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The BookBrowse Review
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
The BookBrowse Review
Published December 4, 2024
ISSN: 1930-0018
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From the author of the National Book Award finalist Patron Saints of Nothing comes an emotionally charged, moving novel about four generations of Filipino American boys grappling with identity, masculinity, and their fraught father-son relationships.
Watsonville, 1930. Francisco Maghabol barely ekes out a living in the fields of California. As he spends what little money he earns at dance halls and faces increasing violence from white men in town, Francisco wonders if he should've never left the Philippines.
Stockton, 1965. Between school days full of prejudice from white students and teachers and night shifts working at his aunt's restaurant, Emil refuses to follow in the footsteps of his labor organizer father, Francisco. He's going to make it in this country no matter what or who he has to leave behind.
Denver, 1983. Chris is determined to prove that his overbearing father, Emil, can't control him. However, when a missed assignment on "ancestral history" sends Chris off the football team and into the library, he discovers a desire to know more about Filipino history―even if his father dismisses his interest as unamerican and unimportant.
Philadelphia, 2020. Enzo struggles to keep his anxiety in check as a global pandemic breaks out and his abrasive grandfather moves in. While tensions are high between his dad and his lolo, Enzo's daily walks with Lolo Emil have him wondering if maybe he can help bridge their decades-long rift.
Told in multiple perspectives, Everything We Never Had unfolds like a beautifully crafted nesting doll, where each Maghabol boy forges his own path amid heavy family and societal expectations, passing down his flaws, values, and virtues to the next generation, until it's up to Enzo to see how he can braid all these strands and men together.
Francisco
October 1929
Watsonville, CA
The Fog
The fog cloaks the orchard in the cold pre-dawn darkness. It holds the Pajaro Valley close as a secret, reducing everything to a suggestion of itself. Muted shapes emerging, dissolving.
The hills on the horizon. The shallow-rooted apple trees growing in straight rows. The silent brown men, young and old, shaking off dreams as they drift, unmoored, through the haze on their way to begin the day's work. Francisco Maghabol is among them, shouldering a heavy wooden ladder, with an empty burlap sack slung across his chest. Faded hat, worn gloves, threadbare clothes. Sixteen years old now, fifteen when he stepped into the belly of the boat that carried him from Manila to Japan to Hawai'i to California. Across the sea to where the streets were strewn with gold—at least that's what the missionaries and the teachers and the ticketing agents and the leaflets and the Hawai'ianos had said. And it had seemed to be true from the faded and folded pictures sent home and passed around the villages from the returning pensionados flush with cash and American goods.
It turned out there was no gold. At least not for him or his kailian, not here, not by the time they'd arrived. Only a contract they had to sign before they could leave the steamship's hold. Only old-timers asking to borrow money. Only blisters and calluses, sore muscles and bad backs, skin that never stopped itching from the fine dust of the fields. Only Go back to where you came from! and a dollar a day, not enough to eat—despite picking the peas and beans and grapes and strawberries and cherries and apples and oranges and lettuce and asparagus and artichokes and garlic that fed this ever-hungry nation. His nanang would say, Sasáor banbannóg no sabali ti aglamlámot—useless labor when eaten by others.
As Francisco and the other field laborers reach the apple orchard, they hoist their ladders off their shoulders and position them against the trees. Silent and sullen, the men ascend into the branches. But Francisco hesitates. On mornings like this—when he is near the world but not in it, near the others but not with them, near himself but not quite; when the fog has seeped through his skin and settled into his bones and he no longer knows where it ends and his breath begins, having already filled his lungs with too much mist—he wonders if he should have listened to his nanang.
Maybe leaving wasn't the only way.
He had felt like such a man then. The eldest son venturing into the unknown to do what he must to take care of his nanang and sister and brothers after his tatang lost their land and left them for the woman with the mole on her right earlobe. The plan had seemed simple enough from a distance: work in America for three—maybe four—years, make enough money to pay his younger siblings' school fees and to buy back his family's land, then return to work it.
But now?
He isn't so sure.
Not a man. No longer a boy. Maybe more so a ghost, since duty dissolves as it absolves.
Still standing at the base of his ladder, Francisco watches Lorenzo Tolentino in the next row over shake a pebble out of his glove. The same ship—the President Jackson—had carried them across the sea. They found each other in the crowded, swaying dimness of the third-class hold after hearing home in each other's voices and discovering they hailed from neighboring villages in Ilocos Sur. Since then, they'd stuck together, following the planting, then harvesting seasons along the coast for one full cycle. Other Ilokanos would join them from time to time to form small temporary crews so it would be easier to find work. But they'd always peel away, one by one, until only Francisco and Lorenzo remained.
...
Excerpted from Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay. Copyright © 2024 by Randy Ribay. Excerpted by permission of Kokila. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
Please refer to the publisher's Teacher's Guide.
Unless otherwise stated, this discussion guide is reprinted with the permission of Kokila. Any page references refer to a USA edition of the book, usually the trade paperback version, and may vary in other editions.
Francisco Maghabol has recently arrived in California from the Philippines, eager to earn money to send home to his family. But good job opportunities for Filipinos are scarce, and the threat of violence from the local white men makes life dangerous. Years later, Francisco's son, Emil, is determined to distance himself from his labor organizer father and his Filipino heritage in order to live out the American dream. Emil's plan works so well that Chris, his son, knows nothing about his family history or the suffering that Filipinos have endured. But Chris decides to learn about his heritage and eventually passes on his knowledge to his son, Enzo, who embraces his Filipino background. When the emergence of a global pandemic brings Lolo Emil to live with his family, Enzo can't avoid the rift between his father and grandfather. Following four generations of Filipino men, Randy Ribay's young adult novel Everything We Never Had is a story of how our pasts shape our futures and how generational patterns can affect a family for better or worse.
Ribay's novel features four points of view—Francisco, Emil, Chris, and Enzo—in four different settings and times, ranging from 1929 to 2020. Names and relations are mentioned throughout the story as if readers have already been introduced. A family tree included at the beginning of the book is helpful in navigating the jumps between the characters, and switches in points of view are clearly marked. There are numerous untranslated Filipino words and phrases throughout, which is unsurprising as young Filipino American readers are likely the target audience, and the use of several different regional dialects brings authenticity to Ribay's depiction of the lives of early Filipino immigrants. For those unfamiliar with the subject matter, a list of resources at the back of the book provides further reading for a broad understanding of Filipino culture.
This is very much a character-driven novel. Although each timeline has its own small plot, there is no overarching storyline. Rather, the narrative focuses on the typical complexities of father-son relationships compounded by cultural expectations, racial prejudice, and the desire to find one's place in the world. Each generation is significantly impacted by the previous ones, and while some of those impacts are positive—Emil is determined to instill in Chris a strong work ethic, Chris shares his knowledge of his Filipino heritage with Enzo—the book largely explores the negative effects and resulting trauma. This is portrayed in Emil's disgust with Francisco using him to show strikers the importance of family after Emil hasn't seen his father for months, and Chris's return to smoking once Emil moves in with the family—both reactions to the characters having their fathers back in their lives and related issues reemerging. The non-linear nature of the story allows readers to see how one character's choices cause trauma in the other men of the family, even when these choices are made with the best intentions.
Those good intentions and subsequent trauma trickle down over almost a century to Enzo, the fourth generation of Maghabol men. Enzo's story is particularly interesting because it takes place during the lockdown phase of the COVID pandemic; readers will have lived through the events of this time themselves and can see how one family is forced to grapple with personal, relational, and societal problems that are no longer possible to ignore because of social isolation. Enzo's sections are additionally interesting because they bring together three generations of the family—Enzo, Chris, and Emil—rather than just a father and son. Chris and Emil butt heads about almost everything—even a simple family dinner of handmade bulgogi pizza has "Lolo Emil…wondering aloud why Chris can't make a 'normal' pizza"—and the constant tension torments Enzo until he decides to bridge the gap between himself and his grandfather. Enzo's request to join his lolo on his evening walks is the first step in bringing the family together, and the two begin to build a relationship unlike that between any other Maghabol men, proving that generational patterns can be overcome. Although the story ends with a resurgence of tension, there's an air of hopefulness: perhaps family relationships can be mended and generational cycles broken if only people are willing to reach out and listen without judgment or expectation.
Short but impactful, Everything We Never Had is an exploration into the lives of the men of one immigrant family, showing how different generations react to the past and how they can begin to understand one another.
Reviewed by Jordan Lynch
Everything We Never Had by Randy Ribay explores the lives of four generations of men in the Maghabol family. The family's patriarch, Francisco, leaves the Philippines to seek work in America in the 1920s. Francisco quickly discovers that the stories he's heard of a country full of acceptance and success for immigrants are fantasies. A combination of harsh working conditions and racial prejudice pushes him to become a strike organizer. Although Francisco's role in the Filipino American agricultural worker strikes along the West Coast in the 1960s is fictional, the strikes themselves are not.
Filipino immigrants began arriving in the United States in the 1920s and '30s, drawn by the promise of plentiful work and good pay. During this time, American law severely restricted immigration from Asian nations in general, but as the Philippines were a US territory, there were no limits on the number of Filipinos that could enter the country. In the early decades of the 20th century, around 100,000 men arrived on the shores of America's West Coast, only to be met by a wide range of racist and discriminatory laws and practices, low wages, and poor working and living conditions. The Filipinos of this initial wave became known as "manongs," a term of endearment and respect meaning "older brothers" in the Ilocano dialect of the northern Philippines. It was the manongs who began pushing for equal pay and better working conditions, organizing and leading agricultural workers' strikes.
One such manong was Larry Itliong. Itliong arrived in the US in 1929 and began organizing workers soon after. By 1965, he had helped create the Agricultural Workers Organization Committee (AWOC). That summer, Itliong led AWOC members in a strike in California's Coachella Valley when the grape harvest began. The growers soon complied with demands, giving the workers a 40₵/hour wage increase, promising better working conditions, and dropping charges against strikers who had been arrested. Riding high on their success, the AWOC decided to try again, moving north with the grape harvest to Delano. On September 8th, 1965, all the Filipino workers refused to work in the vineyards.
The strike in Delano immediately met with opposition from the growers, who physically assaulted workers and shut off power and water to their camps. Growers also attempted to hire Mexican immigrants to work in place of the Filipinos. Itliong and the AWOC reached out to Cesar Chavez, who was then the leader of the National Farm Workers Association (NFWA), comprised predominantly of Mexicans. Itliong's appeals prompted Chavez and the NFWA to join the strike less than two weeks after it began. The two organizations eventually merged into the United Farm Workers (UFW), and although the conflict that became known as the Delano Grape Strike lasted five years, spawning an international boycott of table grapes, the strikers were eventually successful in getting better pay, working conditions, and benefits for over 10,000 farmworkers.
The Delano Grape Strike proved that cooperation between people of different backgrounds could benefit a greater number of workers, and the UFW continued to better the lives of farmworkers through boycotts, strikes, and marches. Over the years, however, the role of Itliong and the Filipino workers in the Grape Strike has often been minimized or forgotten, with Chavez sometimes getting sole credit for leading the strike and the UFW. Current efforts are underway to obtain wider recognition for Itliong and the manongs, and activists and organizers today continue to use the skills demonstrated by both Itliong and Chavez.
Although Francisco's focus on organizing and leading strikes ruins his relationship with his son, Emil, the approaches showcased in Everything We Never Had reflect the importance of the Delano Grape Strike as well as other strikes throughout the 20th century. Ribay's novel recognizes the role of the Filipino community in helping create better conditions for farmworkers and a legacy of cooperation to accomplish shared goals.
Filipino labor organizer Larry Itliong
Illustration by dignidadrebelde (CC BY 2.0)
Filed under People, Eras & Events
By Jordan Lynch
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