Stingers Up: The Day We Moved Nica Into Sacramento State
Stingers Up: The Day We Moved Nica Into Sacramento State
A laundry cart, a suitcase, and three generations of family — how we sent our eldest off to Sacramento State on freshman move-in day, August 24, 2018.
Every parent posting a back-to-school photo this week is really posting the same photo: a kid, a car or a cart, boxes that don't all fit, and a version of themselves that only shows up for one morning a year. Ours is from eight years ago — August 24, 2018 — the day we moved our eldest, Veronica, into her dorm at Sacramento State.
The photo tells the story without needing much of a caption. Left to right: me, pushing a Sac State laundry cart loaded down with Nica's boxes; Nica herself, clutching her iPhone, already halfway into the next chapter of her life; Tita Gigi — my father's eldest sister, and the eldest of all eight Perseveranda siblings — who flew in from Pasadena because she wasn't going to miss it; Tess, behind the camera instead of in front of it, recording video of the whole morning; and Papa, my dad, pulling a suitcase of Nica's clothes in his old black BHS hoodie.
Sacramento State was founded on September 22, 1947, as Sacramento State College — its first semester enrolled just 235 students under five full-time faculty. That December, students voted on a mascot and chose a hornet over "the Elk," which the committee decided wasn't aggressive enough. Herky the Hornet has represented the school ever since, and the cheer hasn't changed since: Stingers up!
Bayanihan bah-yah-nee-HAHN
Meaning: Communal unity — neighbors carrying each other's burdens together, pictured traditionally as an entire barangay lifting and carrying a bahay kubo to its new spot.
Isang pamilya, isang bayanihan. Nobody moved that laundry cart alone — a tita flew in from Pasadena, a mother filmed instead of packing, a grandfather pulled a suitcase in his own old hoodie. That's bayanihan at dorm-room scale.
The Whole Family Showed Up
Tita Gigi didn't have to be there. She's the eldest of eight Perseveranda siblings, my father's eldest sister, and Pasadena is a five-hour drive or a plane ticket from Sacramento — not exactly a quick trip for one morning of moving boxes. She came anyway, because in this family a milestone like this one isn't something you hear about after the fact. You show up for it.
Tess made sure the morning existed somewhere other than memory. She's the one behind the camera in this shot, not in front of it — filming instead of packing, because someone always has to be the one who remembers to record it. And Papa, pulling a suitcase of his granddaughter's clothes in his own black BHS hoodie, put in the same quiet, physical work he's put in for every one of his grandkids' milestones. Nobody assigned him that job. He just picked up a bag and started walking.
A Cart Full of Everything
The Sac State laundry cart in the photo was standard-issue for every freshman that week — every family on that campus was pushing one just like it, loaded with the same lamps and the same over-packed duffel bags. What made ours ours was who was pushing it, and who flew in just to help push it.
Eight years later, the cart's long gone and so is that dorm room. What's left is the photo — and the fact that a Fil-Am student working the school's media department happened to be shooting freshman move-in day that same morning, and caught five of us in one frame without any of us posing for it.
Stingers up, Nica. Still proud of that morning.
- California State University, Sacramento — Official University History
- The State Hornet — "Herky the Hornet: 70 Years at Sac State"
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J.F. (Jonjo) left the Philippines at age nine, spending a lifetime bridging the gap between his Marikina roots and his Chicago/Vallejo upbringing. A proud Hogan Spartan from East Vallejo and resident of LA/SF, he founded PinoyBuilt not just as a digital archive, but as a cultural compass for his three children to navigate their heritage, language, and identity with Pinoy Pride.
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