Caretakers

Therapist by Day, Drag Socialite by Night: Meet Aleksa Manila | Caretakers Ep. 2

Aleksa is a genderqueer performer and multiple drag pageant winner who is also a therapist and healthcare worker. Since COVID-19 began, she has been offering virtual mental health therapy, working for the city of Seattle and, independently, in-person therapy with new safety protocols. One side of Aleksa’s office is her mental health practice, while the other half is where she does her virtual drag. How do these two vocations influence one another? This episode also introduces members of Aleksa’s drag family, The House of Manila, and underlines the connection of her life and work to the pre-colonial history of “Babaylan” transpiritual healers in Filipino culture.

This is the second episode of “Caretakers,” a four-part series on Filipino nurses and care workers in the U.S.

Premiere: October 21, 2021 | 0:09:02
TRANSCRIPT

(tense music) (upbeat music) - I've really grown to admire and respect the way my drag influences my work as a therapist, and vice versa.

I found the way for them to coalesce and cohabitate.

- [Person On Phone] Hi, Mother!

- Ayala!

How are you, my daughter?

- Okay.

What's up?

- I was hoping to catch up over brunch if you were available.

Yeah, just text me when you're done with dinner with the lover boy.

Mm.

Hi, I'm Aleksa Manila.

I am a social worker by day and drag socialite by night.

(upbeat music) (energetic piano and flute music) Professionally, I am a behavioral health specialist.

It's just a fancy term for a mental health therapist.

And I'm also a drug and alcohol professional or a counselor.

I am also a social worker in private practice.

Like many immigrants from the Philippines, I moved to Seattle to join the rest of my family.

We have a strong and vibrant Filipino American community.

In fact, my very first drag pageant title happens to be the Ms.

Gay Filipino, which was sponsored by the Ms.

Gay Filipino of Seattle community.

I think Filipinos and Filipino Americans make the most nurturing, most caring, most loving frontline workers.

I think it's just rooted in our hearts.

It's in our blood.

- To my recollection, I don't remember ever seeing a nursing home back home.

And I think it's because it's so ingrained in our community that like you are not your own person.

You are part of a large collective of individuals.

And even the people who are not your chosen family nor your blood family are still your family, just because you are one, because we are people.

(calm guitar music) - Somehow I landed in HIV research, and that opened the door for me with public health, with doing very specific LGBTQ work, HIV intervention.

And that's when I realized, wait a minute.

I want to be a therapist.

As a Filipino American, it's absolutely important to recognize the social stigma of mental health.

This pandemic reminded me of how many people don't think of mental health as part of our overall health, that we often just concentrate on the physicality of our health, when really it's all of those things.

And part of that too, is supporting patients while they're recovering, while they're experiencing COVID.

Just imagine the anxiety.

Again, the fear.

Being able to provide someone with that kind of support, that can be so beautiful.

And sometimes that's all that we need.

(calm music) I just love that in Philippine culture, we honor the Babaylans.

I embrace that identity.

And I know I've been guilty of being socially conditioned to sequester myself in the binary, either being gay or straight and being a man or a woman, but the Babaylan spirit and identity is so powerful.

Through colonialism and imperialism, we had to sort of bury it.

And it's only now that we get to unearth it.

And I'm so proud of my fellow trans siblings and trans activists that talk about the Babaylans, that talk about two spirits, that talk about the healers that personify the different aspects of being a human being.

And I can't believe I'm using some of the drag tips and tricks that I've learned over the years that I'm incorporating in my consulting, in my evaluations, in providing behavioral health support.

Drag adds humor to topics that are often taboo, and that might induce hurt.

But drag allows an opportunity to talk about it in beautiful ways.

It's allowed me to be even more understanding, even more compassionate of fellow drag kings and queens, and other performers and our community at large.

(calm piano music) A big chunk of my young adulthood was in the Philippines, so I carried with that connection to family and community.

To be a drag mother in a drag house.

It's probably universal around that natural tendency to be caring, to be protective, helping, assisting someone to be their best self.

My first set of drag daughters, I had, I don't know.

How many is that?

Quintuplets?

My first year.

Right now, I have about 40 plus.

And it's become now an annual tradition that every year I give birth to a drag baby.

- Aleksa pretty much sent me a message one day, and she said, "I just feel like I have to listen to the signs.

And like, this is your moment.

The stars have aligned.

It's time to become a Manila."

(singing "Happy Birthday" in Tagalog) Don't think of it as a drag career.

Just think of it as family.

You can't build community without knowing what community is to begin with.

And for me, that is my drag house and my drag family.

Yes, mother, you always provide.

- (laughs) Well, you always give.

♪ And my dream ♪ ♪ For Ayala is♪ Hello.

Rule the world.

♪ Mother Mother ♪ Truly my mother.

Manila, Manila, Manila forever.

- I now know, it means so much to me to be able to recognize all these different facets of my identity, both from a personal, professional, social, spiritual, and all these things.

(sighs deeply) (calm orchestral music) All to say that I feel so empowered that I get to be proud of all these things.

Being a drag queen who does behavioral health, and a behavioral health specialist, therapist, whatever you want to call it, and being able to do drag simultaneously.

(calm orchestral music)