Visiting the mother country

“Where are you from?” It’s a common enough question from curious strangers making idle chit chat. However, for an Asian-American, it’s a rather loaded one —  the underlying assumption being that I’m “not from around here.” I love throwing folks a curveball by exclaiming, “Atlanta!” 

But that’s not entirely true. 

I was born in the Philippines but came to the US as a toddler with my mother. So, I am most certainly a child of the West. When I visit the land of my birth, I wonder which one is truly my home. It makes me even ask myself: Where am I from?

What does it mean to visit the country your ancestors are from? 

By now, I’ve made that nearly 18-hour plane ride to the Philippines several times. Yet, with each trip, the emotional landscape is different and increasingly tricky to traverse. 

Every time I return, it is a multi-sensory experience that’s so intense it is tactile. The moment I step out of the airport, I am embraced by equal parts humidity and the arms of my uncles, whose exact ages I’ve forgotten but whose jokes I always remember. 

As we zoom through the Manila streets, pulsing with throngs of people, the lights of the night markets cast a fluorescent glow so darkness never truly settles. I usually crash into bed for a good 12 hours, and once the upside-down jetlag fades, I emerge into a wild tropical jungle that feels like home, but with the furniture rearranged. 

Perhaps the biggest privilege and hallmark of visiting the mother country is sharing a giant family meal with your relatives. Sometimes it happens at one of the glittering landmark hotels in the ritzy district of Makati, where restaurants accommodate parties of 20, and the buffet boasts whole roast pigs fit for King Henry and dessert tables spilling over with leche flan and halo halo. Cold San Miguel beer and multiple bottles of wine grease the wheels of closeness, so any space between me and my second cousin is closed within minutes. 

But usually, this type of mini-reunion fiesta happens at a relative’s home. A lechon is still a requirement, as is catching-up over drinks, but here the photo albums come out, and the secret shenanigans that crazy Lolas (grandmothers) got up to can be dished. Times like these, surrounded by people who look more than me than not, make me nostalgic for all the other get-togethers missed by living abroad. 

Because this is home to them, I must seek out and hit up most of the tourist sites by myself. In Manila, that means stepping back into the city’s Spanish colonial past by visiting Intramuros, where the architecture is locked in a time when horse-drawn calesas transported society ladies from their homes to church. 

If I trace the family tree back to the Spanish invasion, I wonder if my ancestors would have been imperial or indigenous... my suspicion is that our blood is both, as is every Filipino’s — a mix of conqueror and conquered, West and East, locked in an eternal battle over self-identity. I will often continue this pondering at one of Manila’s legendary shopping malls, where British behemoths like Marks & Spencer hold court with Japanese favorites like Muji and Uniqlo, and where I can indulge at one of the last Kenny Rogers Roasters joints in the world, wondering how American influence factors into the mix. 

My mother’s side of the family hails from Pangasinan, a land that before the Spanish arrived was an important trading hub between Malayan tribal lords and Chinese sailors (i.e., pirates) with ships boasting sails of scarlet red fanning out like proud lionfish. Blackbeard dominates traditional pirate lore, but legend has it that the Pirate King Limahong terrorized these leeward seas with the same ferocity and, perhaps, more cunning ways. 

At least, that’s what I like to imagine when I stand on the beaches and gaze out into water blue as sapphire, fragments of spiky shells cutting into my feet. Do I blame my hot temper on the Chinese pirates or the Spanish conquistadors? 

“With each trip, the emotional landscape is different and increasingly tricky to traverse. ”

My father’s side lays claim to Angeles City in Pampanga, the former home of Clark Air Base, a symbol of the US military presence and power in Asia. There are a lot of McDonald’s there. The dishes are distinctly different — the crowd favorite McDo Meal here consists of a fried chicken drumstick with a side of rice or McSpaghetti, a sweeter version of spaghetti marinara. There is perhaps no better ritual of a Filipino-American homecoming than visiting a McDonald’s in Angeles City and comparing it to its counterpart in Los Angeles. It’s the same... but different. In fact, “same but different” has become my mantra when confronted with Filipinos who giggle over our dissimilarities. 

For the times I want to imagine myself an indigenous islander, far from the reach and influence from other nations, I visit Palawan. Palawan is an island of primordial yet secretive beauty, many of whose gems are reachable only by boat. Its mysterious underground river winds through caverns that feel like the gates to the Underworld. Sea coves of bright cerulean hold rich coral reef treasures just beneath, and upon the transport bancas, I imagine myself a Badjao “sea gypsy” girl whose only home is the rolling waves.

Because the Philippine Islands have been multicultural for longer than they’ve been considered a single nation, one might argue that to truly visit all the countries my ancestors once called home, I’d have to traipse to China, Spain, perhaps India, and certainly Malaysia. 

I’ve got Hong Kong and much of Spain covered. I even found my family’s coat of arms in Madrid — I had thought those were possessed solely by Anglo-Saxons. But the last country to occupy the Philippines was America. For many Filipinos, America is the motherland they yearn to visit and reimagine themselves. 

I’ve come full circle. Perhaps it is here where the biggest dreams can be launched.