Life Ambition of Philippine Boy As Related to Konah Reporter

“Just how did you happen to come to America, Raymond?” asked a Konah reporter. Raymond Madamba answered, “It is a long story but I will try to tell you.

“Long ago in the Philippines when I was yet a little boy, I learned of America from an old American friend of my family; but it was hard for me to believe.

“When I was six years old I was entered in an English school of the humble town, Dingras, where I used to carry my book with me when I was sent to clean our flower garden. I could not forget the pretty vines, the Cadena de Amor, with its kind leaves that shaded me when I was seated underneath reading my little book, and enjoying the sweet fragrance of its flowers. It didn’t take me long to motivate what was taught to me. When I was in the third grade I began to study geography. We in the class were given maps to draw. When we came to the map of North America, my interest about it grew. In my map I used to put an arrow-point somewhere around the center, which was Montana. The boys asked me why I did it. I told them, ‘I will go to that place.’ They laughed and I was angry, but it didn’t help any to stop them.

Finishes Elementary School

“In the seventh grade I finished the elementary school. Being too young to ask the consent of my parents about my dream of coming to school in America, I attended my first year then in the Laoag Provincial High School. I thought of running away from home, but I was afraid; I was too small. In order to get the interest of my Papang and my Mamang I studied so hard that I appeared to be one of the brightest among the one thousand two hundred students in that section.

“But too bad. A week after the school closed, I developed an illness that kept me in bed for a year. I became so thin that it took me another year to grow fat. One night when I was strong enough already, I told Papang about my old thought of coming to America.

“Finally I got him interested and two weeks after I was sailing on the big sea. I spent too much of my money. Being not brave enough to finish the ordeal I dropped off in Hawaii when my boat stopped there.

“ One year and ten months I worked harder than a man to earn the means of my coming to school. Then I came to this country where, being new to the place, I found it hard to find a job. I spent all my money again then before I reached Butte, Montana.

Mines in the Butte Hill

“One day I was so sick in mind that everything around me was dark. I thought of school and the lost years but my ambition was always with me. I went to work in the mines of the A. C. M. Company. I struggled harder than a mule underground for about two years in order to save money, but one day while I was mining the place caved in. A slab of rock hit the first finger of my right hand. My best finger was cut! Oh, that blood, that pain that went right up to sicken my heart! And that time when I was put to sleep. Yes, I was crying. I remembered then my past happy days when I was a boy, the old ragged home, my folks, and my nice fellow classmates when I was yet going to school.
“I had been longing to spend a week as a vacation to go around as I used to while yet at home, but since I left home, my Christmas Eve, my New Year, and so forth were spent at work. I didn’t give up at all until I finally was enrolled on the third day of September, nineteen hundred and twenty-nine, in Missoula High School.

Reaches the Goal

“It is funny to think, but all my longing when I was yet a little boy came true. Well, it was six years of weary hours that I struggled hard in coming to school to this country. In school I found difficulties in my studies. Having been long out of school, I came to be so stagnant that I was bound to read and read again the lessons in order to know or to have an idea of them in mind so that I could be as bright as or on the level with any of the American students. I wondered if I would be a success or not, and still I am wondering.

“I am sorry that I don’t have yet the exact materials to express myself so that my story would be more interesting. I am sorry too that I do not have much to say about my past happy or sad life; but, anyway, I am much pleased that I succeeded in coming to school in America, though I know very well that I am slow now in my mental capacity.

“I can’t tell yet what I’ll do next,” Raymond finished.

The above article appeared in the Missoula County High School newspaper “The Konah,” on Feb. 6, 1931.