The Beginning of Leaving

by Elsa Valmidiano

Elsa Valmidiano’s The Beginning of Leaving is a hybrid collection of journalistic prose and lyrical essays, weaving a personal examination of how leaving not only reflects a picture of immigration and the diaspora, but how migration through generations compels any individual to honor the Motherland we left behind, and acknowledge whose land we now inhabit and have adopted as our own. In these essays, leaving is not simply a finite act but a process of resistance, reconciliation, and release—from a Motherland, a childhood, War, a body, a mindset, a painful past, or shame. Within this collection is a reflective and immersive travelogue as well as bildungsroman of a woman who is the daughter of Filipino immigrants. As she travels from her ancestral barrios in the Philippines, to the suburbs of LA, to the High Desert of California, and finally to the Australian Outback in Murujuga, themes of heartbreak, family, trauma, and race are intimately interwoven inside discussions surrounding gender expectations, as well as Motherland values versus adopted homeland values.

Genres: Memoir, Poetry

260 pages, Paperback

Published July 28, 2023

Reviews

[Hannah Rubin · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning and heartbreaking collection of personal insights about the author's lived experiences. Elsa Valmidiano opens a doorway to parts of her life and the reader finds themself unable to stop thinking about the book, even days after finishing it. Abortion, abuse, familial bonds (or lack thereof), and oppression are only some of the windows that Elsa Valmidiano thrusts wide open. The Beginning of Leaving encourages the reader to question how each and every one of us found ourselves to be standing exactly where we are today.

E-ARC review via NetGalley, all opinions expressed are my own.

[Shilo · Rating 5 out of 5]

"My mother's life, my mother's mother's life, both stamped with grief and stoicism was born to never show tears, even when on the verge of a dam-breaking--the voice goes flat, the eyes become glass, and there's a silence so great that it is a wailing, a howling, if you stop to listen, to inhale it."

The Beginning of Leaving feels, to me, like a search light. These essays and poems and photographs are a searching, casting their light out in search of both the literal and metaphorical landscape of home. Where do we find connection? Where and with whom do we seek it, do we unearth it, unravel it from the the things that have been done to us, been done to our ancestors? Can many places be home and is home always kind? What happens when home is no longer a safe place to land? When the land of our ancestors has been raised and all that is left is the rubble remains, not even the trees left standing? Elsa explores these questions through travel to her homeland, travel to other locales, through the relationships with her family members and romantic relationships, her relationship to water, through the works she's done in both the legal field and through nonprofit work with abortion services. She casts her net wide, but the landing is always done with a sense of softness, of deep and unending gratitude for who she is, who her family members are, what they have experienced, and what is left to come.

[Yusra · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.25⭐
Powerful writing and themes.

[Elaine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Elsa Valmidiano’s The Beginning of Leaving contextualizes the complex emotions and slew of secrets we often end up hiding from our immigrant parents. (Trust me, if you grew up as the child of immigrants, lying to them was sometimes easier than telling them the truth.) These emotions are filled with the internal conflict of growing up within the Filipino-American diaspora, from being raised in the beliefs and traditions of the land our parents chose to leave behind to the nuances of our experiences being socialized as women while simultaneously being othered by this new land.

For myself, I experienced an emotional roller coaster as I followed Valmidiano’s journey. I experienced a constant flurry of emotions ranging from anger to sadness, but I also laughed. And where I could, I healed. Valmidiano’s lived experiences come with a sense of familiarity from her personal struggles, a complicated relationship between a father and his daughter, the secrets the adults (aka the generation before ours) never wanted us know whether in their attempts to protect us or continue the cycle of trauma, to the decisions we must make for ourselves versus the choices we reluctantly make out of the feelings of obligation.

Valmidiano’s prose evokes your own lived experiences, allowing for your mind’s eye to see her experiences play out alongside yours. And in this, you see how masterfully she paints her memories in the same hues and strokes as yours because at the core of it, all of us have felt those same emotions, hopes, and fears. With each essay that told of her travels in the Philippines—such as “First Home” and “Stone”, I could feel the sticky humidity of my childhood and the confusion I felt as home’s landscape changed with every visit. Valmidiano also brings to light the complex relationship some of us in the diaspora—specifically the 1.5 generation, those who were born in the Philippines then immigrated during childhood—have with the motherland. A complex relationship filled with stories we are told by others but may never be able to recall ourselves—stories of quiet moments during our infancies and childhoods filled with familiar faces we cannot name. A yearning to better understand why our parents and grandparents made the choices that they did, and for a better connection to the land that supplied the air that filled our lungs first.

Valmidiano’s prose and poetry wrap you in warmth. A rare kind of warmth that can only be provided by an ate—older sister, not always by blood—holding you and immediately understanding the language of your body because she had been through all of it too. A warmth that eases the tension in your body with a gentleness, rather than the generational trauma-fueled responses we are forced to simply accept from our immigrant parents.

The Beginning of Leaving is both a love letter and a journey.

As a love letter, Valmidiano has filled it with so much care for not only her younger self, but to our mothers, our grandmothers, and us of the diaspora. It is a love letter filled with the decisions her—Valdmidiano’s—younger self, the choices she was forced to make out of obligation to the sacrifices of her immigrant parents, and finally, the choices she makes for herself today.

As a journey, it is filled with the complexity of wanting to be your own person while feeling the weight of not only your parents’ expectations, but the expectations of an entire community. Valmidiano takes you on her path, a path that has been lined with the expectations of her father which is a sentiment that many of us have felt before.

The Beginning of Leaving teaches us that leaving is not always a choice we can make for ourselves. At its core, leaving is a choice that should be devoid of moral assignment and is more than the physical act of leaving a place, person, or situation. Leaving allows for possibility, whether it’s leaving behind generational curses or physically leaving. Leaving allows for deviation from the choices made for us by our families, our parents. Leaving also requires courage and strength. And I think we often forget that for us to find the courage and strength within ourselves, those qualities had to have existed within those who came before us. How far you want to go is ultimately up to you.