Western Swing and the Sound of Belonging

It started with my grandfather, Ventura Lumidao — a survivor of the Bataan Death March and World War II POW camps.A man who endured the unthinkable and still walked the streets of Sunnyvale, California, wearing a handmade "Bataan Death March" sweater with quiet pride.He raised nine children under the shelter of American ideals and carried his love for music like sacred scripture.

Ventura Lumidao, survivor of the Bataan Death March and World War II POW camps, whose resilience and love of music continue to inspire generations of his family.

At family gatherings and community parties, the Filipino men — many of them friends from the same village — would gather with a guitar, singing tight three-part harmony late into the night.

Their voices — smooth, playful, full of life — ushered me into a lifelong love for the sounds of The Mills Brothers.

They wore pinky rings and strong cologne, and their songs never missed a note.

My grandmother would sing Slim Whitman's "Indian Love Call" back in their village nipa hut — a memory my mother still recalls like it was yesterday.

That's how country music first entered my blood.

Western Swing rose from the meeting points of Black, Mexican, German, and jazz traditions — a sound stitched together for dance halls and communities who understood that music was movement, and movement was memory.

Filipinos found a home in it naturally. Perhaps because our traditional music carries the echoes of Spanish and German waltzes. Maybe because memory and melody travel through generations the same way stories do. For us, country music didn’t sound foreign. It sounded like home.

Meghan McCoy with Leon Rausch, legendary Voice of the Texas Playboys, in Lubbock, Texas.

I’ve been blessed to encounter legends who embodied that spirit. Leon Rausch “ The Voice of the Texas Playboys” — warm, generous, and deeply human — welcomed me when I first crossed paths with him and Tommy Allsup in Lubbock, Texas. Later, during my time hosting a radio show, I interviewed him, and he stayed in touch — always making me feel like I already belonged.

That kind of welcome stays with you. Especially in a world where, sometimes, the doors weigh heavy. Where belonging isn't just about talent, but about permission.

One open door can change everything.

One voice saying, "Come in — you already belong."

This May, during Asian American, Native Hawaiian, and Pacific Islander Heritage Month, I honored that lineage: performing at the Crocker Art Museum for Filipinx Law Students Association, traditional dancing rooted in both my bloodline and my birthright.

Later this summer, I’ll take the stage twice at the California State Fair: once leading my Western Swing band, Mae McCoy and her Neon Stars, and once dancing traditional Filipino folk in the cultural showcase.

None of it feels out of place. I don’t have to choose between stages. It’s all the same songbook.

Western Swing didn’t teach me how to belong. It reminded me that I always did.