Connie C. Triggiano
September ushers in autumn and a riveting reflection about the cycle of life amid darkening shadows and silent afternoons. It prompts consciousness about the passing of the seasons, a foreboding feeling made profound by the wailing of time and an intense pining for loved ones some great distance away.
For the Filipinos in Chicago, the season beckons with the desire to send a boxful of love, otherwise known as the balikbayan box, to assuage the homesickness growing more urgent at the thought of the city’s approaching cold winters and yes, of Christmastime.
Christmas holidays is balikbayan boxes’ busiest season Akin to opening gifts by family members on Christmas morning, it takes an entire family to open one huge box, giddy with joy and curiosity on the anticipated stateside delights for everyone. Owing to the time and distance it takes to travel, balikbayan boxes start the trek in September in time for the holiday peak in the Philippines in December.
Anyone familiar with this ubiquitous corrugated fiberboard box 18″x18″x24″ containing anywhere from corned beef in cans to Nike shoes to secondhand computer peripherals can vouch for the great many hours spent filling up the container for its 60+ days trans-Pacific journey to the Philippines.
This box carries with it the intense longing of the overseas Filipino for the family they left behind in their quest for a better life in another country.
Each item lovingly packed inside the balikbayan container speaks of the need to connect with family arising from a diaspora triggered by economic dislocation in one’s birthplace. It does what the Filipino who has settled in a foreign country cannot even hope to do: bestow the kiss, wrap the hug, give the comfort and happiness to a pair of aging parents who, at all hours, are gripped by the pain of long-term and, as in most cases, permanent absence of children from the home.
Each item has a story to tell, but chiefly, it is to extend the “stateside” feel to folks in the Philippines. Different consumer products convey the perceived image of an easy life in the United States. They capture the magic of snow in the winter and the lyrical crunch of fallen leaves in the autumn. They are everything affordable by US middle class – Victoria Secret lingerie, bricks of chocolate, large vats of liquid detergent, a dozen cans of Spam, make-up kits, toys, brand name perfumes, Dove soap, a Gucci bag, giant jars of Coffeemate and Taster’s Choice coffee. Some dollar bills slipped under stacks of pasta and caramel popcorn heighten the thrill of discovery.
The plight of the Filipino immigrant is mirrored in this beloved box; memories both happy and poignant lurk in-between the spaces and crevices of the myriad of stuff packed tightly before they’re waved off for the long journey home. The letters and notes letters wiggled among boxes and knick-knacks tell of the sender’s loneliness and challenges in a foreign land, suffused with hopes of seeing one another soon.
Life of the typical immigrant is far from the happiness and ease that is conveyed by the balikbayan box. Beneath those large brown flaps echo the repressed fears of the immigrants – suppressed by the glitter of jewelry and boxed toys found inside it. The aspiration roused by the enchanting luxury in the US is clouding the reality of elusive jobs or jobs lost, lives and marriages shattered, and dignities compromised owing to differences in culture and language and not fully understanding how to navigate American landscape. Naturally, this aspect of the immigrant’s life remains hidden. To keep hopes alive, one simply cannot afford to crush the American dream.
Nobody can fathom the depths of anxiety of the new immigrants than fellow immigrants themselves, they who have experienced incessant discrimination at work, or shacking up with acquaintances for lack of a job or home. Or enduring hypocritical kindness even from lawfully-forged relations by marriage. There is utter desperation too, in being an undocumented. Betrayal by fellow Filipinos of one’s immigration troubles cuts deeply. And scars remain.
The situation of the immigrant Filipinos who are in search of the welcoming warmth of home away from home is eased up in no small measure in Chicago. Here. the Filipino Americans have Rizal Center. The gnawing pain and homesickness find relief even for an hour or two as magkababayans toast their new lives and enjoy camaraderie in any number of activities in a crowd of friendly, congenial faces.
Rizal Center holds programs that uplift the dignity of individual and draw out the blithe spirit long suppressed due to isolation. Filipinos can now find refuge from aloneness and loneliness traditionally allayed by seeking connections with the folks back home via the balikbayan box. Soon, hopefully very soon, Filipinos will finally be able to send the balikbayan box marked with genuine joy because home is found here too. It will lift this gigantic gifting across the seas into a loving process anchored on real, present-day contentment.
Connie Triggiano is the Board Secretary of Circa-Pintig, a community theater organization of Filipinos in Chicago. Connie graduated BA in English from the University of San Francisco (California), attended UST Graduate School’s Asian Institute for the Development of Advertising (MS in Advertising), and MS Communications coursework at PUP in the Philippines where she also taught college freshmen. Presently, Connie tutors foreign students to pass IELTS, TOEFL, Celpic, and Pearson Test of English Academic for admission to universities in the US and other countries. She also trains candidates for US citizenship to pass English and naturalization tests in US history, civics, and government.
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