Simbahan

ENTRANCE ANTIPHON

Today, the mosaic catches my eye. Rainbow-colored tiles stretch across the back wall—trees, birds, and rivers surrounding a man in brown robes, arms raised toward the sky. His expression is calm, almost knowing, as if he sees something beyond reach. The rest of the church has changed over time—lighter wood replacing the dark oak pews, new screens lining the walls, priests coming and going—but the mosaic remains the same. It was there when my cries once echoed through the chapel, prompting my dad to carry me outside, and it is still here now, thirteen years later, as I flip through the missal Breaking Bread 2026  and wait for Mass to begin.

Like the mosaic, the Franciscan Chapel Center, the Catholic church I attend here in Tokyo, gathers pieces from everywhere into one place. At the end of Mass, the priest asks first-time visitors to stand and call out where they are from.

“Brazil!” Applause. 

“California!” More applause. 

“Singapore!” 

The clapping grows louder, parishioners and first-timers alike enjoying the custom. One by one, voices from across the world fill the chapel, each person briefly singled out in applause before being gathered back into the crowd.

When I was younger, this was my favorite part of Mass, eagerly clapping and laughing with the crowd whenever someone shouted a country I recognized, or declared theirs louder than expected. Now, I listen more closely to which countries are named, which ones return, and how each voice finds its place in the room.

One country returns more often than the rest.

“The Philippines!”

Every week, I hear it again and again until it no longer feels like coincidence. Even our priest jokes that our parish is “fifty-percent Filipino.” I find myself listening for it now, anticipating it whenever I notice a face that looks like mine.

FIRST READING             Genesis 12:1-4a

A reading from the Book of Genesis

“Go forth from the land of your kinsfolk and from your father’s house to a land that I will show you.”

My parents came to Japan from the Philippines in the 90s through training internships with NEC Computers. My father arrived first in 1994, just after graduating university. My mother followed a year later after working in Manila. They studied Japanese before leaving, then completed a three-month intensive program upon arrival, learning the customs of daily life.

They met during this time.

“He [my father] was always shy during his churei,” my mother tells me. Churei, an “afternoon meeting or assembly,” is a common practice in Japanese companies where employees gather to share updates and speak briefly in front of the group. 

“He would get so nervous,” she says. “Always stammering and blanking out when struggling to form complete sentences in Japanese.”

My father laughs it off, but even now he pauses, like he’s still searching for the right words. When I visited my lola, his mother, I heard stories about how shy he was as a kid, refusing to leave her side. I wonder if he felt like that little kid each time he stood to speak.

Their internship lasted a year—long enough that they could not return home for Christmas. 

“I missed hearing Tagalog,” my mother says.

So they went looking for it.

On Sundays, they traveled with their internship group to churches like St. Ignatius in Yotsuya or Meguro Catholic Church. After Mass, they would eat together, then spend the afternoon exploring the city. In Ueno, they found small Filipino stores where they could buy bagoong, pancit canton, dried mangoes, and more—familiar tastes of home.

What began as brief encounters grew into something steadier: a community built through shared meals, Tagalog conversations, and comforting routines.

After their internships ended, they returned to the Philippines, but only briefly. In 1998, they both came back to Japan for full-time work, picking up a life that had already begun to take shape. What had once been temporary became stable, and they chose this over appealing opportunities in the United States.

In 2000, they got married and started their own family.

Reflecting on this now, I think about what it means to carry a language imperfectly—to search for words that don’t always come, but to stay anyway.

The word of the Lord.   Thanks be to God.

RESPONSORIAL PSALM

SECOND READING         2 Timothy 1:8b-10

A reading from the second Letter of Saint Paul to Timothy

“Bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.”

Long before my parents arrived in Japan, the relationship between the Philippines and Japan had been shaped by power and resistance. During Japanese occupation, the Japanese Military Administration attempted to reshape Filipino identity under the vision of a “Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere,” urging Filipinos to return to their “Oriental” roots and reject Western influence. English was removed from schools and replaced with Japanese, customs were enforced through daily acts of submission, and even Catholicism was reframed to fit a new national identity.

But identity is not easily rewritten. Many Filipinos resisted not only through open defiance, but through what they chose to preserve. Faith remained, grounded in unwavering conviction, even as new beliefs were imposed. Practices meant to enforce submission—bowing, public discipline—were often regarded as violations of dignidad, a deeply held sense of personal dignity, strengthening resistance rather than erasing it. What could not be expressed openly was carried inward.

Decades later, movement between the Philippines and Japan continued through migration. Filipinos arrived in waves, drawn by the promise of work and stability, often in response to economic hardship at home. Many took on “3-D” jobs—dirty, difficult, and dangerous—or entered industries that exposed them to stereotyping and exploitation, particularly women who arrived under entertainer visas and were labeled japayuki, reducing them to stigmatized identities. Language barriers, social isolation, and the sense of being permanently foreign shaped daily life.

And yet, even then, identity endured. In small kitchens, traditional dishes were recreated, sometimes adapted with Japanese ingredients for convenience, but preserved carefully for gatherings where taste became a way of remembering. In urban enclaves, communities formed, offering support through shared work, financial hardship, and moments of crisis. And in churches faith gathered people together, transforming unfamiliar spaces into something like home—a barangay, a community rebuilt across distance. 

The word of the Lord.   Thanks be to God.

GOSPEL             Matthew 17:1-9

A reading from the holy Gospel according to Matthew

“And he was transfigured before them; his face shone like the sun and his clothes became white as light.” 

I can already hear the faint music drifting from the festival nearby. As we reach the park’s clearing, rows of colorful tents come into view, stretching across the open space. At the far end, a stage rises above the crowd, where dancers in traditional clothing smile and wave, their movements timed to music pulsing through the speakers. 

People move in clusters with food in hand. Some wear the Philippine flag draped across their shoulders or printed boldly on their shirts, their voices echoing rhythms I usually only hear at home. Others drift through the space curiously, drawn in by the crowd and music. I stand in the middle of Yoyogi Park and take it all in.

At the 2025 Philippine Festival, smoke from the barbecue grills fills the air, thick with the smell of sweet marinades. Somewhere nearby, someone sings a near-perfect cover of “Raining in Manila,” their voice rising above the karaoke track and hum of conversation for a chance at a prize. The bass vibrates beneath my feet. The smells, sounds, and movement all seem to set in at once, pulling me from every direction. 

A hand passes me a skewer of pork barbecue from across the counter, the sweet and salty glaze still warm against the wrapper. 

“Enjoy po!” 

I nod and thank the cashier as she masterfully switches to Japanese for the next customer. Here, Tagalog, English, and Japanese coexist.

I step back into the crowd. This time, I move with it, letting myself be carried forward. I don’t fully understand the chatter around me, but I no longer feel the need to. Somewhere between the music and the movement, I stop trying to place myself. 

I find my father holding bags full of chicken inasal, pancit, and barbecue to bring home to the rest of my family. I take one and fall into step beside him as we make our way back home.

The Gospel of the Lord.   Praise to you, Lord Jesus Christ.

HOMILY

My parents left one country and built a life in another, carrying with them their language, faith, and memories. What began as something temporary became something they chose, again and again. Their story is not unique, but part of something larger: people moving across distances, holding on to pieces of home as they learn how to live somewhere new. Even before them, identity had been something contested and reshaped; yet what could not be fully carried was not lost—it was spoken, practiced, and integrated into daily life.

I have inherited this distance, but not in the same way. Rather than leaving one country for another. I was born into the space between. For a long time, I thought belonging meant being able to fully claim what my parents carried—to speak the language fluently, to move easily between cultures, to prove that I was Filipino enough. However, I have always felt slightly out of step. I understand more than I can say. I hesitate when asked to speak. In those moments, I feel the gap between what I am and what I think I should be.

But the more I ponder this, the more I question what I am measuring myself against. My parents did not arrive here fully formed, and neither did every Filipino immigrant to Japan. They learned slowly, imperfectly. They built community over time in places that did not always accept them, in work that was not easy, in a language that was hard to grasp. They stayed, even when they did not fully belong. And still, this life became theirs.

Belonging, then, is not something proven all at once. It is not measured by fluency or completeness. It is something lived—in the spaces we return to, the communities we take part in, and the ways we recognize ourselves in others. Like the mosaic in my church, it is made from pieces that do not always match, but still come together to form something whole. And maybe it is enough to exist within it without understanding every piece.

COMMUNION ANTIPHON

Even when the words do not come easily, I am still near, 

and in the voices around me, in the rhythm of what I understand and what I feel, 

I find my place among my people.

DISMISSAL

I wait in line downstairs for a warm drink in the church’s lobby. People linger and chat over free coffee and tea, and near the entrance, the priest hands out chocolates to the children. I’m immediately reminded of when I was around nine or ten, speed-walking down the stairs after Mass to see if there were free cinnamon rolls. This space, like the one upstairs, is one I have moved through for years. I pick up a small packet of Van Houten hot cocoa, paper cup already in hand. 

When it’s almost my turn for hot water, I notice the older woman in front of me pause. She presses a button on the hot water dispenser, but nothing comes out. She turns to me.

“Are you Filipino?”

I hesitate. “Yes.”

“Can you speak Tagalog?”

I pause again. “No, but I can understand.”

She nods, switching between Tagalog and English as she gestures toward the machine. I respond in English, pointing, trying to piece it together with her. We press a few buttons, stop, and try again.

Then I realize—you have to undo the child lock. I hold the button down and hot water begins to pour into her cup. 

“Ah,” she says, smiling. “Salamat.”

I nod, smiling back, “You’re welcome.”

For a moment, we stand there together, hands wrapped around our cups, the steam rising between us. Then she turns back to her drink, and I step aside toward the exit where my family waits in our car, making room for the next person.


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Critical Reflection

I had been looking forward to this culture essay since the beginning of the year. I knew I wanted to write about my Filipino identity one last time, but I didn’t yet know what shape that story would take. Over the past few months, I’d been going to church more often, and the Franciscan Chapel Center kept emerging as the place where all my questions about belonging, identity, and community seemed to sit together. It made sense to begin and end my essay there, in a space that is both international and distinctly Filipino. That setting gave me an anchor, but the writing itself took a much more unpredictable path.

My original idea was straightforward: a positive, research-heavy essay exploring how the Filipino community in Japan has managed to thrive. I expected to write something sociological, maybe even celebratory. Instead, as soon as I sat down to draft for my 500-word checkpoint, I found myself spiraling into disconnected scenes—fragments of church memories, moments with my parents, flashes of Tagalog I half-understood. I realized I wasn’t writing about community as much as I was writing about my own discomfort with it: the distance I feel, the language I don’t speak, the ways I move both toward and away from my culture. The essay I thought I wanted to write wasn’t the one that wanted to be written.

Leaning into that ambiguity helped me find structure. I eventually decided to balance two threads: the history and realities of Filipino immigrant life in Japan, and my own experience of growing up adjacent to it. What connected the two was the search for belonging—how my parents and other immigrants found it through language, faith, and community, and how I’ve found it in a quieter, less certain way. That thematic overlap helped my research and personal narrative work together rather than against each other.

Two readings shaped my direction more than anything else. Tatiana A. Andino’s “Between Two Worlds” showed me a student-level model of cultural introspection that was sensory, emotional, and grounded in movement between spaces. Her essay about being far from home in Puerto Rico while encountering a Latino enclave in New York inspired me to write in a tone that was descriptive, reflective, and atmospheric rather than strictly analytical. It guided me toward an approach that prioritized feeling—the way sound, smell, and memory carry culture—which became essential to the scenes I built at church and at the Philippine Festival.

The second reading, Alex Tizon’s “My Family’s Slave,” had the biggest impact on how I shaped the narrative. His ability to braid past and present, to move between personal history and a larger Filipino context, and to sustain emotional tension over a long essay helped me understand the kind of engagement I wanted to create. I also paid close attention to his dialogue, pacing, and sequencing; his essay showed me how powerful it can be when personal storytelling and structural intention work together. I wanted my own piece to carry the same sense of emotional resonance, even if on a much smaller scale.

Research deepened my writing even further. Interviewing my parents provided new angles I wouldn’t have found on my own, and Ms. Frazier’s feedback pushed me to look into the Japanese occupation of the Philippines—history I had only known in fragments. This made the essay feel less like a personal meditation floating in isolation and more like a story of migration, power, and cultural endurance.