When I started this show in 2020, I opened with a letter about my Filipino experience. Our inaugural episode focused on my experience as a Filipino American. It seems fitting that my final episode as your host closes with my Boston experience.
While usually I interview a member of our community or relay insights from a panel, this episode centers on a personal essay. I switch back and forth between my story — moving to the city eight years ago, developing a community of friends and joining BOSFililpinos — and sound recorded in my kitchen. You’ll hear my boyfriend and best friend banter in the background. I’m glad to have captured the moment forever.
Before you listen to my swan song, I have many people to thank. Trish Fontanilla has supported me through the process of making this show. Hyacinth Empinado has been a close friend who I have shared my cultural experiences with. My friends and family, in Boston and beyond, mean the world to me.
Last but not least, I want to thank all of our guests. Thank you for trusting me with your stories and insights. You made me love Boston even more.
If you want to continue this show, I highly recommend it! It has been such a beautiful experience. Email info@bosfilipinos.com for more.
Until next time,
Kaitlin Milliken
Transcript
[MUSIC]
Kaitlin Milliken: Hello, and welcome to the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken, and this show is obviously made by BOSFilipinos.
Today will be a little different. Instead of an interview or a panel, I’ll be sharing a personal essay because this is my final episode as the host of this show.
I volunteered to start a BOSFilipinos podcast in the fall of 2019. Since then, I’ve made 23 episodes and interviewed nearly two dozen Filipinos and Filipino Americans in Greater Boston. We’ve talked about big issues, like the Junk Terror Law in the Philippines and solidarity with Boston’s Black community. We’ve featured books, art and music deeply influenced by people’s Filipino experiences.
We’ve discussed personal stories of immigrants, Boston transplants and Bay State Natives. We’ve shared hobbies and passions. For many of our guests, Massachusetts is their permanent home. For others, they have already moved away to start new chapters. Today, it’s my turn to say goodbye. Thanks for listening.
[MUSIC ENDS]
Kaitlin Milliken: I’m recording this in March of 2022. In the audio, I’m in my kitchen, a cozy galley in my Brighton apartment. I’ve already laid out the ingredients for dinner. I’m making pancit and rolling lumpia tonight. I’ve tasked my boyfriend Nathan with being both my sous chef and audio engineer.
[CHOPPING SOUNDS]
Kaitlin Milliken: Are you enjoying your job?
Nathan Flohr: You’re hearing the sound of carrots.
Kaitlin Milliken: Do you have onion sensitivity?
Nathan Flohr: Like do I cry?
Kaitlin Milliken: Yeah.
Nathan Flohr: Sometimes.
Kaitlin Milliken: This might be hard for you.
Kaitlin Milliken: I picked up everything at Super 88 before Nathan’s flight touched down in Eastie. Well except for an onion which I forgot to pick up that he grabbed for me.
Nathan Flohr: I have onions now. I have two onions.
Kaitlin Milliken: Thank you.
Nathan Flohr: Can you tell us about what we’re having today?
Kaitlin Milliken: We’re having pancit. And we’re also having lumpia. And Michele made adobo, so that’s exciting.
Nathan Flohr: Tell me about pancit.
Kaitlin Milliken: It’s noodles with stuff.
Nathan Flohr: What kind of stuff?
Kaitlin Milliken: Carrots, cabbage snow peas, pork and shrimp in this particular instance.
Kaitlin Milliken: I know the aisles like the back of my hand. I’m the type of person who’s afraid to ask employees where to find things. They’re busy. Instead, I have spent the years wandering, creating a mental map of where to find what I need. My kitchen follows the same philosophy.
[CHOPPING SOUNDS]
Kaitlin Milliken: I feel like I could have done a more organized job. But I haven’t really cooked in a long time.
Nathan Flohr: What we’re seeing right now is I have three bowls around me. One of onions. One of carrots, ostensibly julienned. And green beans…snap peas, cut into chunks.
Kaitlin Milliken: I’ve been frequenting Super 88 since I came to the city nearly eight years ago. My mom and grandma helped me settle into my first dorm at Boston University. I was 17-years-old and the first of us to go that far away for an education.
We quibbled as we unloaded my suitcases into the prefab drawers of Warren Towers. When it was time to say goodbye, I saw the strongest women in my life cry. I cried too, as I turned the other direction on Comm Ave and walked away.
On that day, I said goodbye to one community. Not a complete farewell, of course, but my family felt more distant than ever before. So I began to grow a community around myself. I launched radio shows and threw parties, but my favorite way to connect was through cooking.
Nathan Flohr: What’s happening right now?
Kaitlin Milliken: I’m sautéing everything, while also boiling water, while also recording. Welcome to the process. It’s a more cursed process than usual.
Kaitlin Milliken: When I lived in my first apartment, I made my grandma’s adobo recipe to introduce my friends Catie and Kreag to Filipino food. When I got sick — and then, you know infected my roommate Frank — I made us arroz caldo.
Around our coffee table, we made core memories and laughed and commiserated. I felt like I had a second family that I could share my east coast adventures with. I felt like I had a second home.
Since those moments, I have graduated and moved away from BU’s campus. I’ve spent the last three years in Allston/Brighton. My small community has grown up with me and in many ways expanded. Through those changes, I have always brought my culture with me. When I started a book club in 2018, we read The Body Papers by Grace Talusan, who writes about her experiences as a filipino woman in Boston — not white enough to perfectly fit in Massachusetts but not culturally fluent enough to feel at home in Manila. We read Malaka Gharib’s I Was Their American Dream, a graphic memoir about moving away from California. Both made me cry.
Around the same time, I got involved with BOSFilipinos. The group offered a different experience. Instead of growing a new community, I was able to tap into one that was pre-existing.
I loved my Boston family but I missed what I had back home. BOSFilipinos’ meetups gave me an opportunity to meet people who were raised like me, who went to college here, who faced similar cultural barriers. This show, which debuted in early 2020, allowed me to capture these connections at a time defined by isolation.
I also learned about the vibrant community we have here. What I’ve loved the most is learning the history — when Filipino people walked these streets for the first time; how people kept the culture alive. Through this show, I’ve learned that community building runs through me. It’s in my blood and from my family. It makes saying goodby to this town so hard.
Nathan Flohr: Right now, in front of us, we have a pan and a pot. In the pan, we have the pancit with all of the noodles and vegetables and meat. It’s over medium heat, is that right?
Kaitlin Milliken: Yeah, medium heat.
Nathan Flohr: How often does it get stirred?
Kaitlin Milliken: Um, until it’s combined and things are cooked.
Nathan Flohr: Do you leave it alot?
Kaitlin Milliken: Yeah, it’s fine.
Nathan Flohr: Okay.
Kaitlin Milliken: When I’m cooking this meal, I’m in the waning moments of my time in Boston. I have roughly two months left before I go back to California, leaving this home to rejoin the one I left in 2014.
I’m sharing this meal with my boyfriend and my roommate — two people who perfectly represent what I’m running toward and what will remain once I’m gone.
Michele Garlit: You need help doing lumpias?
Kaitlin Milliken: Yes, in a bit. That’s what that will be.
Michele Garlit: I figured that’s what it was.
Kaitlin Milliken: Nathan and I met in 2021, while I was on an extended trip to my hometown. Without diving into all the details, we decided to do long distance. We’ve been flying back and forth to see each other for over a year.
My trips home have been long — four to eight weeks in the Bay Area on average. Right now, he’s here for his spring break, recording kitchen noises for me while I make a meal, and learning how to roll lumpia for the first time.
Kaitlin Milliken: So meat cylinder.
Nathan Flohr: So we take the meat cylinder.
Kaitlin Milliken: Put it in the center. I’m actually going to take that one. It’s going to be kind of long, cause you don’t want it to go all the way to the end.
Nathan Flohr: So at the very end of the triangle, of the wrapper.
Kaitlin Milliken: Yeah. So you’re pulling the corners in.
Nathan Flohr: Pull the corners in.
Kaitlin Milliken: Then pinching and rolling.
Nathan Flohr: How much?
Kaitlin Milliken: More.
Nathan Flohr: If it were to be measured, two tablespoons almost?
Kaitlin Milliken: Yeah? I’m so bad. I measure with my heart. I don’t know measurements.
Nathan Flohr: I feel like that’s probably the authentic way.
Kaitlin Milliken: He’ll come back again in June, and we'll leave together.
Kaitlin Milliken: We don’t have to finish the whole plate of lumpia.
Michele Garlit: But what if, Katie, we finished the whole plate of lumpia?
Nathan Flohr: Exactly. Live a little. Drink your drink.
Michele Garlit: There are plenty of drumsticks in here so everyone can get a drum.
Kaitlin Milliken: Oh, here this is going to be better for it.
Michele Garlit: And then I also have some pork belly in here, if people have feelings about that. There are a couple bay leaves that I couldn't find. And I didn;t want to stick my fingers all up in it.
Nathan Flohr: They’re in there.
Michele Garlit: So if you see a leaf don’t be afraid.
Kaitlin Milliken: My roommate Michele and I have been best friends for a decade. We met in high school. When I left for college in Boston, she stayed in California and went to Santa Clara University. She moved out east for law school in 2020.
She’s the most recent person I shared this city with. We merged groups of friends, discovered new restaurants and visited my favorite haunts. During this period of transition, she has been my rock.
When I leave this city, Michele will still be in Boston. She’ll be in our apartment, taking the train to downtown — the same trek I made for years.
But tonight, it’s the three of us, sitting down for Filipino food and to record this episode. It’s the best of both worlds, my favorite people who are both from my hometowns sharing a meal in my favorite city.
Kaitlin Milliken: Alright, I feel like I was supposed to make a speech for this.
Nathan Flohr and Michele Garlit: Speech, speech, speech.
Kaitlin Milliken: And then, I like didn’t think about it. Which is classically me. Thank you guys for dinner. Thank you for all your help. And I’m glad we get to do this.
Nathan Flohr: Speech.
Kaitlin Milliken: That was the speech.
Nathan Flohr: Better speech.
Kaitlin Milliken: Okay better speech. I’m going to miss you.
Michele Garlit: Food good.
Kaitlin Milliken: Yes, food good. BOSFilipinos over, sad. I don’t know. It’s been a ride, but this is a good dinner. I’m going to stop recording now.
Kaitlin Milliken: Boston is a magical place. It’s a big city with the opportunity to grow your career and pursue what you think are your dreams. It’s a place to find the people who embrace you for you. It’s a playground to explore and develop an intimate relationship with. It’s a small town where you can feel a connection to your culture, your neighbors and yourself.
Seven plus years in and I can tell how Boston shaped me. I like to think, in some way, I built something here. No matter how small, I shaped it too.
[MUSIC]
Kaitlin Milliken: Okay, this is the last time I’m going to do the outro. Okay. Wow. [DEEP BREATH] This has been the BOSFilipinos Podcast. I'm your host, Kaitlin Milliken. Music for our show was made by Matt Garamella.
Thank you to Trish Fontanilla for supporting me while I ran this project. Thank you Hyacinth Empinado for being my friend since we connected at a BOSFilipinos meet up in 2019. Thank you to everyone who shared their stories and knowledge on this show. You helped me learn so much. I’ve grown to love this city even more because of you.
Thank you to my family in California and my chosen Boston family. I love you all. Thank you to Michele and Maxine for being my best friends in both places. I can’t believe it's been a decade. Thank you to Nathan for helping me produce this episode, for listening to the draft of this script, for letting me show you all my favorite places, for moving me home, for helping me through this transition. It means the world. I love you.
And, lastly, thank you for listening to this episode and our show. You turned this podcast into a community. It’s been really special. Until next time, goodbye.