My grandfather, Anastacio Herrera, has lived a long and storied life, enduring many personal challenges and hardships in order to improve the quality of life for his family and members of his community. Growing up in the rural barrio of Borbon on the island of Cebu, Philippines, he aspired from a young age to help people. After putting himself through medical school by working as a pinboy in a bowling alley and selling roasted pig meat on the streets of Cebu City, he returned to Borbon to raise a family of 7 while providing medical care and governance to the village. However, the oppressive Marcos regime forced Tas to flee the Philippines with my family in tow and he eventually settled in Adair County, Kentucky, operating a general practice as well as working in the ER treating community members for another twenty years.

            Eventually, he, along with my grandmother, Paz, retired to the coastal town of Bluffton, South Carolina where he spends his days tending to his garden and perfecting the art of Bonsai. After spending some time gardening with him, I began to notice many similarities between the stories he shared of his time practicing medicine and the way he approaches the philosophies of Bonsai. From tending to the plant’s needs to using wire and clamps to “set” their limbs, I found he treated each bonsai with the same care that he would extend to his patients. These parallels became more apparent when I saw how he repurposed his surgical instruments, such as scalpels and forceps, to now become tools to aid in shaping and trimming plants. Each of the deliberate, focused actions he performed when practicing Bonsai were reminiscent of the coordinated movements of a surgeon. In response, I began to photograph on color film moments where I felt his experience as a doctor were the most evident, as well as artifacts that point to his personal history while tying it to his current interests. These images serve not only as documentation of how I see his past informing the present, but also as a way to preserve the memory of the time we spend together in the garden and provide the viewer a small glimpse into the life of a Filipino immigrant.