forever the immigrant
I was born in one country. I grew up in another. And another.
This continued to happen again and again in multiple other countries until I was 13-years old, when my family moved to America for my mother’s job promotion. So when I say that I had accumulated multiple cultural experiences, it is not by any means a way to brag about my upbringing, but rather to give perspective to how my views on the world is skewed to my understanding as I have experienced it. Including the political views I stand by — mostly as a liberal.
Before anyone is brave enough to question the obvious, yes, I do fit the liberal archetype — a college student majoring in humanities. This is not by any means a way to undermine my understanding of politics as a bias towards my personal belief systems per se, but as a way to showcase a more open-minded letdown towards people who scrutinizes and disregards the problems that come from new president-elect, Donald Trump. Someone who mocks minorities and disregards actual political, economic, and social problems in our current society — all while displaying the intelligence of a 12-year old child — shouldn’t sit in the most powerful office in America.
Many people forget that Asian Americans has been scrutinized since they first landed in the Americas, and in fact, the first Asians to come to North America were Filipino sailors — who came aboard Spanish ships in the late 15th century and were sujected to such a torrent of vermin and filth on these vessels that half died en route; when they got to colonial Mexico, many refused to cross the Pacific again. They settled in Acapulco and married local women. Asian America began in desperation. This desperation, mocked by those who doesn’t understand half of the sacrifice it took to leave families behind and start a new life in an unknown country, is still being ridiculed today. Dubois said that double consciousness was understanding oneself as themselves, but also having the supernatural ability to understand how others see you. But if no one sees themselves as who they are and how this then affects others, then how can anyone understand each other? Trump preys on the fact that people are incredibly biased towards their point-of-views and persuasion becomes almost redundant to those unintelligible to the world.
The past few years living in America might have been the most accelerated crash- course in learning what it means to be Filipino-American, and the election that happened less than three weeks ago, was like a “fuck you” to people who looked like me, or those who qualifies as part of the Muslim, Black, Latino, Asian, and LGBTQ+ Americans — who have always been — and even more so now, living in fear. There is something incredibly broken and heart-wrenching when the first response to the new president-elect from minorities is “I’m scared”. Scared for what the future holds, scared that the next four years will be nothing but persecutions of said minorities, and scared that half of the population who came out to vote agreed with a sexist, racist, and maniac of a man — whilst the other half stayed home and watched as he got elected.
What really increases the fear factor is that fact that most of these voters are not much different from you or me, at least visibly. It felt like in the years that I had tried so hard to “fit in” in America, the culmination ideas and yearning to feel like someone like me, who stood out as someone who very much didn’t look the part of a white America, would someday not feel as if I still looked out of place. The election also verified that America, the land of the free, feared immigrants — feared us. And it felt like being hit by a truck, or maybe even worse, to have confirmed such supposed ridiculous accusations in a country that was built on immigrants, by immigrants, for immigrants. There are times where I feel thankful for living in California, a diversified state that understands that diversity is a powerful tool in creating and building more important things than a — for lack of a better word — stupid wall.
