Ligaya Flauta

Twelve years ago, Ligaya Flauta was found with her head on her desk at work. She fell into a coma, and when she recovered her husband, Felix Flauta Sr, took care of her until the end of her life. She was 54 when she was found unconscious. She will be 65 forever. And even though they found her in what looked like sleep, and even though she slept for many days until she recovered, and even though she will sleep until the day when we all awaken, her life was not ruled by rest. Ligaya Flauta was tireless, and she always fought to help herself and to teach others how to do the same. She grew up as the eldest of seven children. Her parents, Ursolino Rosero and Avelina Rosero, did not have the means to raise so many in Quezon City in the Philippines, and so it fell to Ligaya, or Ate Gay, to take care of her brothers Isagani, Ursolino Jr., and Virgilio, and her sisters, Norma, Rosalinda, and Isabelita. Her solution was to go to school. She would be the first in her family to earn a college degree, but her father didn't want her to take classes. One day, he broke her glasses to try to keep her from going, and she ended up having to pay much of her college expenses herself by working at the Philippine Normal College (PNC, now a university) in the afternoon while attending classes in the morning. An earthquake damaged the PNC where she worked in 1968, and Ligaya's future husband, Felix Flauta, was the project Engineer for the reconstruction of the library building. Felix's papers for a US Visa were already underway. After they met, he delayed his departure for the United States for as long as he could so that they could be together until he was given an ultimatum to leave on or before December 31, 1970. In the meantime, Ligaya took a secondary course in library science so that she could work in the library during and after school. After she graduated and passed her elementary school teacher examinations in April of 1969, she briefly taught in an elementary school before moving on to become librarian of Gusman Tech, a newly formed technical school. They were married in 1970. They would meet after work to eat together sometimes, and a worker at the Embassy approached them. Felix would be leaving Ligaya behind for a short while to find work in the United States, and the worker convinced them to apply for Ligaya's visa ahead of time. There was so much uncertainty in their leaving each other. Felix was not guaranteed work, nor was he guaranteed to have enough to bring Ligaya over any time soon. However, they dove in and filling out the paperwork would pay off later in the end. Ligaya taught briefly in an elementary school in the Philippines before moving across the Pacific Ocean to join her husband in Chicago. She braved the change to help herself and her family. She would be the first in her family to live in the United States. He couldn't return to the Philippines to get her; it would have been too expensive. Instead, she flew on the plane alone. As if it wasn't enough that she had flown alone to a strange country to live, one of the first people she encountered wasn't her husband, but a man asking if she would pay him money to help her with her immigrant status by marrying or stating his intent to marry her. Felix found her at the airport, and together the two of them lived frugally, sharing meals when they did eat out, saving their money to help themselves and to help their families back in the Philippines. In Chicago she worked odd jobs until she passed the clerk examination for the Chicago Public Library in 1973. Over the course of 27 years she worked at various locations for the Chicago Public Library: the El Centro De La Causa Reading and Study Center in Pilsen, the old Eckhart Park Branch on Chicago Avenue, the Independence Branch on Irving Park, the Foreign Language and Literature Department on the Ninth Floor of the Harold Washington Library Center. By the end of her run there, she was a Library Associate and a member of the library's Asian American Committee. During her tenure at CPL, Ligaya worked to further her career by pursuing her Master's Degree in Library Science at Rosary College (now Dominican University) and earning a library position at Chicago State. However, she neither completed the degree nor took the job at the College. Inspired by her reach, her son, Felix Jr., would complete his own Master's Degree in Library Science at the University of Illinois while working for the Chicago Public Schools and his wife, Tara Flauta, would complete hers at Dominican University while also working for the Chicago Public Library system, finishing the work that Ligaya started. Ligaya used her immigration status and her job to bring her parents Avelina and Ursolino to the United States and to help send her sister to school. Later, her parents applied to bring some of them to the United States as well. Today, Ursolino Jr., Isabelita, and Virgilio live in the Chicago area with their families, together with extended family members related to Rosalinda and Isagani. Ligaya always stayed in close contact with family from her home in Albany Park, and her efforts paid off in the end. Her other efforts extended from her faith. A member of the Church of Christ, or Iglesia ni Cristo, Ligaya helped found the local congregation of Chicago in 1972. The congregation had begun as a small prayer group in 1971, and Ligaya continuously worked to strengthen her faith and the faith of others. Prior to her coma, Ligaya was at a church event where she had to leave for an emergency operation. At the time she was a deaconess, a finance officer of the congregation and a District Secretary of the Church's Buklod organization (an organization focused on family). It was September 11, 2001, and she required an emergency operation the same night as the terrorist attacks on the twin towers. The world outside her family and the world within her family was at a standstill as everyone tried to make sense of two separate tragedies. Later she would return to her church duties only to fall into her coma on November 29, 2001. Only the severity of her illnesses was able to keep her from performing her church duties. Throughout all this, Ligaya and Felix had their own sons, Llewellyn, Felix Jr., and Felimaur. She raised them to understand the value of their education, the luck of their privilege, and the strength of faith and family. She has seen them all finish school and find work. She has witnessed their marriages to women whom she would have cared for as her own, Christianne Saavedra, Tara Barnes, and Janice Pacione. She has met four of her grandchildren, Chrisellyn Ligaya, Evan Louie, Maureen Jaye, and Marc Gabriel . And, hopefully, she can rest now knowing that parts of her life have inspired and are mirrored in theirs.