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What Hero loved most wasn’t the cadre names people chose, but the word kasama itself: kasama, pakikisama. In Ilocano, the closest word was kadwa. Kadwa, makikadwa. Companion, but that English word didn’t quite capture its force. Kasama was more like the glowing, capacious form of the word with: with as verb, noun, adjective, and adverb, with as a way of life. A world of with-ing.
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