An Early Morning

The church was filled with more people than usual, especially for a 7:30am mass. There were still open spots in the pews however, separating parishioners from one another. Sitting in the 5th row from the front of the church was a middle-aged married couple.

As the priest finished reading the Gospel, the loud thunder of people taking their seats on the wooden pews flooded the church. The husband made himself more comfortable as his wife sat in attention to the priest as he began delivering his Ash Wednesday homily. A little more than a minute later, the wife nudged her husband who had apparently been falling asleep. She whispered to him, prompting him to sit up almost as straight as she had been.

The priest finished his homily and prepared to distribute the ashes to the parishioners. The church congregation stood as the husband sat with his eyes closed, his head slowly tilting to the left until his wife put her hand on his arm. He immediately stood, looking around him as parishioners, including his wife, responded to the priest's blessing.

Row after row began emptying out into the center aisle. The wife gently nudged her husband to walk to the aisle and they made their way to the priest at the altar.

Back at their seats, they kneeled and both closed their eyes with their hands folded. The wife nudged her husband again, but he looked to her and said something that seemed to ease the annoyed expression that was on her face.

For the rest of the mass, the wife seemed to want to check on her husband as she occasionally looked at him out of the corner of eye. He would sometimes turn his head to look back at her, who looked satisfied with a small smile on her face.

As the mass ended, the husband took a huge breath and they walked out of their pew and towards the doors of the church.

Family

For many Filipino immigrants in the United States, the most common motivation for leaving the Philippines and settling here is family. And it is certainaly no different for Lorenza Madamda.

I was lucky enough to have talked to her a few days before and on the day of her flight back to the Philippines, her first trip back since officially immigrating to the US in December 2006. The photo above is of her waiting in line to enter the departure gates as SFO.

For the main interview on Monday, we talked about how she obtained her first emergency visa, then having her niece and nephew arrange for her immigrant visa which turned out to be easier than most people's efforts at obtaining the elusive authorization.

Lorenza is a very happy, upbeat, and optimistic person. Even while talking about her sister and her family, she remained composed, yet comtemplative. In her story, I could see a lot of things that are common to all Filipino-American families, including in my own.

Writing the story and looking for different things online, it made me think about immigration in general. There has been a lot of talk, especially lately, about the different immigrantion reforms that both incumbents and candidates want to bring to the table and then there are the arguments from the people who are directly affected, whether they be immigrants' rights groups or immigrants (legal or illegal) themselves.

Knowing my family's own struggles and hardships in immigrating here to the US in the 1970s and 1980s, and their years of hard work, literally under the scorching sun and the 100 degree Philippine heat, that enabled them to just get to Manila and eventually here to the Bay Area... as well as hearing stories from people like Lorenza... I've always held the belief that if they can do it all legally, then why can't others?

By no means was my family well off in the Philippines, especially living in the northern coastal provinces of the country. So being able to immigrate to the US was a huge deal for them (my grandparents, parents, and uncle & aunt). It meant that they now had the opportunity to help those left back home a little more. But it also meant they'd have to start all over again here in the US, working low paying jobs and in my grandparents' case, working in the all too familiar scenery of the farmland of the San Joaquin Valley.

And for that I am grateful. Without their hard work here and in the Philippines, I probably wouldn't have the means or resources to blog about anything today.