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Seif AbdelMeguid
900221201
RHET 1010
Dr. Noor Naga
Assignment 2 Draft 1
6 April 2023
Word Count: 908
Alex Tizon Is Not a Hero Nor a Villain

Alex Tizon is one of the known successful writers of recent times, partly because of some of his

successful books and articles he has written. However, most of his fame stems from the widely popular ,

yet controversial, 2017 article titled “My Family’s Slave”. The article tells the story of a Filipino woman

named “Lola” who was given by the author’s grandfather to his mother to serve her for life. Lola suffers

from slave-like treatment from Tizon’s mother and her two husbands, while Tizon tries to help her

throughout his life. His help ranged from standing up for Lola when his parents abused her to

compensating Lola and her relatives financially. The reaction to this publication was extremely mixed as

some praised Tizon for his courage to publish such a shaming story, whereas others condemned him and

his family for their inhumane behavior. Nevertheless, this article argues that Alex did minimal effort to

help Lola due to his self-interests, despite his behavior towards Lola improving as an adult, it still could

be attributed to selfish needs.

One of Tizon’s concerns was his family’s fragility, so he partially neglected Lola ‘s situation to

protect his family. This is because Tizon’s family struggled financially throughout their time in the US.

Both his parents worked multiple jobs to provide for their family, which took its toll on both their

physical and mental health. Additionally, it prevented the parents from doing the necessary household

duties, making Lola essential to the family. From cleaning the house to cooking the meals, Lola was

responsible for everything relating to household work. Tizon knew how important Lola is to the house,

and as he said in his article that “losing her would have been devastating”. For this reason Tizon, out of

fear of breaking up the family, refrained from taking effective action towards helping Lola. As helping

her would eventually lead to Lola’s deportation, given her illegal immigration status. He tried to show his

reasoning throughout his article through his use of some justifications for his inaction. However, this use
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of justifications only proved Tizon’s immorality and negligence, as Shalvi et al explain that people who

have been immoral use self-serving justifications to feel moral (125). For instance he writes that if he

turned his parents in to the police it would have “blown up my family in an instant”. As discussed before,

he also wrote that “losing Lola would have been devastating”. This points to the fact that Tizon knew that

his inaction was immoral, and he used these justifications to reduce the threat experienced by his

morality. 

Tizon’s behavior as a child showed his negligence of Lola’s situation and her overall happiness.

However as he grew, he became much more concerned with Lola and tried to actually improve her

circumstances. Despite this, The observed behavioral change could have arguably served Tizon’s

interests. As Cherry explains in her 2022 article that people usually overachieve in some areas as a

compensation for failures in others. To clarify, Tizon’s knowledge of his immoral actions in the past

pushed him to prioritize Lola’s happiness. Therefore, he started helping Lola through effective means, by

giving her basic life necessities, perhaps for the first time in her life. First, he gave her a bedroom, since

she used to sleep on the floor of his mother’s house. He also started giving her and her relatives money

that they can spend on whatever they desire. However the biggest improvement was giving Lola control

over her life. Which he did when he stopped forcing Lola to do the household work, as his mother used to

do. He also tolerated her behavior, which he admitted was somewhat annoying. Finally, he gave her the

option to return to her childhood village in the Philippines, so that she could meet her family for the first

time since she went to the US. This was done as a compensation to Lola for the suffering she went

through, which could also be labeled as self-serving. Since it helped him cope with any undesired feelings

brought on from his past failures.

In conclusion, Tizon is neither a hero nor a villain in this story. Since he failed to take a decisive

stance on Lola’s situation when he was young. As he prioritized his family over his ethics, choosing to try

to merely stop this degrading treatment of Lola rather than helping her escape it. Nevertheless, his

behavior saw a shift to the better, as he considered Lola’s happiness a priority throughout the later parts of

her life. Yet, This change could have only been done to act as a defense mechanism against any guilty
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feelings he had from earlier parts of his life. Therefore, this makes judging Tizon a much harder task,

since it raises the complex question of whether we should judge individuals based on their actions or

intentions.
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Work-Cited

Cherry, Kendra. “Why People Use Compensation as a Defense Mechanism.” Verywell Mind,

Dotdash Meredith, 13 Apr. 2022, www.verywellmind.com/what-is-compensation-

2794972. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023.

Shalvi, Shaul, et al. “Self-Serving Justifications: Doing Good and Feeling Moral.” Current

Directions in Psychological Science, vol. 24, no. 2, 2015, pp. 125–130.,

doi.org/10.1177/0963721414553264.

Tizon, Alex. The Atlantic, June 2017, www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/06/lolas-

story/524490. Accessed 6 Apr. 2023.