I’m turning thirty four this year. Just earlier I was four, fourteen and twenty four. Just a couple of moons ago, my nephews and niece in the Philippines were kids. My oldest nephew was eight; now he’s eighteen. Earth’s rotation is surely stupendously short. What’s sad about all this is I missed a wonderful opportunity to be an uncle. I am now an uncle only by relation; not an uncle by role. It seemed a very attractive and important proposition back then. A young, modern and hip uncle that will guide them through the tumultuous teenage years. Alas, this will never be. I will be remembered as the distant uncle; the once-every-couple-of-years uncle; the uncle mentioned in family gatherings but vaguely remembered, obscurely talked about. Like some of the uncles of my youth, I have become the non-uncle of theirs.
The scenario above is being repeated with Faye’s nieces. They’ve moved to San Diego and we are in Houston. Once or twice a year gatherings will not be enough to retain that bond, that connection. We have been the relatives that they’ll see on special occasions.
Which brings me to the second point of this narrative: My observations on the diaspora, the migration, the uprooting, the separation. The movement of person or family from one physical space to another breeds altered realities. My decision to build and grow my own family thousands of miles from where I grew up creates thousands of barriers to the traditions, values and perspectives I grew up with. I often wonder how it is for others because as we all can enumerate and expound on the benefits of living a new or renewed life in a foreign land, there must be something persistently, consistently alien about all these.
The last time I was in California, I tried to further my curiosity by observing Filipinos at the mall and at the church. I stared, probed and made mental notes. You look at people’s faces and demeanor with interest and you’ll oftentimes see through the facade. You intently watch people’s eyes and oftentimes you’ll see beyond the mask. I was in this (weird) mode when I heard Hotel California play and marveled at how the metaphors matched. The song, of course has had many interpretations and I don’t have an iota of illusion that mine is even close. I just found some lines in the song that are apt.
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light. My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim. I had to stop for the night. – Whatever our reasons were for leaving, whether we needed to or we had to, we chose a place that shimmered. It was that mesmerizing glow that drew us in. Looking at the faces around me, I wonder how many of them are here for very good reasons and how many have been lured by the light.
And I was thinking to myself, this could be heaven or this could be hell. – I’m sure that this thought enters the mind of someone who’s moving to a different place. Migrating to a different country, county or city is a leap of faith. The experience, the situation one is thrown into could literally be heavenly or hellish. Looking at the faces around me, I wonder how many are truly or slightly happy and how many are slightly or truly miserable.
You can check out any time you want but you can never leave. – I remember when I left, I said I’ll try this out for a few years, maybe 5 or 8. I must admit that much as I look forward to short trips back home, I have not really given serious thought recently about re-building a life back there. Many go back for a vacation but even those that want to go back find it very difficult to do so. Looking at the faces around me, I wonder how many feel free and how many feel trapped.
We are all just prisoners here of our own device – This line, elegant and succinct, is the clincher. As I look at the faces around me, I introspect. I am after all an observer and a participant. Prison could very well be an allegory for being away, living far. And every one here in this church or in this mall could very well be prisoners of their own doing, trapped by their own illusions, caught up in their made up dream, drinking self-prepared Kool Aids.
Much has been said and discussed about the Filipino diaspora – the migration, dispersion and reconstitution. If one day, there’ll be a collection of stories, opinions and remembrance, it will be so diverse as to escape stereotyping. The experiences will be so expansive that there’ll be no unifying theme, no underlying commonality, no singular undercurrent. It will be teeming with success stories and failures. It will be overflowing with lives improved and predicaments worsened. The stories will overwhelm the reader with a profusion of elation and will bother him with conflicted emotions.
What I learned from this brief moment of clarity is that the Filipino migration is not a singular movement. It cannot, should not be reduced to simple explanations of why people left. It is at the end of the day, a personal story. It is at the end of the analysis, a personal decision. Candidly, I have a good life here. Nothing really to complain about. The decision to move from Manila to California to Texas had been sound. Likewise, many are happy, successful, fulfilled or at least in the pursuit thereof. Likewise, many have found failure, are frustrated and desperate. But that happens everywhere. Life happens wherever.
We are all just masters or prisoners of our own device.
