Feeling Like Home
Among my 5-year-old core memories, my recollection of the Philippines is the poopiest: we were on a walk in Dad’s hometown when a lumbering carabao defecated across the dirt road, its residue spattering on my arm. “Kadiri,” my older cousin sneered, as she hastily wiped it off and ushered us back to Lolo’s house. Inside the bahay kubo, I stared down between wooden floor slats far up from the ground below.
I’ve often returned to that memory, and this past summer 35 years later, I finally got to go back. Only this time instead of walking, we coasted comfortably down cement-paved roads in an air-conditioned sedan. Instead of stopping by Lolo’s long-gone house, I gazed out the window as Dad pointed out familiar landmarks of his youth.
Driving past extensive rice fields, shoddy wooden sheds, and houses constructed from concrete and corrugated metal, Dad was the narrator and I the cameraperson, poised and ready to record precious moments with my iPhone. I heard familiar stories he had often regaled me with, but this time we were in the very spots they happened: “Ate B’s school. The hill where Inang and I picked vegetables to sell at the market. The market where we sold vegetables before I started school. This road I walked to school, it was dirt. When it rained, it was mud. In town, there used to be a theater there: we watched movies during our break.”
In the 35 years since I had returned to Dad’s town, so much had happened—I’d graduated from elementary school, high school and college, finished a Master’s program, became a teacher, gotten married, started a doctoral program. My life in the U.S. was so full of responsibility, of titles, of opportunities. And yet, I couldn’t stop thinking about how reality could have been very different had my parents not immigrated to the U.S.
During this trip, there were so many times my emotions teetered between awe and devastation: while I was content with my very-busy life back in the U.S., I felt I fit in here, too. I silently bemoaned the fact that I couldn’t be in two places at once, that time had slipped away and with that, opportunities to see aging family members, to occupy spaces where folx looked like me, to be in places where I didn’t feel like I had to prove that I was “enough.” Back in the U.S., I had become accustomed to steeling myself in spaces where I was the only Filipino—the “token” Asian—where the most minuscule details of my identity were doubted, questioned, exoticized. Though I consider America home, such exclusionary actions—though, perhaps even well-intentioned—have time and time again systemically fostered the idea that I am a perpetual “other.”
But being in Dad’s province now, I didn’t feel the need to steel myself. Though I received curious glances for my Amerikanang accent and foreign demeanor, I also felt generally accepted that I was Pinay, and that was enough for me. So on this particular trip, I allowed myself to just be. I let myself cry, greeting loved ones I hadn’t seen in decades. I let tears trickle down my cheeks, knowing that time here was limited, that soon enough I’d be heading back to California, and with that returning to responsibilities, family, and friends who awaited me.
While saying all this, I acknowledge the privilege that comes with being able to share such emotions. I know that being American has provided opportunities to travel nearly anywhere in the world, to feel empowered to speak my mind in ways that others might not be able to or even deem necessary. I also understand that there are others out there who see me aligned with America and the West, colonizer and oppressor.
At the same time, I know that my own experiences mirror the realities of so many others, specifically, the first-gen experience, the third culture kid. The theories and the frameworks are there for me to rationally understand, and yet, my emotions still feel so heavy and raw when I go back, every single time.
To round out my thoughts, I also have to acknowledge the sacrifices that my parents made to earn such privileges for us, which included starting over in a new country, learning (and also refuting) different ways of knowing, doing, and being. While I commiserate with these emotions as a child of immigrants, I can only imagine the depths of loss that my own parents might feel when returning to their birth country: the bittersweet nostalgia at realizing places of their youth have weathered and aged or are completely gone, replaced with something more shiny and modern. Such are reminders of time passing, reminders of the choices that they’ve ultimately made for themselves and for their children. Such realities hold complexity, a sense of which I have come to hold greater space for with the passing of time.
Overall in thinking about this particular trip to the Philippines, I am thankful that Dad and I spent quality time together—we reminisced about our first trip all those years ago while also creating new memories, but this time, with no carabao poop in sight. The trip continued to meld new layers of understanding to what makes me who I am and where I came from, and for that I am not only refreshed, but also grateful. To the country that continues to influence my identity from 8,520 miles away: this certainly won’t be my last trip, and I definitely won’t wait another 35 years, either!
Pilipinas, Mahal kita.♥️
