Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month: Diversity Is Our Strength | Joyce N. Barlin, MD

Joyce N. Barlin, MD

He was starving and delirious on the Bataan death march, knowing that if his weakness was recognized by his captors, he would immediately have been shot and killed. My lolo (grandfather in Tagalog) Balbino Gumabao had left his village in the Philippines at 22 years old to serve as a soldier for the United States Army Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) during World War II. He escaped into the jungle brush, developed malaria, and was nursed back to health by a kind family. When he returned home, he married my lola (grandmother) Agustina Barlin and went on to have five beautiful children. The first two children came surprisingly as identical twin boys in an era prior to routine ultrasound. My father was born first and was named Jorge G. Barlin III, after his maternal great uncle who was the first Filipino bishop of the Philippines (Wikipedia confirms this, which my kids find very neat).

My father was a simple man from the provinces who initially intended to become a farmer, but he was given the opportunity for his education to be paid for as the eldest child of a soldier who served in the USAFFE. He naively applied to a single medical school, the prestigious University of Santo Tomas founded in 1611, in the big city of Manila and was accepted. He completed medical school, married my mother Josefina C. Nuqui, and had their first daughter. They struggled financially in the Philippines and dreamt like so many others of the land of opportunity in the United States. They saved money for plane tickets, packed their suitcases, said farewell at the airport to family members they would never see again, and made their journey to America, with my mother pregnant with me as they traveled. We initially moved in with my maternal aunt and lived in a one-bedroom apartment in Queens that managed to fit nine people, including my crib snugly in the kitchen. With the forethought and loving guidance of my mother and the diligence of my father, we eventually worked our way into middle class America.

So, when I was in elementary school and another student yelled for me to “go back to my own country,” I was confused. This is my country. Lolo served in the armed forces for this country. I was born in this country. I am Asian American. Immigrants have literally built this country’s infrastructure and beyond. As microaggressions and stereotypes persist and Asian hate crimes are on the rise, it is crucial for us to speak truth to ignorance. Diversity is our strength. We must embrace and share our culture, which for me has been centered on faith, family, and food, with a relentless undercurrent of optimism.

Joyce N. Barlin, MD, is a Filipina American gynecologic oncologist working at Women’s Cancer Care Associates in Albany, New York, with a passion for clinical trial research.