Back in 2005, I flew to America because my US Visa was about to expire and I thought this may the last time I see America. As part of the ways of a Filipino living via the kindness of others in a foreign land, I had to attend some Fil-Am gatherings. Scratch that, I thought I'd be speaking to Fil-Ams my age, but I was relegated to entertain via conversation a bunch of first generation Fil-Ams who flew to America from the late 1970s to the early 1990s. I remember being spoken to by a gentleman, you know the type, garrulous and unhinged in his opinion, who says he knows a lot of people. He told me (1) to stay and he can hook me up a job at a gas station, (2) that he knows some young lady who would want to marry me. "Asawa mo isteytsayd! ayaw mo niyan!? sa gandang lalake mo, di ka mahihirapan dito hekhekhekhek."
I think my mother failed to inform them beforehand that I am not of that persuasion. Anyway, it is amazing to observe the conversations of the first-generation Fil-Ams in Anaheim. So, I was offered a job at a gas station; and then the topic veered off to a former Filipino movie star heartthrob who emigrated to America to become a gasoline station worker. And I remember the air of contempt. Not for the job, but for the actor. How he was so "mayabang" in Manila and was then eating humble pie in California.
So there is this persistent vision of America as an "equalizer" for most Filipinos. I say most because the Marcoses and many of their fellow plundering cohorts were here. Imee Marcos, for all her luxury and access, reportedly was a truant university student. Maybe following her mom at Studio 54? But for the rest of the Pinoys here, it is not in comfort but to live in between exhaustion and the fear and threat of agony of poverty.
For Señoritos like yours truly, it was not a rude wake up call. I was expecting this, but a hilarious grappling over life. And is it rude if I sort of enjoy it? I mean, sure, I wish I had time to learn how to cook before I left, but here I am with a bowl of heated leftover pasta wondering what went wrong that it does not taste like Manang Padak's masterpiece.
Of course, there is always a threat. The pandemic and the insecurity over my situation here. Nobody really knows what's going to happen. I mean, nobody can really tell us how to live through a pandemic as an international student. But makes me wonder, what my life would be like, had I taken the plunge and stayed here in 2005, married a woman, and worked at the gasoline station.