When I was 13, I left for the Philippines.
On April 22nd, 2013, I left the U.S for the Philippines. I felt like I needed a new start in life and I wanted to be more connected to my culture. I was tired of being like every other Filipinx-American. Not knowing anything about my culture, couldn’t speak the dialect, and being grouped up with swagipinos or Jeremy Passion’s “Lemonade”.
It took about 6 months to become fluent in Tagalog and the first words I spoke were, “Kath, may na bili!” (Kath, someone’s buying!). My Tita (Auntie) had a sari-sari (stand-alone) store and my cousin, Kath, who became a best friend, had to tend to it. I remember everyone celebrating and I could finally travel safely, speaking Tagalog.
Around the same time, I picked up how to play guitar. Also first inspired by Kath but luckily it was a required music class too. I became good at it quickly and soon, Kath and I were some of the best guitarists at school. There were nights when a thunderstorm would hit the province, we had rolling blackouts, and all we could do was sit on the open balcony and play music.
Eventually, I found a church to be part of, C.A.O.C.M.I., thanks to Ella. Ate (a title Filipinx use for women that are older but close to your age) Charity, who became my church leader, taught me leadership, success, and failure in all ways. I became a G12 disciple leader and a lead guitarist for the church for a while. Some of my favorite times were when I’d skip church with Kiah to eat Neapolitan ice cream. My team taught me how to eat with my hands, became the family I ran to, and had sleepless sleepovers with while laughing about balut until 6am (sorry Nanay [Grandma] Pangilinan!).
After three years, I graduated from my school family, “UNITED”. These are friends that I had lunch with every day and never failed to make me laugh. We’d kick our feet up and put on a movie in hopes our teacher wasn’t in the mood to lecture, would make me lead Mambo N.5 for our senior “Dance of the Decades”, make a film with, we’d ride with three of us each on a motorcycle through the jungle to surprise our class advisor for his birthday. My fave was when we all brought our instruments so I’d play my guitar, Mhikaella would sit and play on the box drum, and Beulah would play the piano and sing.
I left on April 7th, 2016, and came back to the U.S. Since then, I’ve written about The Transnationalism of Filipinx Families (thanks to Dr. Valerie Francisco-Menchavez), Eating Filipinx-American (in honor of the late Dr. Dawn Mabalon), learned how to cook, eat, and teach various Filipino dishes, and been featured on Exit Spring Mountain as an AAPI sexuality educator. I’ll be celebrating Filipinx American Heritage Month at the First Filipino Night Market at The Space LV, so come and join me in my culture.
“Ipilit mang iba ako’y maghihintay sayo, ikaw ang aking kapiling sa huling sandali.” — December Avenue. link to my opm playlist. 🫶🏽
