America is in the heart

BY DAVID CASUCO 
“Yes, I will be a writer and make all of you live again in my words.” ― Carlos Bulosan, America is in the Heart: A Personal History

 MOMENTS before I swore to the Stars and Stripes and everything for which it stands, court workers punched a hole on my greencard; then after the ceremony they kept it in exchange of a certificate that certainly says I am no longer a Pinoy. An awkward move, but it has to be taken. That’s the price we immigrants pay if we were to live in America free from that mortifying alien tag that hangs like a Damocles sword over our names.

I saw some people cry during the oath-taking; but the obvious and dominant feeling of the naturalization applicants that morning was pride, and understandably so. To be a citizen of this great nation is, undoubtedly, an utmost privilege. I was trying to figure out why some people gets teary-eyed; maybe they had a difficult journey, maybe the passage was blissful, or maybe they were just overwhelmed by the thought that, now, America is in the heart.

Then, there I was in the middle of a huge hall stoic, solemn, sacrosanct – doing the motions of naturalization. But when the judge mentioned something like human beings are essentially the same; they value freedom, first and foremost, and that is why they come to America. That hit me real hard. I instantly felt a lump in my throat.

Sure, the Philippines is into this great experiment called democracy, but over there real freedom belongs only to the oligarchs and the moneyed few. The Philippine bureaucracy is seriously flawed; it is still by the few, of the few, and for the few. And, as a journalist, that makes me a dead-man-walking each time I write the truth that upsets the absolute entitlement of the mighty few. You bet, every Filipino who recognizes this sad truism is entitled to cry.

 The Filipinos came in second in number, next only to the Latinos, who composed the majority of the 4,437 applicants. The Vietnamese and the Chinese were third and fourth respectively; then follow the rest of the world. Looking at the mosaic of faces from different parts of the globe, I couldn’t help but wonder if the Pinoys will be able to keep second spot “when the roll will call up yonder.”

 On my way out, a lady behind me was unashamedly hollering, “Now I can petition my mother, my sister, my dog!” I was at a different dimension. I was “speaking in tongue” as extreme hunger consumed me. No, I’m sure I was singing a funeral dirge to a departed Numeral Alien. “Bayan ko patawarin mo ako…”

 The aroma of roasted onion and hotdog being peddled by enterprising street hawkers whip up my hunger even more. I was looking for a good spot around the L.A. Live and ready to take my lunch — two packets of choco pie and a bottle of chilled-turned-lukewarm water — when my son, who works in nearby downtown L.A, called to say he is buying lunch for me. That was my first meal as an American – a generous serving of chicken tortilla soup and harvest green salad.

Starting that day, I became a citizen and a human being, and no longer a numeral alien; I buried that old self in the deep crevices of the L.A. Convention Center. Now, I can browse, without trepidation, at those supermarket tabloids with photoshop-rendered images of aliens talking to Bill Clinton or the “resurrected Elvis.” (The author has a journalism degree from the University of Santo Tomas. He writes tourism-travel, sports, and sprituality).