‘Golden California’

After an almost two-month stay in Los Angeles, I found myself in LAX awaiting my flight back home to the Philippines. My Mom and Dad, who sat beside me, looked awfully crestfallen. The prospect of “abandoning” my parents in a foreign land, more than 2,000 miles away from family and friends, was heartbreaking. I knew how they’d feel alone even in a city with a population of 4 million.

I arrived in the United States last summer – my first time to be there. As I was traveling with an immigrant visa, the plan was for me to stay there for good and become a US citizen. But I was only a year away from graduating from college, and we thought it was best if I stayed in the United States for just a couple of months to comply with immigration formalities, secure my green card and then return to the Philippines to finish my studies. I’m now a journalism senior, and as soon as I get my diploma, I’m heading straight back to California.

“Mauunahan mo pa kaming makauwi sa Pinas,” my Mom blurted with a tinge of envy and regret. Since she set foot on the United States three years ago, she never has had a chance to return to the Philippines. And Dad, a US citizen, has been back here only four times. He has been residing in California for more than 10 years now. Despite their being homesick and even though they can buy expensive plane tickets home, neither of them can afford the luxury of going to the Philippines, even for a short visit. That would mean taking a break from work and relinquishing time that could be spent earning money.

“We’re very lucky, son,” my Dad would often tell me in LA, “many people would kill just to come to America.” I know. I’ve seen people selling practically everything they owned for a shot at working in the “States,” as we refer to the “land of milk and honey.” But I didn’t have to make the same sacrifice.

If the seemingly endless lines in front of the US Embassy in the Philippines are any indication, many Filipinos are willing to go through hell and high water just to escape the pitiable life they have in the Philippines. Our economy looks so bleak that many resort to a US visa as their golden ticket to a better life.

But the two months I’ve been in the States was long enough for me to see that establishing a career or working in the “Land of the Free and Home of the Brave” is not as glamorous as it’s bruited about.

My parents are care providers in a facility for the “developmentally disabled,” or people with disabilities that hinder daily functioning, independent living and economic self-sufficiency. The facility serves as a home not only to the developmentally disabled clients but also to my parents. It’s my parents’ responsibility to look after those residing there, cook meals for them, clean the house, and make sure that the residents don’t harm themselves or their fellows as most of them have self-destructive behavior.

Throughout my stay in the facility, I saw firsthand how looking after childish grownups can be so painstaking and sometimes even unsafe. Apart from doing housework, my parents have to frequently pacify the clients when they get into fistfights, or go after them whenever they attempt to run away, or intervene when they threaten to hurt themselves physically.

“This is what the American dream looks like, son” my Dad sneered as he scrubbed the toilet with his tired hands.

Ever since I was a small child, I’ve always thought that “living the American dream” meant achieving a self-actualizing, quality life with little difficulties. Turns out, the American dream, at least to our family, is more of a struggle to break away from poverty than an express-lane journey toward the realization of personal aspirations.

A minimum-wage employee, Dad often laments how the meager pay often cannot compensate for the lack of self-fulfillment, depression and physical stress he has to bear with his work. Mom, on the other hand, sleeps for only four or five hours a day because, aside from her day-shift at the facility, she also takes on the graveyard shift as a cashier at a gas station.

My folks’ occupations are exhausting, to say the least. But as my parents aren’t young anymore, fresh graduates and teenagers evidently have the edge in terms of landing higher-earning jobs, so they haven’t got much of a choice but to stick to their jobs. I guess what keeps them going is the idea that they are providing for their loved ones more than enough by Philippine standards.

Financial stability for their families is the reason many Filipinos flee to the United States. The exodus of Filipinos seeking greener pastures in the States can be likened to the 1848-1855 California Gold Rush. Much like the “forty-niners,” Filipinos are being drawn into the United States by the glint of “gold,” though not anymore necessarily “in the American river.” At present, there are over 4 million Filipinos residing in the States. But for most of them, hitting the “mother lode” is a lot harder than they can ever imagine.

In Los Angeles, my parents are into their own version of the California Gold Rush. Unseen behind all the balikbayan boxes, dollar remittances and exciting tales of places visited, are my parents’ sacrifices, most of all a life of loneliness, away from almost everyone and everything important to them – most especially family, kin and friends. No long distance calls can completely compensate for what they painfully miss.

To provide for a better life for their family, Dad and Mom missed the joy of seeing their kids grow up or the warm company of people they’ve known through their whole lives and became closest to. They forgo home-cooked Filipino meals and had to give up the rustic life in the province. They have to adapt to the ways of other peoples, other cultures.

True, you have to sacrifice so many things when you choose to go abroad in search of better opportunities and greener pastures and, ultimately, in pursuit of a better life for your family. Always in the main, it’s a choice between providing for your loved ones while being away from them, or being with them in poverty.

At LAX, I could feel how painful it was for my parents to see me leave. I kissed them both, hugged them tightly, boarded the plane and then was on my way to Manila with a heavy heart.

Back here in the Philippines now, I know this is my last chance to make the most out of life in the country I was raised in. Pretty soon, I’d be off again to the States, to carve out my own path to a better future. A lot of Filipinos wanting to go overseas just don’t know how daunting this challenge is, even in the States.

After I graduate and before I finally leave my home country and join the Filipinos’ present-day version of the “gold rush,” I’d like to have more time to reflect on and appreciate the things I’ll be missing out, like swimming in the river behind our house or being with my friends.

I’ll not only be building a life of my own, but also raising a family soon. It worries me that my future kids won’t be able to speak Tagalog or value the Filipino blood that runs through their veins.

During my stay in Los Angeles, I came to understand that it’s only fair for the Filipino pursuing the American dream to realize his “Filipino dream” first. And with less than a year left, this challenge could prove to be a great ordeal.

Andrew G. Gahol, 21, is a college senior taking up journalism at Bicol University. He is also the editor-in-chief of Budyong, the official student publication of Bicol University College of Arts and Letters.