Loida Nicolas Lewis, ‘The Anti-Imelda,’ comes to town
Columnist Emil Guillermo’s selfie with Noida Nicolas Lewis: “I don’t know how many shoes Loida owns. We just need someone like her on our side. An actual fighter. With money. And a sense of real grace.” CONTRIBUTED
Here’s an idea if you’d rather not see your Thursday on 4/20 go up in smoke watching the Warriors. (Come on, do you think the Warriors will play better knowing that you are watching their demise, either live or in person? Even with your lucky socks on. Besides, hoops hubris is better viewing recorded, after the fact. Then you will know exactly how many tears will be shed in disappointment. Oh, pare, they might still win, you say. Yes, and Draymond Green is an altar boy).
A better bet is to make a mad dash to the Sentro Filipino/San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center at 814 Mission Street at 6 p.m. to see Filipino American icon Loida Nicolas Lewis talk about her winning new book, Why Should Guys Have All The Fun?
I can’t be there due to a health issue and the limits on my San Francisco visa. But I shouldn’t be greedy.
I just saw Loida twice in New York City, once when she came to see my show, and another when I got her book and she introduced me to Blair S. Walker, her co-writer as “one of our great comedians.”
I was flattered that I had made her laugh enough to say that. “Comedian, par excellence,” she wrote on my signed copy of her book.
But I know I’ve also made her think in my day for also being a writer, journalist, columnist, broadcaster, narrowcaster, raconteur and raccoon lover.
I’ve thought about our exchange ever since I saw her a few weeks ago in a New York bookstore, and I’ve come to the conclusion that resumes do not define us.
We can be many things, all at once. And Loida, as her book proves, is so many things.
To me, Loida is no less than the Filipino community’s Anti-Imelda Marcos. I don’t know how many shoes Loida owns.
We just need someone like her on our side. An actual fighter. With money. And a sense of real grace.
For whatever the former Philippine first lady stands for, in heels or flats, the glorification and the positive spin of the martial law era, you know Loida Lewis is the opposite. For the good.
For as long as I’ve known her, Loida has been a dual force for the Filipinos in the Philippines as well as for Filipinos in America.
She’s an American, after all. Born in the Philippines, but actively trying to lift up the political well-being of Filipinos in the U.S.
Loida was one of the founders of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations, an organization that dared to harness the power of a community that was too much like the mother country—a long archipelago of groups at odds with each other.
Along with the group’s co-founders, among them the esteemed late newspaper man and rabble rouser Alex Esclamado, Loida helped lead the charge on U.S. Filipino issues like Filipino veterans’ equity pay. She also spearheaded the drive for dual U.S./Filipino citizenship.
And not forgetting our purpose here in America, Loida made sure people knew there were Filipinos for President Biden and before that for Hillary Clinton, and before that President Obama.
To this day, Loida refuses to mention the name of that other former president, she simply calls 45. The indicted one. The lying one. But not like Fox News, Channel $787.5 million, the Lies R’ Us Network.
You know Loida by her politics. She is a woman of the people, a people person, of the kind that belies her status among the wealthy.
You’d like her even if she were poor. But she is definitely more effective wealthy.
And that is the power of Loida Lewis. She is the heart of capitalism. But still a capitalist. How do you deal with the contradictions therein and still be true to what’s good?
It’s the message of Loida’s book. Dealing with the contradictions as they come up in life.
Loida reveals how a young woman from the Philippines met one ambitious African American, Reginald Lewis from Baltimore. And how they managed to fall in love despite her Filipinoness, her Catholicism, and her conservative family values.
Start with that tricky pre-marital sex question?
As Loida shared with an audience in New York, if it happens naturally, it’s good because, “Anything natural comes from God.”
It may sound like a rationalization, but don’t pass judgment. It’s an insight on how a successful woman has had to deal with all the contradictory forces in her life. When in doubt, Loida chose love.
“Use your head, but follow your heart, “ she likes to say.
Loida followed Reginald Lewis as he struggled through the white corporate structure. She writes about her supporting role to always be positive.
It was how they worked together to defy the obstacles that were in the way for an African American man married to a Filipina struggling to make it in the corporate world.
And then Reginald Lewis made it big. He was one of the first non-whites to break through the capitalist curtain to play the cutthroat game of leveraged buyouts in the ‘70s and ‘80s. It’s really a simple business move. Borrow capital to buy a mature company. Then, by cutting costs to the bone, you are able to both service the debt and grow more equity, thereby enabling you to ultimately sell all or part of the company at a profit.
That’s why Reginald Lewis asked in his book, Why Should White Guys Have All The Fun? He was able to get beyond the black/white paradigm of corporate America by playing the “internationalist.”
And his Filipina wife Loida was instrumental in that quest.
At the time of his death at age 50 to brain cancer, Reginald Lewis was worth $400 million.
And then it was Loida’s cue to step in and ask “Why should guys have all the fun?” A trained lawyer, but without formal training business training, Loida followed her husband’s path, and carved out her own as she brought the company, Beatrice, to even greater heights.
That’s the corporate story of Loida Lewis, with life lessons to boot.
But I will always remember her for being in the audience for my show, “Emil Amok:Lost NPR Host…”
It was not in a fancy Broadway theater. It was off-off-Broadway and under, a basement theater in New York City’s East Village. And there was Loida laughing.
Not only did she see the show, she held court at an impromptu “after-show party,” in the side room of a corner bar. After seeing the show about my father, the colonial manong, Loida was there with her friends from college, and some of my friends, one a writer, the other an Oscar—nominated music composer, their families, and some of my family.
We were all sharing a meal, conversation, and light beverages in what the late foodie Anthony Bourdain would have called an ichi-go ichi-e “once in a life time” moment.
It was Loida being in support of me, just another American Filipino voice. Her presence was such a gracious gesture. That’s the kind of person she is, and I will never forget it. She’s always there, supportive, a quality that definitely comes through in her new book, Why Should Guys Have All The Fun?
NOTE: I will talk about this column and other matters on “Emil Amok’s Takeout,” my AAPI micro-talk show. Live @2p Pacific. Livestream on Facebook; my YouTube channel; and Twitter. Catch the recordings on www.amok.com.
Emil Guillermo is a journalist and commentator who writes a column for the Inquirer.net’s North American Bureau.
