A place to call home

I have a habit of secretly spying on people’s apartments while I walk home from work. Partly to get ideas on how to make my place livelier since it’s bare and spartan, and partly for my curiosity in how people live. Often, these homes are filled with furniture, eclectic decor, the usual picture frames and religious paraphernalia of some sort. A balcony just across my place is currently used by its tenants as storage space for boxes. An old lady living in the apartment next door for twenty years has stuff spilling out of her car. Down the street, there’s a family whose kitchen is always in disarray. In all these places, almost every corner is occupied by an object or two, almost as if there’s fear of space. I moved recently and found that unlike my previous neighborhood, this one was diverse.

It has been ten years since I migrated to the United States. I thought that my parents decided to come here to fulfill their unrealized hopes and dreams that would never come to fruition in the Philippines. An obvious course when moving to a foreign country is to adopt its customs and its language. It isn’t really surprising why many natives aren’t very happy with present day immigrants. While the early wave of immigrants came in hopes of escaping tyranny, striking it rich by their own skills and merits, share the philosophy behind the Constitution, the new wave only came to enjoy the fruits and riches and bring their baggage with them.

My family was fortunate enough to have purchased a small piece of property where the house we owned was falling apart since it was built. It was small and cramped but it was comfortable. It was very liberating to arrive in America, streets wide and free of litter, people using pedestrian lanes where they should, drivers respecting pedestrian lanes, neat and respectable looking policemen, affordable and reasonably priced commodities, this was the way the world should be. One shouldn’t have to decide not to buy milk to save money from groceries to ensure proper health and well being.

I don’t really know if it’s natural for people of common nationality to “stick” together wherever they are. It isn’t just with the Filipinos, it applied to every other ethnic group I encountered. Whenever my parents went out, they were sure to be found spending dinner with some other Filipino acquaintance they met recently. Other Filipino kids were drawn to us and so were we. Perhaps it may have something to do with common language and that it’s easier for people to communicate using a language they’re comfortable with… but for Pete’s sake this is America. They speak “English” here so shouldn’t you be making efforts to improve it since that’s the common language in this country? Had I migrated to France, I would have had to learn and make every effort to learn French and identify their customs.

Those who attended English as a Second Language classes (ESL) hardly improved or learned anything from their classes. They either chose to stay quiet and stare at the wall, continued to speak what language they knew with everyone else who shared it with them, and in a strange kind of way made gang fights almost comedic since two different ethnic groups would throw curses from their own language at each other, neither understanding what the hell the other group was talking about. They could’ve been arguing about teapots and fairies for all I knew.

When my folks were finally able to afford a home, the home… ended up being a carbon copy of the old house eventually. The new home though considered “small” was comparably more spacious and open than the one we left. Eventually, we accrued all sorts of furniture. Some of them were unnecessary purchases only considered because it happened to be “on sale.” I could understand saving everything that can be salvaged in the Philippines because everything you horde is valuable and can be traded when money can’t… but in America, what for? The country is bountiful that you can afford not to finish a $3 menu meal since the serving size is comparable to getting three times what you can get from the Philippines.

Today, the America I know is tolerant to the point of being laughable and ridiculous. Simple rights and freedoms are indiscreetly taken away by the introduction of more laws with strings attached and a growing welfare driven society. Despite its shortcomings, this is perhaps one of the few countries in the world where you can live the kind of life that every human being should have; A place where you can enjoy very essential human rights and freedoms taken for granted and ignored in most parts of the world; A place where you are recognized and valued for your efforts, talents and achievement, not your social status or background. Many of these ideals are slowly being taken away. I weep for the day this country dies as it is the first country founded on life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

Admittedly The US is the most hated country in the world right now for obvious reasons, but for those who live here right now, stop to think of what it was founded on. All we need to do is go back to the way its founders meant it to be.