An ayangile rests on the bed of a bangka as it floats to where the sea brings her to put down roots.

From stories passed down from generations before me, I discovered that there once was an acacia confusa that grew in front of my family’s home in Rosario, Cavite. As my family tell it, my eldest uncle cut down that family acacia tree to build a bangka, or a small wooden boat. This oral story parallels the story of my eldest uncle emigrating after years of service as a Filipino in the U.S. Navy. Due to socioeconomic and political pressures to leave the Philippines, my uncle became the first in the family to emigrate to the U.S. Like in the acacia-turned-bangka story, the opportunity to leave the motherland always comes at a high price: One must sacrifice the life of a living tree. In my uncle’s case, it meant uprooting the family tree from its roots in exchange for an uncertain chance at a better life. In Dreams of an Acacia, I imagine the bangka being transformed back to its lost source—a bountiful acacia.