aunt of the former California Supreme Court Chief Justice, Tani (Cantil) Sakauye, worked summers as a teenager in Sacramento agricultural fields with her family.  Arlene, 88, was born in the virtual center of Stockton’s “Little Manila.”  After graduating from high school, she was persuaded by her older brother — a singer/dancer at Forbidden City, the prominent San Francisco nightclub — to become a showgirl at the club.  But only after she consented to change her last name to Chinese.

Happy October Birthdays:

Pinakbet — News Across America

Filipino American Historical Tidbits:

Co-founder of the Filipino American National Historical Society, Fred Cordova, and your faithful blogger, were elected FANHS’ first National President and Vice President, respectively, in 1984.

Did You Know:

UCLA basketball All-American Raymond Townsend was the first Filipino American to play in the NBA.

Musings

It has Always been about Persons of Color

For years twice impeached, four times indicted, and convicted felon, Donald Trump, has used grievance and retribution to mobilize his MAGA  followers.

Grievance — The Cambridge English Dictionary defines grievance as a real or imaginary “complaint or strong feeling that one has been treated unfairly.”  For example, the high cost of welfare programs were blamed on Blacks when there were far more White recipients on welfare rolls. Until recently, widespread grievance was neutralized.  However, with increased “Browning of America”, black and brown persons have become targets for real or imagined grievances.  Trump has portrayed himself as the only person that can correct the real or imaginary injustices.

Retribution — Webster’s dictionary defines retribution as: “punishment imposed……. for purposes of repayment or revenge for the wrong committed.”  In May 2024 Trump promised, if elected, he would,  “carry out the largest domestic deportation operation in American history.”  He has a long history of making racist remarks.  At his 2016 announcement for president, he called Mexican immigrants “criminals” and “rapists.” During the Covid crisis, he described the epidemic as the “Chinese flu” and “Kung Fu flu.”

Will Our American Democracy Persevere

The Supreme Court of the United States has lost its creditability with Americans. On July 1 it ruled that a president is immune from punishment for official acts of criminality. Trump is now the only American who is above the law.  This constitutes a serious threat to American’s rule of law — part of the long-range objective of the Trump-led MAGA extremists to destroy American democracy and replace it with an autocracy.  In December 2023, he vowed to be a dictator on “day one.” The Trump/MAGA plan was  written in Project 2025 by former Trump aides and the nation’s leading conservatives — more than 600 pages of an extremist manifesto that will completely reorganize Federal government.

VOTE ON NOVEMBER 5

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