At first glance, Deja Vu Prem’s maiden memoir Beyond the Mountains is a very breezy read. It invites the reader to turn page after page to travel with this free spirit tomboy from her remote barrio beyond the mountains in the Philippines, across the Pacific Ocean, then to various states in America for adventure. I think it would be an excellent movie.
On second consideration, this is a self-help story of an international bride, essentially a person who would be referred to by the outdated term “mail order bride,” who overcame deep sexual and other exploitation from childhood to young womanhood. Mail order or picture brides have existed for centuries. In the 20th century, the predominant pattern was women in poor countries seeking marriage with men in rich countries. For Filipinas, a common reason to seek this was to improve their economic status and sponsor their family for immigration.
The author vividly describes her very poor village in Dipolog City on the island of Mindanao where she and her siblings fetched water from the communal well. There was no electricity or indoor plumbing. She writes, “The river served as a communal bathtub and laundry. We’d bathe in it fully clothed. Get in, pour cool water down the inside of our clothing with a pail and get out.” Her family home had a roof, four walls, and bamboo slats for a floor. Her parents slept in one bed. Deja, her sister and two brothers slept on a second one. The family wasn’t outwardly affectionate.
Vu Prem experienced sexual molestation and rape from various family male relatives as a child. Her father’s work in a logging company in Marawi required his absence from home and her mother didn’t protect her from the abusers. She was starving for love, eventually developing a belief that she was unworthy of love.
Yet she had pleasant thoughts of her grandfather, Severino, a shaman who founded her village. At times, she could empathize with her parents working hard to make a living and found solace in nature by climbing and hugging trees. She was also an artist.
Like many Filipino families, her parents expected their children to have an education as a way out of poverty. Vu Prem knew there was a world beyond her mountains.
In high school she met Taylor, an American exchange student from Washington state. The girls kept in touch as pen pals after Taylor returned to the states. Vu Prem went to the library to learn about the different regions of the U.S., especially California. Her goal was to go to America to find love.
In 1989 at 17 years old, Vu Prem became an international bride and the complicated relationships within her family followed her to the U.S.
A good portion of this book is devoted to her starting and leaving dysfunctional relationships with Harvey, her older first husband, and Drake, her subsequent boyfriend. She writes, “Harvey was looking for someone naive and fresh that he could mold — and I fit the role perfectly.” She was with him for four years in the San Francisco Bay Area, trying to be a good wife and bearing him two daughters, Amelia and Asia.
After fleeing from Harvey with her girls to Berkeley, she met Drake, who a month younger than her, and his mother Cathy. Vu Prem writes: “Drake exceeded my limited expectations of the untouchable schoolboy crush.” Meahwhile, his mother lived in upscale Greenwich, Connecticut. and invited Vu Prem and her girls to live with her and Drake. In turn Vu Prem called Cathy “mother” because she treated Amelia and Asia as her granddaughters.
After a while, finding this arrangement suffocating, Vu Prem packed her girls and moved to Los Angeles where they all blossomed. She reflects on her relationships with her own family and her daughters in the book. Vu Prem returned to the Philippines to reconnect with her family, especially her mother for whom she arranged a visit to America. Her daughters, excellent students, turned out to be very loving and independent young women. Despite living the ups and downs of her life, Vu Prem continued to be not just a tenacious, resilient mother but a person who believed in herself enough to climb every mountain.
Juanita/Nita is an activist since the 1968 BSU/TWLF San Francisco State Strike; since the 1970 census advocating for more detailed racial and ethnic data in Washington, DC, and now singing with the Seattle Raging Grannies. Her collection resides in the Manuscript Division, The Library of Congress. Author of Golden Children, Legacy of Ethnic Studies, SF State, Juanita is featured in the documentary, Agents of Change https://www.agentsofchangefilmnational.com/
