4. Juneau Voices: Andrea Cadiente-Laiti & Barbara Cadiente-Nelson
Andrea and Barbara are growing up in a Tlingit-Filipino household on Starr Hill, where there’s never a dull moment as they take in the sights and sounds of bygone Juneau.
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More about this story
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Juneau Voices #4 is located at Marine Way and Ferry Way.
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In January 1956, the F.V. Malaspina came on-line as one of three new ferries in the Alaska Marine Highway fleet. It’s 352 feet long, and it carries up to 500 passengers and more than 100 vehicles. Andrea and Barbara’s father was a chef on this ferry.
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On February 7, 1956, when Alaska was a U.S. Territory and had not yet become a state, the Filipinos in Juneau formed the social non-profit organization Filipino Community, Inc.
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To spend more time with Andrea Cadiente-Laiti and Barbara Cadiente-Nelson, please visit: https://www.aanyatxu.org/andrea-and-barbara
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The narrators for Juneau Voices are David Katzeek, Kingeisti, an Eagle, and Erin Tripp, Xáalnook, a Raven.
ANDREA CADIENTE-LAITI & BARBARA CADIENTE-NELSON
SOUND: Raven call.
NARRATOR 1:
Raven’s led us here to Juneau Voices number 4: Marine Way & Ferry Way.
NARRATOR 2:
Look to the north, away from the docks. There’s a valley between the 2 mountains. A neighborhood is there, above town.
NARRATOR 1:
I can see Eagle wheeling around above those houses. That’s Starr Hill.
ANDREA:
And that’s where we grew up.
NARRATOR 1:
This is Andrea Cadiente-Laiti.
BARBARA:
And I’m Barbara Cadiente-Nelson, her younger sister.
NARRATOR 1:
Starr Hill is one of Juneau’s old neighborhoods.
BARBARA:
And we just know it as: home.
SOUND: Eagle’s call and a musical phrase send us back in time.
NARRATOR 1:
1963
NARRATOR 2:
1963
ANDREA:
There are 9 of us kids in one house. Andy…
BARBARA:
Carlos
ANDREA:
Dolores
BARBARA:
Renalda
ANDREA:
Maxine.
BARBARA:
Janie and
Carling.
ANDREA:
And me, Andrea.
BARBARA:
And me, Barbara. …And some call us the Starr Hill Gang.
ANDREA:
Our life on Starr Hill is full of sounds and sensations.
BARBARA:
In the morning, we can hear the city waking up.
SOUND: A floatplane engine passes overhead.
ANDREA:
The big float planes take off from Gastineau Channel.
SOUND: A steamship in the harbor.
BARBARA:
Alaska Steamships huff and puff through the night, coming into town to deliver, load, and leave.
SOUND: seagulls in the tidal flats.
ANDREA:
There’s the smell of the tide. We can tell when the tide is low, just from the fragrance.
It’s crisp, clear and pure.
SOUND: Children shouting and playing.
ANDREA:
Red Rover Red Rover.
BARBARA:
Hide and go seek.
ANDREA:
Run Sheep Run.
BARBARA:
Eh… I do NOT like Run Sheep Run.
ANDREA:
I don’t either! I thought it was your favorite game!
BARBARA:
There are so many places to hide! There are the trees, the mountainsides. And all the houses.
SOUND: A dinner bell.
NARRATOR 2 (as Andrea & Barbara’s mother):
Andrea! Barbara! Kids! It’s time to come home!
SOUND: A loud ferry horn.
ANDREA:
Our Dad is such a light in our house. We love him so much. He’s a chef for the Alaska Marine Highway System. He goes to the ferry terminal, right here downtown, and boards the Malaspina for one week on and one week off, working all around the Inside Passage. When it’s the day he’s supposed to come home, we know he’s near, because—
SOUND: A ferry horn.
ANDREA:
That ferry horn bounces against the mountain and echoes through town.
BARBARA:
Two long blasts, two short ones. Now we know the ferry boat is almost here.
ANDREA:
Dad pulls up to the house in a taxi cab and our hearts just swell. Mom has a box of food ready with a hot pot of rice wrapped in a towel, ready when Dad comes home.
BARBARA:
It’s the wee hours of the morning.
ANDREA:
But we load up the car anyway, and we all drive out to Auke Bay to go camping.
BARBARA:
We have a hot camp meal, with pancit and hot dogs, cooked by our Dad with his chef’s knife collection. He always sleeps wrapped in a blanket down by the water’s edge. Those waters connect Dad to his homeland, the Philippines.
ANDREA:
Back in town, our mother works at the Juneau Cold Storage, with other Tlingit women. She pins her hair down with bobby pins, and wraps it in a scarf… pulls on her boots, straps her sliming knife to her hip, and down the hill she goes.
BARBARA:
The hair scarf she wears is actually a cloth diaper.
NARRATOR 2 (as Andrea and Barbara’s mother):
You kids be good!
BARBARA:
Our mother is Tlingit of the Brown Bear House, and our dad is Filipino, Iliacano… and there are many families like us in Juneau, whose dads come from the Philippines for work. It’s a time in Juneau when there’s a lot of discrimination. Our parents long for a place where they can come together and get away from the segregation.
ANDREA:
So they raise money. Bake sales, rummage sales, dances. And they buy a building on Willoughby that becomes the first Filipino Community Hall. It’s a place where their marriages are honored and respected, and where we kids can play and feel secure.
SOUND: Music. A distant owl.
BARBARA:
We walk back up to home on Starr Hill.
ANDREA:
Some nights we lay out in the snow in the dark.
BARBARA:
There are no street lights here.
ANDREA:
Look at that constellation! I see the Big Dipper.
BARBARA:
I see something green up there. Is it….?
ANDREA:
I think it is!
BARBARA:
It’s the Northern Lights!
ANDREA:
We watch the sky dance. Green, purple. Pink and white.
BARBARA:
We listen to the sounds of Juneau.
ANDREA:
Home.
BARBARA:
Home.
SOUND: Eagle’s call and a musical phrase bring us back to the present.
NARRATOR 1:
Eagle! Chʼáakʼ. Chʼáakʼ is swooping over town… flying toward South Franklin Street, and on to the clock on the corner.
NARRATOR 2:
To get to the clock, we’ll walk up Ferry Way here, away from the water, toward the mountain. Then, turn left on Franklin Street. The clock is a little ways up Franklin Street. You can’t miss it. That’s where you’ll find Juneau Voices Number 5.
