When I was little, I wanted what
many Filipino children all over the country wanted. I wanted to be blond,
blue-eyed, and white.
I thought — if I just wished
hard enough and was good enough, I’d wake upon Christmas morning with snow
outside my window and freckles across my nose!
More than four centuries under
western domination does that to you. I have sixteen cousins. In a couple of
years, there will just be five of us left in the Philippines, the rest will
have gone abroad in search of “greener pastures.” It’s not just an anomaly;
it’s a trend; the Filipino diaspora. Today, about eight million Filipinos are
scattered around the world.
There are those who disapprove
of Filipinos who choose to leave. I used to. Maybe this is a natural reaction
of someone who was left behind, smiling for family pictures that get emptier
with each succeeding year. Desertion, I called it. My country is a land that
has perpetually fought for the freedom to be itself. Our heroes offered their
lives in the struggle against the Spanish, the Japanese, the Americans. To pack
up and deny that identity is tantamount to spitting on that sacrifice.
Or is it? I don’t think so, not
anymore. True, there is no denying this phenomenon, aided by the fact that what
was once the other side of the world is now a twelve-hour plane ride away. But
this is a borderless world, where no individual can claim to be purely from
where he is now. My mother is of Chinese descent, my father is a quarter
Spanish, and I call myself a pure Filipino-a hybrid of sorts resulting from a
combination of cultures.
Each square mile anywhere in the
world is made up of people of different ethnicities, with national identities
and individual personalities. because of this, each square mile is already a
microcosm of the world. In as much as this blessed spot that is England is the
world, so is my neighborhood back home.
Seen this way! , the Filipino
Diaspora, or any sort of dispersal of populations, is not as ominous as so many
claim. It must be understood. I come from a Third World country, one that is
still trying mightily to get back on its feet after many years of dictatorship.
But we shall make it, given more time. Especially now, when we have thousands
of eager young minds who graduate from college every year. They have skills.
They need jobs. We cannot absorb them all.
A borderless world presents a
bigger opportunity, yet one that is not so much abandonment but an extension of
identity . Even as we take, we give back. We are the 40,000 skilled nurses who
support the UK’s National Health Service. We are the quarter-of-a- million
seafarers manning most of the world’s commercial ships. We are your software
engineers in Ireland, your construction workers in the Middle East, your
doctors and caregivers in North America, and, your musical artists in London’s
West End.
Nationalism isn’t bound by time
or place. People from other nations migrate to create new nations, yet still
remain essentially who they are. British society is itself an example of a
multi-cultural nation, a melting pot of races, religions, arts and cultures. We
are, indeed, in a borderless world!
Leaving sometimes isn’t a matter
of choice. It’s coming back that is. The Hobbits of the shire travelled all
over Middle-Earth, but they chose to come home, richer in every sense of the
word. We call people like these balikbayans or the ‘returnees’ — those who followed
their dream, yet choose to return and share their mature talents and good
fortune.
In a few years, I may take
advantage of whatever opportunities come my way. But I will come home. A
borderless world doesn’t preclude the idea of a home. I’m a Filipino, and I’ll
always be one. It isn’t about just geography; it isn’t about boundaries. It’s
about giving back to the country that shaped me.
And that’s going to be more
important to me than seeing snow outside my windows on a bright Christmas
morning..
Mabuhay and Thank you.
