My Family’s Slave She lived with us for 56 years. She raised me and my siblings without pay. | was ‘11, a typical American kid, before | realized who she was. naan eT ata Like The Atlantic? Subscribe to The Atlantic Dally, our free weekday email newsletter. 2 MELB PSEH (Chines) | Bassin ang artaong Hosa Togaog (Tegal) Alex Tizon passed away in March. He was a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and the author of Big Little Man: In Search of My Asian Self. For more about Alex, please see this editor’s nore. peu estcconnaguceier0 Ble onS2400 11rz ast ruta black plastic box about the size of a toaster. It weighed three and a half pounds. I puttin a canvas tote bag and packed itn my suitcase this past July for the transpacific flight to Manila, From there 1 would travel by car to a nural village. When I arrived, I would hand over all that was left of the woman who had spent 56 years asa slave in my family’s household. Her name was Eudocia Tomas Pulido. We called her Lola, She was 4 foot 11, with ‘mocha-brown skin and almond eyes that I can still see looking into mine—my first ‘memory. She was 18 years old when my grandfather gave her tomy mother asa sift, and when my family moved to the United States, we brought her with us. No ‘other word but slave encompassed the life she lived. Her days began before everyone else woke and ended after we went to bed. She prepared three meals a day, cleaned the house, waited on my parents, and took care of my four siblings and me. My parents never pid her, and they scolded her constantly. She wasn’t kept in leg irons, but she might as well have been. So many nights, on my way to the bathroom, I'd spot her sleeping in a comer, slumped against a mound of laundry, her fingers clutching a garment she was in the middle of folding. Listen to the audio version of this article: Theatlonic as s0unve.ov0 My Family's Slave - The Atlantic Alex Tizon Feature stories, read aloud: download the Audm app for your iPhone, ‘To our American neightors, we were model immigrants, a poster family. They told _[\< least for us kids, who we wanted to be, pseu tieatnccontnapazalrchhe0 Oblast IS2480! ant‘Arf Seven Mao Arsen -The Nite ‘After my mother died of leukemia, in 1999, Lola came to live with me in a small town north of Seattle. Ihad a family, a career, a house in the suburbs—the American dream. And then Thad aslave. “TRAGGAGE GLAM in Manila, I unzipped my suitcase to make sure Lola's ashes were still there. Outside, inhaled the familiar smell: a thick blend of exhaust and waste, of ocean and sweet fruit and sweat, Early the next morning I found a driver, an affable middle-aged man who went by the nickname “Doods,” and we hit the road in his truck, weaving through traffic. ‘The scene always stunned me. The sheer number of cars and motorcycles and jeepneys. The people weaving between them and moving on the sidewalks in great brown rivers. The street vendors in bare feet trotting alongside cars, hawking cigarettes and cough drops and sacks of boiled peanuts. The child beggars pressing their faces against the windows. EL Thad a family, a career, a house in the suburbs—the American dream. And then I had a slave. Doods and I were headed to the place where Lola's story began, up north in the central plains: Tarlac province. Rice country. The home of acigar-chomping army licutenant named Tomas Asuncion, my grandfather. The family stories paint Lieutenant Tom as a formidable man given to eccentricity and dark moods, who had lots of land but little money and kept mistresses in separate houses on his, property. His wife died giving birth to their only child, my mother. She was raised by a series of utusans, or “people who take commands.” Slavery has a long history on the islands, Before the Spanish came, islanders enslaved other islanders, usually war captives, criminals, or debtors. Slaves came in. different varieties, fromwarriors who could earn their freedom through valor to household servants whe were regarded as property and could be bought and sold or ts wnossntacomimagacnlerchiveZ0 Tia sonis24490" ant