It is Thanksgiving Day in America.
Today, we commemorate the story of the Pilgrims and their long and difficult passage to America. We remember the harsh and dreadful first winter that followed and how God provided succor in the form of an English-speaking Indian, Squanto, who was instrumental in the Pilgrims surviving the winter. The rest is history.
Today, our family commemorates our own passage to America, a story not unlike that of the Pilgrims.
I am sharing this story as the first in my own immediate family to have stepped on American soil: the place in the world—more than any other —that we, as children, have only seen about, and read about, and dreamed about.
Growing up in the Philippines, America was imprinted in my consciousness. I spoke English better than I spoke my own national language. I read American books, devoured American literature, and secretly held a bias towards English-language movies more than my own.
Early on, I found that every Filipino I knew liked anything that is “Made in the U.S.A”. In fact, every Filipino I knew wanted to go to the U.S.A.
I became a nurse in the hopes of coming to America. At a time when my classmates from college had all gone on to the States, I was left in my homeland, unable to pay the thousands of dollars that it took to pay for a working visa.
I eventually got married, became pregnant, and found ourselves—my husband and I – both unemployed and living with his parents. America became our driving passion, our only hope, our family’s salvation.
Our first attempt to get a visa was foiled by my then pregnancy. Fueled by desperation I thought about having a cesarean section before my due date so I can fly to Manila for my interview with the US Embassy. I had to forfeit that first interview. Eight months pregnant, no plane would fly me. Soon after I gave birth, when my son was only a few days old, we left him with my parents-in-law to traverse the busy streets of Manila for the required physical exam. I had just given birth and was barely able to walk from the pain.
The second time we went to the US Embassy, our son was close to a year old. It was to be the fateful interview that will give our family the US immigrant visas. Our future and that of our son’s depended on its outcome. So when the US consul told me there was something wrong with my papers I did not take no for an answer. I fought to speak with his supervisor, if he had one. I will not have them deny us a visa.
My husband and I, with our son, finally reached American soil on the 20th of June, 2002, the day my son turned a year old. We had a few dollars in our pockets and were several thousands of dollars in debt. Monetary loans and gifts from friends and family bought our passage that day. We were still on pins and needles as the immigration clerk looked through our papers at the airport. The moment we were cleared and ushered into the gate, was THE moment our dreams became a reality. We were now in America. We had finally stepped foot on our so-called Canaan, THE proverbial “ land of milk and honey”.
Like the Pilgrims at Plymouth Rock, our first year in Miami was filled with hardship. Our son became ill a few days after our arrival. We thought we could not afford to pay to send him to the emergency room so we cared for him at home as he battled severe diarrhea, and grew weaker and weaker by the day. God was good to us; he got better without treatment.
That first year, we shared a bedroom in my sister-in-law’s house; she took us in and supported us until I was able to work. The same person gave us our first car: an old Honda Accord with peeled-off paint and broken air conditioning. Since I never learned how to drive, my husband drove me to South Miami everyday in the sweltering heat, with our young son in the back seat. After several months, we had enough savings to buy our own car: a used Honda Civic.
For close to two years I was the only one working while my husband became my driver and my son’s baby-sitter. Shortly after, we bought a house, another car, and my husband not only found a job but a career. The rest is history.
Our American dream-turned reality, is now more than a decade old.
Today, in America, our son Matthew has material blessings and countless opportunities we never had as children. He never has to walk a mile to school in hand-me-down shoes & uniform or live in a roach–and-rodent-infested house with leaky roofs & no indoor plumbing; he does not have to share a hard, wooden bed to sleep, or survive on a staple of rice, ramen noodles and canned sardines. Our son does not have to suffer all the other unique indignities that kids like us who were poor went through everyday. He has a well-stocked refrigerator and pantry, wears Air Jordan shoes to school, sleeps in a soft bed in his own room, lives in an air conditioned home with flush toilets and hot showers; travels by air conditioned car, and could easily join extra-curricular activities he wishes to join.
The Pilgrims’ story is our story.
God used Squanto to take care of the Pilgrims of the Plymouth colony; God, through the kindness and generosity of friends and family, took care of us.
As Americans today, we enjoy the blessings of freedom and liberty that the early Pilgrims struggled for and achieved through enormous adversity.
When God brought this family to America, He commenced the blessing of an entire clan that spans across two continents and cultures; what’s more, we are passing on the blessing to my son and the generations of his children and his children’s children.
This is our Pilgrim story: it is a story of hardship and hope, providence and provision. It is a story of liberation. It is a story of salvation. It is God’s story, from the very beginning to the very end.
The Solidum clan today, c. 2012
The Hernandez Clan, c. 2012
Praise and thanks to His Name!
No comments:
Post a Comment