In
the first part, I shared about my insights on the CIA as an association of
Catandunganons abroad that aims to re-enact home away from home. I said that
most of these expats had come to consider their host countries, e.g. U.S. and
Canada, home. The CIA is not exactly
an exercise in nostalgia, not an aching effort to bring back their good old
days in the island. Their days in the country of exile are arguably better, and
they have embraced wholeheartedly the strange land as their very own. How they carried the three-day reunion points
to this realization. It was a
celebration of their American-ness, as it was of their being Catandunganons.
Exile to the U.S. is pretty much the same
with exile to any other place, such as Manila. I take from my own experience. I
have stayed mostly in Manila for more than half my life now. I have come to
embrace it as my own. I consider myself as a “Manila boy.” I feel regular
longing for the province, and indeed see to it to satisfy such longing. Seeing
Virac from Taguntong, or from the air, makes my heart palpitate with
excitement. But a few days into my stay, I start getting impatient because I am
at a loss on how to spend my hours, which in many cases, I simply while away
sleeping. I seem to have lost the
competence to live a regular life in my own place. There had been a reversal: my place of exile
had become home and my birthplace had become the break away from home.
The
migrant then is somebody in an unusual situation: he straddles between two
homes. So what sort of species has the migrant become? And what now of a
migrant’s essential self? There is the
notion that one’ original culture becomes the foundation, the core of one’s
being and any other addition merely overlays on this, like a coat of paint, an
icing. Personally, I don’t buy this idea. So far as I have seen, the two (or
more) cultures that a migrant deals with get intertwined in complex ways in
one’s self, from the core to the surface. A second way of life does not remain
superficial: it can get well into the bottom of one’s personality. Given enough
time, it can create basic changes in the structure of the self.
Having
observed and interacted with mga
ka-probinsiya during my month’s stay in the US, I have come to realize that
indeed these compatriots have become a new category: Cat-Ams (Catandunganon
Americans). Operationally, they are Americans who have Catandunganon roots.
What defines them is the fact that they live the American way of life and the
Catandunganon in them is a given complication. The last thing I tell them is, “Ay
baging di ka sana daw nagriwat,” because I would be telling a lie. They were
not the same people I knew back home. They have changed not just in appearances
but in more fundamental sense, in the ways they see the world and do things.
To
start with, I argue that a person’s pagkatao
is shaped largely by the kind of society he/she moves in. If so, granting
that the American society is so drastically different from our Catanduanes, it
would mean that it will produce persons quite drastically different from the
typical Catandunganon. A Catandunganon then that stays long enough in the US
will in the long term shed off his/her usual self and become somebody else. As
an illustration, I will focus on the economic aspect. While American and
Catandunganon societies differ in most respects, the economic condition is
dominantly determinant, something that shapes almost everything else. In terms
of the individual, one’s economic circumstances then go a long way in shaping
his/her personality.
The
American economy is premised on abundance. America is a big country and you
take this not only in geographical terms. Everything there is on the big scale.
Burgers na baging mga plato, soft
drinks served in a glass na baging
kapitera, and they call it “regular size.”
The fridge in Americcan homes has double doors, baging aparador, and they are replicas of the super grocery: loaded
with food stuff in quantities that do not seem to match the number of people
going about to buy. You wonder: ay sisay
ang maga-parakaraon kaini? And so it is at my sister Becky’s house in Las
Vegas and at Dave Templonuevo’s place in Witchita, Kansan where I was a guest
for four days. In theory, I know this
because you read about it. But seeing it in reality, I can’t help it, naiskandalo ako. Over a sumptuous meal,
Dave would tell me, Kaon sana Mon ta dai
na man ning makaon kaan. Of course you have your limits, so it means that
some half of the food served goes to the trash bin. I tell Dave: pag-parok ngani ning orig ta sayang man su
sagmaw. Dave then makes a hearty laugh of it, and says that if he does
that, the neighbourhood will send him out of the place. At Becky’s place, they have to regularly rid
the fridge of unconsumed items that all go to the trash bin. She just tells me that these things cannot
stay in there forever. And then they shop again for a next batch.
Aside
from food, many other things that people buy are destined to be rid of, if not
soon, a little bit soon. American society operates on the logic of consumption,
and by extension on throwing away things. Ay
marasang dai gaka-kilimay? Dave explains that throwing away otherwise still
useful objects it is not a “sin” in the US; in fact, the opposite which is
keeping oneself from frenzy consumption is being “selfish”, a lack for a sense
of responsibility towards others. What? Because,
Dave explains further, somebody somewhere losses a job when you inhibit
yourself from buying. And that starts the downward spiral, the undoing of the
economy. When people lose jobs, they don’t have money to buy things, and how
would the companies make money to pay the employees if their products don’t
sell? That is classic Keynesian economics taught in college. It is something I
have long known as an academic, but it is something else to see it operate on
the close-up view, especially to the extent that the Americans had carried it.
To one like me from a poor country, the extravagance is simply scandalous. It
has stuck on me the age-old admonition that if you do not finish your meal, makilikot ang guramoy mo. What do you
make of a society where being waldas is
rewarded and thrift is penalized?
Now,
going back to my original point. Our Catandunganon migrants to the US, having
trained themselves to thrive on the logic of abundance and frenzy consumption,
will have to embrace a whole lot of related notions, values and practices that
impact on their being. First, they have to change their work ethics. They have
to really work hard like carabaos, like taking more than two jobs just in order
to make enough to cater to the demands of the new lifestyle. Second, they must
rely solely on merit and talents to get established and move forward. Social
connections and the padrino system
that are a must back home are absent. Third, they must be keen on a different
sort of politics where they vote based on platforms than on personalities (no
vote-buying there, sorry) because change in government policies affect their
lives in actual and real ways. So unlike in the Philippines where politicians
are pare-pareho lang sila, the only
difference really is on how much they can give you. In Catandunganon setting,
somebody with all these qualities, plus the predisposition to fantabulous
consumption, would appear as coming from another planet.
One
far-reaching effect of the logic of abundance on the Americans is the increased
taste for comfort and privilege, things which in their mind had become
necessities. Result is that they have such low tolerance for hardship and
depravity. They had acquired an inflated sense of “rights.” With the Cat-Ams
becoming such, they lose the competence to live regular lives in Catandunganon
setting. Riding through rough road to
the beach is an exciting “adventure”, but doing it every day to work? No way. Eating tuyo
or balaw is quaint, masilam while making babad in the cool waters of Marinawa.
But having it as regular fare? No, thanks. The thing is, living a life back in
the province on a permanent basis would be a nightmare for our Cat-Ams. For
them, life in the Philippines is simply a horrifying proposition. Back in 1996
during my first trip to the US, the Filipinos I’ve met there were completely
puzzled because I was going back. Before
I took my trip back last May 22, my sister Becky and her ICU unit in the
hospital she was working in was giving a despedida
to a Filipino co-worker who decided to relocate back to the Philippines
after some ten years in the states. Why, they could not figure out and they
would not buy the idea that she wanted her four children to grow up in
Philippine setting. At the last minute,
they were trying to dissuade her. I told my sister, hey, not everybody wants to
live here in the states. Your co-worker
has her reasons.
I
am not taking sides as to which between the American and Catandunganon way of
life is better. I say that both are simply varied options for survival, are
different menus for the pursuit of happiness and meaning in life. You choose
and merely develop the distinct set of competencies necessary for thriving in
respective settings. Some have more options, other quite limited ones, but in
the final analysis, ways of life are on equal footing. The human species is
amazing at how they can survive and find happiness in a wide variety of
circumstances. Sabi nga, sanayan lang
yan.
But
it is no joke to gain kasanayan in
another way of life, especially in something as drastically different as
between Catanduanes and the US. Going through such shift is such a tedious and
painful process. Recounting his ordeal in the prairie environs of Kansas, Dave
was tearful. He had been there for some five years and he tells that ngonian pa sana ako medyo naka-establish.
Others I’ve talked to, perhaps not as dramatic as Dave (this friend of mine
takes everything with intensity), shared of same stories of heroic efforts to
belong. Think of developing a phobia for the telephone, or having to be told to
speak in English (poh-leeeez?) even while you have already dispatched your
entire arsenal of English vocabulary. Think of having to deal with extreme
weather conditions (ay parusa pala ang winter!).
Think of learning how to deal with maps and imagining a place in terms of east,
west, north and south rather than making nguso-nguso?
I am amazed at how my sister has acquired the sort of American sense of humour
where a remark such as “Oh?” becomes hilariously funny. You have to relearn
everything, even those that makes you laugh.
In
short, we can only admire these Cat-Ams for having to face untold ordeals just
so they can pursue the American Dream. I don’t mind at all that they had become
Americans. It is enough that they acknowledge their roots as Catandunganons,
actively maintain connections with home-province, continue to embrace it in
their strivings, such as supporting families back home, and through worthy
causes such as the medical mission. I
don’t mind when they squeak with amusement if I tell them that I prefer my egg iskrambol (my sister Becky: “Hey George, SCRAAM-beld,
ano ka?”). It is enough to realize that they remember the home-province of
our affections with the memory of the heart.
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