Alos

That’s pronounced “ah, luz” and it is the Ilokano term for something of value and function previously held and used by an older sibling and handed down to a younger one. Not quite as prosaic as the English “hand-me-down” but close enough.

When I was growing up as the older boy in the family, I always had things new, and physically not too distant from brother No. 2, we would be treated like identical twins, getting the same thing at the same time. Brother No. 3 not only get the hand-me-downs, he got two of them.

BTW, to be talking of Iloko in Hawaii is par for the course. The Tagalog-based Pilipino language, which is spoken around Manila and the capital region, is not the lingua franca of Pinoys in Aloha land. In fact, cultural anthropologists found out that to witness living authentic turn-of-the-20th century Ilokano cultural practices, one won’t find it in the remote areas of Ilokandia in the Philippines; rather, one has to come to Hawaii to the isolated but self-sustained Ilokano villages of the migrant workers where the unadulterated Iloko—spoken fiercely independent and rebellious against Hispania—is still to be found.

Its unadulterated state also stems from the fact that when Ilokanos were recruited to work the farmlands of California and the sugarcane fields of Hawaii a century ago, they were picked up directly by ships in Narvacan, Ilocos Sur, and Currimao, Ilocos Norte, without having to go through metropolitan Manila.

The State of Hawaii, when it translates its rules and regulations, and laws into the dominant languages of its population, translates for the Filipino constituency an Iloko version. Eighty percent of Filipinos in Hawaii are conversant in Iloko, we are told. We bother with this detail to explain why “alos” is readily understandable and still widely used by Pinoys in Hawaii.

This highlights the fact that in our current pilgrimage, we are now experiencing the reverse flow of the “alos” from the youngest to the older ones. Four years my junior, I usually go through brother No. 3’s stuff at my mother’s house (he serves as the practical trustee to my mother’s welfare in an elders’ residential tower and splits his wardrobe between Mom’s and his apartment) and pick out a couple of Armanis and Ralph Lauren outfits with a Bostonian loafer so I can strut down Beretenia Avenue like I had just gotten off from teeing at the Country Club by Pali Highway!

In 1973 my Dad joined several church folks in an intensive six-week residential training program that promoted Christian resurgence in the context of being socially relevant for the times. In between the academic and rational part of the curriculum, we read portions of a Nikos Kazantzakis’ poem, which was a passionate rendition of the insights of the evolutionary process already taken for granted in science, but elevating the biological metaphor to the level of the spirit journey. A section speaks of one generation being superseded by the next one, and my Dad stood up after the reading to declare that “this passage has come to fruition in your hearing this day.”

Clearly, big brother is now on the receiving end of the “alos” line, and given our current mendicant monastic lifestyle, it is just as well. My younger brother has become the Michael Corleone figure in the godfather pecking order, and we are the grateful recipients of his acts of grace.

Our mind headed this direction to wander how we treat the generational transition in our island life, especially now that the challenge provided by a new world of technology, politics, economics, and culture looms huge in our midst. We view the junior legislators’ program as one of mirroring an old system without asking the more fundamental question of how we need to make decisions that are broader-based in participation, more comprehensive in context, and less pretentious in style.

The only model for education we have is to go to a classroom where an expert instructs us on the appropriate question and provide the right answer, and then tests our memory to determine whether we can recall what was taught. Standardized texts do not lend itself to critical thinking, nor individual initiative and entrepreneurship.

Our economy hinges on getting a job. We disdain menial labor and import workers for that. Our insecurities translate to lording it over those who are compliant to our wishes, and our sense of significance is polished by the certificates, awards, and trophies we garner; the common measure of income is not much of an option. That, or be the beauty queen during celebrations! The folks who are better at clerking sneer at our irrelevance and incompetence.

My Dad was exceptional in that he found his role in the period of transition as one bending backwards so that those coming along in the ascending line are facilitated and welcomed to take their place and new responsibilities. I was once asked while working with WorkHawaii, a workforce development agency, what I did in my job and I answered that I was working to get myself out of a job. We program our fading away, intentionally so, so that we may not hinder the ascension of those passionate enough to address the issues we were dealing with and bring new insight into the enterprise.

“Alos” is the passing on, handing down things of value. Do we have the cultural confidence to recognize that it is time to pass the torch?