FOR FILIPINO-AMERICAN Cyndi Abundabar Ting, growing up in the 1980s was all about assimilating to American culture. Now, the special education teacher is celebrating her cultural heritage by teaching her community and the next generation how to make the traditional Christmas star lanterns called parols.
“It really becomes a symbol of our generations across the ocean, our traditions and remembering our faith and that the light from these parols used to light the way of our ancestors and now we’re lighting that for our future generations,” said Abundabar Ting.
The Diocese of Orange’s San Jose Filipino Ministry sponsored a free parol-making workshop on Dec. 14 at the Poong Jesus Nazareno Filipino Catholic Center in Anaheim. The workshop brought out children, parents, grandparents and extended family to learn how to turn 10 identical sticks, a couple of dowels as tension rods and some colored cellophane and tissue paper in a smaller version of the beautiful Christmas decoration.
Parols are lanterns traditionally made from wood and translucent Capiz shells in the shape of a star with a candle inside. They can be bought from the Philippines for several hundred dollars or made from found materials, said Abundabar Ting. Catholics hang them up as decorations or gift them to others, or even use them to put gifts inside.
The history of parols goes back to the 1500s when the Spanish brought Catholicism to the Philippines, said Abundabar Ting. The Spanish wanted the Filipino people, who were living in an agricultural society at that time, to attend Mass before work started in the fields at sunrise, she said. So, the parols were created to light their way to Mass, Abundabar Ting said.
“It symbolizes hundreds of years of faith and culture for Filipinos around the world,” she added. For Aileen Corbilla, who grew up in the Philippines and came to the U.S. as a teenager, learning to make parols took her back to her childhood.
Although this was her first time making one from scratch, her family had a store-bought one with lights inside that was used every year during the holidays.
“Every time my dad would bring out the parol, it would just give me this warm feeling inside that Christmas is coming and it’s to celebrate Christ,” Corbilla said. “So being Catholic, it makes me very happy.”
Attending the workshop with her 12- and 15-year-old daughters, Corbilla said she wants them to have the same warm memories that she has and hopefully pass the tradition on to their own children — a long time from now, she said. Eight-year-old Talia Usher was also learning to make a parol for the first time. Although “kind of difficult,” she said, she wants to hang it up on her Christmas tree. Usher’s mom, Tammy Usher, a first-generation Filipino American, said she grew up never knowing the history of the parol. She said she wants her two daughters, who are biracial, to know both of their heritages.
“I want them to learn and be immersed in our culture, so they can carry it on,” Tammy Usher said. “That feeling of where you come from is important to me.”