Taningco

=Manuel Taningco=

Podcast
media type="custom" key="12081353"

BIOGRAPHICAL/GEOGRAPHICAL NOTE
Manuel Taningco immigrated to America in 1968 with his siblings, aunt, and uncle from his homeland of Manila, Philippines due to the death of both of his parents when he was 10 years old.

The Philippines are Asian islands located in between the Philippine and South China Sea whose capital is Manila. Its size can be compared to the United States’ state of Arizona. The land is mostly mountainous, and it’s natural resources include nickel, cobalt, silver, gold, salt, copper, timber, and petroleum. Their government, the Republic of the Philippines, is run by the chief of state (president) Benigno Aquino, who was elected in 2010.

=Creative Writing=

By: Kiana Kreitzer

 * Leaving **

Time. What does it even mean? Time. Be on time. Tell me the time. It doesn’t have a meaning to me. I’m 12 years old now, both parents’ deceased. I now live with my aunt and uncle, along with my siblings. Due to my parents’ untimely death, whatever that means, we are moving from our vast, comfortable apartment in Manila to a vast new land, America. Aunt says we shall live in San Francisco, a town in California. Of course I don’t want to leave the Philippines. I love my home. I love the food the most; my family is the best group of cooks around. Our fresh garden with crisp fruits and vegetables available at my fingertips. Mangoes, pineapples, peas, squash, all available to me at my discretion. My friends and family here, the gang I’m involved with—I don’t want to leave it all behind. Yet, I have no choice. I must be like a ball, dropped to the floor and bounce up into my new surroundings, instead of shattering like fragile glass. I have a new language, a whole new culture to learn.


 * Martial Arts**

Some people say too much of anything can become harmful. Too much chocolate is unhealthy; too much spending of money causes you to go bankrupt, or fairly close to it. Well, not this time. Too much of martial arts cannot possibly hurt me; it simply makes me better and better. The discipline and the physical fitness; the friends and the good times, they all make my training worthwhile. Although, certain things weren’t necessary such as the type of discipline we received. When one didn’t do a stance or a form correctly, we were smacked or struck with something by our instructor. To make one mentally and physically tough, pain is not the answer. Harder workouts could be established. I definitely wanted to change that when I was training. When we started competing in 1976, our first tournament was in Columbus, Ohio. All of our students placed first, gaining us more friends. But, of course, too many friends can be a problem. Jealousy and taunting was frequent in school, and beginning to show up in our tournaments. Overall, it was fun and made me who I am today, the successful owner of TAMA Martial Arts Academy in Dayton, Ohio with about 300 students varying in different disciplines such as kenpo, jujitsu, aikido, kali, and muay thai. Martial arts is one thing that has proven too much isn’t harmful.

INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPT
Your Name: Kiana Kreitzer

Your Interviewee's Name: Manuel Taningco

Kreitzer: So, first of all thank you for your time. So I’m doing an immigration project at school and we have to interview someone who is an immigrant here and then just kinda find out their background and things and then we’re going to do a report on it.

Taningco: Okay, well that’s quite an honor.

Kreitzer: So, initially I’ll be making a report on you and I’ll give you like a copy of the final outcome.

Taningco: Sounds great.

Kreitzer: So, what is your full name?

Taningco: My full name is Manuel Luciano Roblest Taningco.

Kreitzer: And what country did you immigrate from?

Taningco: I was born in Manila, Philippines, in the Philippines.

Kreitzer: So how old were you when you immigrated?

Taningco: I came here at the age of 12 in 1968.

Kreitzer: Mmkay, so, what prompted you to move to America?

Taningco: I was orphaned and my relatives decided to take me on this side of the world--

Kreitzer: Ok-- (cut off)

Taningco: To help take care of me.

Kreitzer: So do you think they did that for more opportunity for like jobs..or a better economy

Taningco: Well you know at that time a 12 year old is not thinking about a job.

Kreitzer: Right, I guess that would make sense.

Taningco: Okay, it was just a place to, where, a place of comfort, just like your age you know? Or you know, if someone lost their parents, where are you going to stay? That’s all you’re going to think about, where are you gonna live.

Kreitzer: So who did you live with?

Taningco: My aunt and my uncle, which is my mother’s brother- my mother’s oldest brother.

Kreitzer: Did you have any siblings moving with you or do you have any siblings?

Taningco: Yeah, my brother also- there’s three of us that came here in that particular time and date, in 1968. My aunt, who decided to stay in Hawaii, because we stay layover in Hawaii and my brother and I proceeded to California. So, and, my family, the rest of the family members lived in California.

Kreitzer: What was your home like- home life like- back in the Philippines?

Taningco: Well just like any kid has got no responsibility. Just play and have fun with friends, I actually really live in the household, we live in a three story house apartment. And there were 15 of us. Okay and we had two maids total that’s included with the maids so you know I was taken care of. Okay so there was my mother, myself, my brother, my grandpa, okay- my aunt and my uncle. Now, her two adult children, one of them is married, with three other kids, so that makes it, what-12 or 13, okay? Or three or four kids. And then the two maids. So—

Kreitzer: So it sounds like you lived in a pretty crowded space?

Taningco: …No, we-The Asian culture is different than American culture. The American culture is…if…if you were…if you have kids and you have nobody to live with, you end up living with your kids, some-some people in America kinda frown upon that because they don’t want to have the spouse, sometimes the spouse complain that the mother or father lives with them. Okay, they don’t like that. In Asia, the culture there is different, it’s very acceptable. (Smiles) The grandparents is expected to be taken care of by the children. Okay, unlike here, it is pushing towards a nursery—nursing home, so to speak, okay. Or have their own place. So it’s a different place kind of environment and where we were living there’s 15.. it might sound crowded, but no, remember we have three story house, ok.

Kreitzer: So you lived in a pretty average sized home for everybody to live with you, whereas in America everybody lived in their individual family unit.

Taningco: Yeah. So we had how many families? We had my mother’s side, we won’t count my grandfather, we had my mother’s side, and we had my mother’s sister’s side, that’s two families already. And then she has two adult and one of them is married so that’s another-that’s, that’s three that’s a family there. Okay.

Kreitzer: That’d be hard to do, if I had to live with three families in my house.

Taningco: Well, it’s, family is always, there’s always disagreement. But majority of it if you ask me what I remember the most is I had fun when I was a kid.

Kreitzer: What do you miss most about the Philippines?

Taningco: Probably the food (Laughs). It’s different, it’s for instance we don’t have mangoes here unless of course we go to the store, and they’re generally flown in from places such as Mexico because they’re not as sweet, but over there I go to my grandfather’s house and we have fruits on the garden in the yard. We have grapefruit, all kinds of fruit that’s growing there, and you can just pick it up. That was more of in the country area.

Kreitzer: Do you know how long the process was to actually become an American citizen? Like, did you have to go to that when you initially immigrated here or—

Taningco: When I made the decision, according to the law, I think it might have been changed, that you have to be a resident of at least seven years of the same address, for seven years. That’s part of the qualification to become a citizen, a US citizen. And then you have to go and study for the US Citizenship papers.

Kreitzer: For the test?

Taningco: For the test. There are things that you have to be, or that they will ask you. Okay.

Kreitzer: Did you have to take the test when you were 12?

Taningco: No it was seven or whatever years later, but seven years later I was 19. But I didn’t take it until I got here, so when I was 20 or 21. Something like that. So years later on.

Kreitzer: Do you remember how long it took to get to America from the Philippines?

Taningco: I do know that it takes about 10 hours from Philippines to Hawaii. From Hawaii to San Francisco, it’s another six, seven hours.

Kreitzer: So by boat or by plane or?

Taningco: By plane. At that particular time at 12 years old, although I knew how to tell time, I had no idea of time. (Smiles)

Kreitzer: Right.

Taningco: That makes sense to you.

Kreitzer: So you just kinda thought it lasted forever?

Taningco: Yeah, it lasted forever because you know we lived during daytime, you have a nighttime, and then another daytime, plus you have time zones, you cross time zones.

Kreitzer: Did you know anyone else who was planning to immigrate also, like people you went to school with or people that you did sports with? Taningco: -Pauses- Well, I know across the street they were from California, they were back and forth and so at the private school I attended there were people from living from here and living in Philippines. They were go back to the Philippines at that particular time. But as far as travelling here at that particular time I really don’t know anyone at that time

Kreitzer: Did you struggle with learning the American culture or the English language and how did you adapt to learning those things at such a young age?

Taningco: -Pauses- That’s a good question. –Pauses- Actually, I have to think about it because you know being a kid where –pauses- I just give you an analogy. It’s like taking a rubber –Pauses- Or a ball, and when you drop the ball, what does the ball do?

Kreitzer: It bounces.

Taningco: It bounce, okay? If you take a glass and you drop the glass on the floor what does it do?

Kreitzer: It shatters.

Taningco: It breaks. So I’m like the basketball, I go with the flow, okay. You throw the ball anywhere in the room or one of those bouncy little rubber balls

Kreitzer: The ones that you get in a vending machine?

Taningco: Yeah, that you get in the vending machine, you throw it and it bounce everywhere, right? As Phillipino’s, and, I think probably most immigrants probably are probably Asians, they are more are more easy to adapt because they know they’re going to a different country and knowing that it’s, it’s exciting, its challenging, and definitely it’s new, but because I have family that I’m living with I didn’t have a a struggle as much. But if I was to come here as an adult and not know anyone that then that would be a big different story. And being 12 years old I was taken care of by my aunt and my uncle, plus I have cousins that live here. So you know it was like family and they speak the same language as I do so it seemed like I had never left Philippines but yet in a different environment as far as geographic location.

Kreitzer: So tell me about the difference in changing schools. Did you learn new material, did you struggle with the new material or was it kind of the same thing that you had started your basic learning in the Philippines?

Taningco: I came here on March so I have the spring and the summer to learn to prepare the English language (smiles)

Kreitzer: So you didn’t start school when you first came?

Taningco: No because that was March and I didn’t know any, few broken English language, like ‘May I have a glass of water’ or ‘thank you’, ‘hello’, ‘how are you’, ‘goodbye’ so just basic daily words, simple words, nothing conversationing English, nothing further like we’re doing right now. I had to teach myself the language and how I did that I had to pick up a book, okay.

Kreitzer: So what kind of books did you study to kind of master the English language and speak it fluently ?

Taningco: Well that’s another good question. Actually I was involved in martial arts and I fell in love with martial arts at that age so I remember in 1968 my first martial arts magazine actually one of the first one’s was with Chuck Norris’s picture on it, I still have that. And so I was prompted to learn how to read the English language I was because I like the martial arts, okayso I open the magazine and I have to read and so I have to learn so I have to get a dictionary what it means and I the next thing I know it may have been that same year or a year later I got another book, what you call a self-study words what it means and it also asks for specific tasks so things like that and you give yourself a test and then the next page it has the answer and so basically you grade yourself and I’ve learned that and in that way.

Kreitzer: Did you have friends in school that were from the Philippines or had immigrated so you kind of connected with them?

Taningco: No, No, unfortunately not. Mostly Americans and so.

Kreitzer: So did anyone actually make fun of you in school because of your accent or

Taningco: Okay yeah, they say a**hole or, I’m sorry (laughs) or yeah, you know what that is, I didn’t figure that out until later in life what that was (laughs) That was funny.

Kreitzer: So were you made fun of a lot? How did you cope with it and adapt to—

Taningco: Well, I, (pauses) I was made fun of in a different way, not to really, I guess some really degraded me because I didn’t know the words, I guess I just wanted to have fun with the playing words and they teaching me some things, bad words, we tried to know what it means. I also, would you believe I run for vice president in 6th grade, but I was pretty much a serious individual and so a lot of the people somewhat kind of, left me alone because they found that I was a martial artist.

Kreitzer: So you mention martial arts, were you first introduced to it in America or, was it in the Philippines?

Taningco: Philippines, yes.

Kreitzer: What kind of style did you take in the Philippines?

Taningco: Well I was involved first in a gang and so, yeah, and because is the culture there and how we grew up and especially in the city and unlike in the country it’s different so there are things that all the kids are doing so you just kind of follow the mainstream of what everybody’s doing.

Kreitzer: So is that what kind of got you into martial arts?

Taningco: Well I got in martial arts because my brother inspired me and his, him and his gang members were all practicing one day so I was, I wanted to learn what he was learning.

Kreitzer: Tell me about how, like was the martial arts different in America than Philippines? Did you take the same style in both?

Taningco: Yes and no. The differences here in America especially if I was to compare it yesteryear and today the students over there are, if you did something wrong and the instructor not happy, for instance you not doing the correct forward stance, he would kick your leg and if you do it again and he would kick your leg harder so you remember it. In here in today you can’t do that, that’s the way I also grew up and some of the instructions I’ve had here in America that’s the way it was in some way because some of them are very hard core training, it’s a lot of both physical and mental discipline, a lot of unnecessary physical abuse training, not verbal but physical, in a good way but not in a bad way because the instructor just wants you to be good.

Kreitzer: So it wasn’t an act of violence it was more for the training?

Taningco: And also to make you mentally tough but it does, we don’t need that. There’s more ways that you can do mental tough by other things such as heavier work out.

Kreitzer: Did you ever start competing in martial arts?

Taningco: The only move when I move in here in Ohio in 1976.

Kreitzer: So, what got you into competing

Taningco: Well first I got involved in martial arts serious manner because when I first got in martial arts first I was doing it to get into trouble, to fight with people with I know. Once I got older and I came here I had other reasons and those reasons changed. Things like in 6th grade I was able to protect one of my classmates because she was being, I remember Walter was picking on Susan, I’ll never forget that name. Walter was picking on Susan and I spoke up and I told him if he was gonna do something do it to me and he never came forward and instead his cousin decided to pick on me but they can’t fight me because they knew I knew something. So instead they end up cutting my tire on my bike, my bike. So that inspired me to the martial arts and then to more serious, you see. As I got serious when I move here and I answer your question about what inspired my competition was I had a group of students and we decided to out of curiosity we decided to take some students to compete and from then on everybody took first place and said wow this is great. And I said ‘What’ and this is fun. So we made friends because people like winners (smiles) Okay. And of course they’re some people that are jealous you know they don’t like us to win first place but we made friends so it was fun we travelled and I remember we went to the Columbus the first tournament we went in 1976.

Kreitzer: So tell me how the competitions were run back then. Like, how people fought did they fight with padding, did they fight with protection?

Taningco: Less padding, very hard. Not patty cake like you guys do these days because you have to learn to defend yourself. If you get hit hard you gotta give them back, hard one to make them respect what you got.

Kreitzer: So tell me about kind of what you learned through getting into martial arts and especially with competing, what it really taught you and how it changed you, like did it change your life completely or how do you think it has affected you? Taningco: Well when I got serious in martial arts in high school before coming here it already aaffected my life by the discipline I was involved in training. And so I was very focused in my schoolwork and that’s how I got a scholarship to go to college focus on helping my of course I later on moved with my brother and his wife soI was focusing helping them, you know I had my part time job also helping make the ends meet so or I should say make the meet the ends so anyway help around the household whether its cleaning or giving some money to help funds for funds to my brother to buy groceries.

ANALYSIS
Immigrating to a different country changes a person’s total outlook and opinion on life. When Manuel Taningco immigrated here in 1968, he knew no English and had no friends, but through martial arts magazines, the dictionary, and basic English workbooks he was able to speak the English language fluently and gain worthy relationships. He was first introduced to martial arts through his brother’s gang in his homeland, but became serious in America and eventually began competing. He says he definitely does not regret moving here and has revisited his home in Manila 3 times since leaving the country in 1968.