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filipinoimmigrationstories-blog · 7 years

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Handled with Grace

Three days after my mother, Grace, turned eighteen, she gave birth to her first daughter and two days after her daughter was born, she left for America. Grace left her newborn baby girl and was forced to immigrate to the United States by her parents. My mother, Grace, was born in July of 1969 and was raised in upscale Greenhills, Manila, Philippines where she lived an easy life and most everything that she wanted and needed was provided to her. In the Philippines, there is only the rich and the poor, there is no middle-class and by all means was my mother’s family was not short on money. In fact, while growing up, across the street lived the now former president of the Philippines so it’s safe to say she lived a pretty comfortable life. But while growing up, she was raised in a strict household that did not express and show many emotions and she and her siblings were often punished when they acted out. So as an attempt to act out, my mother would associate herself with other rebelious teenageers her age and received the attention that she so desperately craved from her family. Having bad attention is better than having no attention and being the middle child of five, there were at times a lack of attention to be spared. She began to neglect her education, hangout with burnouts, drive recklessly, and have boyfriends as an outlet for her pent up emotions. As a result of her outbursts against her family, she got pregnant at the age of seventeen. I have no idea how she was able to conceal her pregnancy for as long as she did since she was barely 90 pounds when she got pregnant. Nonetheless, she kept her pregnancy secret six months. When she was finally found out, her parents shipped her off to relatives in Dumaguete, Philippines so that they would more easily conceal their shame of their child to finish out the rest of her third term.

Of course, my grandparents were not expecting their first grandchild so soon and they wanted my mother and the rest of her siblings to continue their education and go to college. The colleges in the Philippines aren’t the best and my grandparents knew that their children would receive a better education if they were sent to the United States. To be able to study in a different country, there are many different forms and papers that need to be filled out if you want eligibility for a study visa and you need to leave by a certain time or else you can miss the opportunity to leave and study elsewhere.

During her third trimester, my mother lived with her aunt and uncle. They both doctors and to ensure that she would still go to the United States. They induced labor onto my mom a week early and in August of 1988, my sister Marie was born. While giving birth a week early isn’t necessarily dangerous, it’s best if the mother finishes the full pregnancy to prevent any mishaps that could occur. My grandparents were extremely adamant on having their daughter come to the United States because they knew that if she were to spend more time than she was supposed to with their first grandchild, then she understandably not want to leave her first newborn child. My mother’s family thought getting the student visa was more important than allowing their daughter stay with her daughter, their granddaughter. So, three days after giving birth, she enrolled herself in her first college class at San Francisco State University. In yet another act of rebellion, she decided to become a florist just to annoy and anger my grandparents even further but when my grandparents found out, they were outraged and went on to tell her that she would not be able to support herself and a potential future family on a florist’s salary and demanded she sign up for math classes and change her major to accounting. Reluctantly did what her parents wanted her to do and went on and became an accountant after graduating from college. She’s done extremely well for herself, working her way from the bottom to the top and is now a corporate senior accounting manager for a team of people at a company in San Francisco.

While my mother’s story was undeniably difficult, when she married my father she unknowingly passed on all the challenges that she was facing and going through onto my father who then had to cope with what was going on and figure out how not only he was going to handle it but help my mother handle it as well. My mother’s side of the family is very family and race orientated so when my mother married a white and Native American man, they felt that he didn’t have a say in the matter of what was best not only for my mother but my sister as well. And my grandparents kept my sister a secret from the rest of their family for six years so when the rest of the family found out about my sister’s existence, they all erupted with anger and fury as to why they were not cued in on what had happened. Although it was none of their business, they have a bad habit of being extremely intrusive and making someone else’s problem’s their own so they felt as if they had a say in the matter as well which on created more conflict and resentment and frustration on my mom and dad.

You would think that it would be simple to declare parental rights and fight to get a child back but the law in the Philippines differ from the ones here in the United States and my mother could not declare parental rights on my sister because she was not yet at the age of twenty-one and no longer had Filipino citizenship when she tried to fight to get my sister back. And since my sister was born in the house of my aunt and uncle, they had no formal documentation of whom my sister was born to and my grandparents had forged a fake birth certificate stating that my sister wasn’t born to my mother and that my grandparents had adopted her. Being an influential man in the Philippines, my grandfather would not so easily let my sister go and my mother knew that she wouldn’t be able to fight to get my sister back so she had to wait patiently until my grandparents were ready to willingly let my sister live with my parents. It was an extremely difficult and sticky situation that my, dad, grandparents, and sister went through filled with hurt, anger, and resentment.

Mom’s thoughts: “That time of my life was a very traumatic experience to go through at the age of 17. I couldn’t understand why my parents did what they did. After years of holding a grudge, I finally accepted it for what it was because I realized hating my parents for something they thought was best, I can’t blame them for and trying to change the past isn’t going to do anyone any good because it’s already happened. So I began the process of forgiving them. It’s still hard to talk about when brought up but I can’t be selfish and keep this kind of secret and story to myself...I’d blow up.”

Dad’s thoughts: I love your mother very much but it was very challenging trying to be there for her when she was fighting to get custody and rights over your sister. Filipinos are very secretive and don’t let outsiders, like me, in very often. They aren’t racist per-se but they don’t let just anyone into their ‘circle of trust’ all that easily. And since I am not of either their background culture, it became very frustrating when my thoughts and ideas weren’t validated and there by being irrelevant and everything I said became moot. Regardless, your mother and I love your sister very much and although it was a hard few years, we got her back and the rest you know yourself.”

Grandparents thoughts: “We did what we thought would be best for our daugher and we aren’t going to apologize for what happened but will apologize for the way it [went down]. We think she now understands what we did then because she is now a more matured women and mother. Parents do what they can to protect their children.”

Marie’s thoughts: “I didn’t know what was going on for the longest time and it wasn’t until I was about 4 or 5 that I learned that ‘mom’ was really my mom and grandpa and grandma weren’t my actual parents. I think I always knew but didn’t put two-and-two together until I asked.”

My brother’s thoughts: “Growing up with Marie didn’t bother me much. Granted I didn’t really know the full story but even when I was told the truth, I didn’t view her any differently than I did. In my eyes, she was my sister and being told who she really was just solidified what I already knew. She may only be my half-sister but I never considered her anything less than a full-sister.”

My thoughts: I didn’t fully understand who my sister was until I was about six or so. All I knew her as or to be was my ‘sister’ that would only come and spend the summer with us but when those three months ended and she left, my brother and I were left confused for nine months and then she’d come back and the whole process of confusion would start again. And when she finally moved in with us at the age of thirteen, I was only four at the time and there was a nine year age gap between my sister and I. I confided in my brother mostly who was only eighteen months older than I was. It made to be a very interesting living situation because while I was used to only having my sister around for the summer, I didn’t know how I would adjust to having her live with my family and I full-time. And since she was nine years older than I am, she had her own life and friends that she would hang out with so there wasn’t much time that was spent between us. Up until last summer, my sister was never a consistent person in my life because we led to different lives and would always miss each other on the account of both of our work and school schedules. But when we decided to go to Italy in the spur of the moment, we were forced to be with each other 24/7 for 9 days and there was no way around getting away from each other. I learned a lot about my sister on that trip and I learned to respect and love her differently than I had been doing for the majority of my life until that point in time. We grew closer and spent even more time together after coming back home and while I couldn’t get out of helping her plan her wedding, I had the privilege of seeing her walk down the aisle as her maid-of-honor and I knew that in the moment that as frustrating as she and the wedding was, I would do it all over again in a heartbeat. Both my mom and sister’s stories wasn’t the easiest but seeing them come out on top and being successful after all of it is truly inspiring and amazing to me.

Although what happened to my mother was an unfortunate and bluntly messed up, she wouldn’t have met my father and I wouldn’t be sitting here writing this autobiography on my mother which you are now reading. At the end of the day, after all the trauma and hurt, my mother has forgiven her parents for what they did and what happened and more longer holds an resentment towards them.

#Written by Christine

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