Uncle Ed

My uncle Ed is the youngest of my mom's original siblings of 4. According to my mom around 1966 he told her that he plans to go to the US. My mom paid no attention to her little brother's crazy idea. After a year my uncle Ed was then barely out of his teens bid farewell to his family to migrate to the US. He was the first in the family to venture offshore and seek his fortune. Life in the Philippines was much different then, it was afterall 40 years ago. Manila is cleaner and most Filipinos are able to eat 3 square meals a day. It is pretty odd during that time to go abroad to earn a living. However, my uncle Ed for his own reasons have decided to make America his new homeland. He served as the ambassador of everything "stateside" for his family.

After five years or so he married a white American named Barbara. They had two children Ed jr. and Severina. He came back to the Philippines to visit two years after the declaration of Martial Law. He convinced his siblings to migrate to the US, especially because of the uncertainty of the Martial Law. After a few years my grandfather joined him in the US. Soon after my Tita Leonie followed them in the US. In 1979, my grandfather died in the US and my uncle Ed accompanied the remains of my lolo to the Philippines. That was his last visit in the Philippines. From then on one by one all my relatives migrated to the US. In 2002 my cousin ate Jojo, her husband and daughter Jolet brought down the number of my clan/family in the Philippines to 5 when they migrated to the US. All of my mother's 4 siblings and their family have settled in the US. All that was practically left here in this archipelago is me, my dad and mom, my brother and niece Phoebe.

After 29 years since his last visit to the Philippines uncle Ed came home to visit. He is going to attend a reunion. He was billeted at the Manila Hotel for one week to attend the grand reunion and stay in our house the next two weeks. Most of my relatives have commented one way or another that my uncle Ed is more American than Filipino. I am not really that surprised since he spent most of his life in the US than in the Philippines. I know of some people who have changed their demeanor after a couple of months stay only in a foreign land:-) However, we have decided that we are not going to adjust anything to suit the taste of a balikbayan. The food that will be served will be purely Pinoy, even though we do eat cereals for breakfast most of the time because it is more convenient and easy to prepare.

Then my uncle Ed came to our house. He spoke in Filipino without a trace of American accent. He calls my mom "ATE" all the time. He ate everything served on the table save for the water unless it is mineral water. The one week reunion package allowed him to visit Pagsanjan, Laguna, Villa Escudero, and Corregidor. However he was surpised to see how crowded Manila and the suburbs have become. He also complains a lot about the fumes the vehicles were belching. One time he asked me to accompany him because he would like to ride the MRT and LRT. While waiting for a ride that will take us to the LRT station he felt dizzy because of the fumes fortunately we are able to immediately hail an aircon bus. He commented that the ride and trains were smooth and good, however the sights are really not nice. Uncle Ed is well travelled he's gone as far south as Australia and New Zealand and as far north as Iceland and a whole lot of other places in between. That's why I know better not to contradict his comment, and besides what is there to contradict ;-(

I was able to get to know my uncle better in his two week's stay in our house. I enjoyed his stories especially his first years stay in the US. I was particularly floored with his MO together with a Pinoy friend whenever they run out of money for R&R. When he was in NY they would usually look and check the Pinay sounding names of the people in the apartment/flat. they would ask if a certain Pinoy is living there. Obviously the Pinay would say no there is no such person living there. Then they would convince the Pinay to join them instead to play bowling since they come from a far place and would rather spend time with a kababayan. At first they would allow the Pinay and her friend to win, then they would convince them to play for a wager. The Pinays wont hesitate even though the wager is for the fee of the games they have played and a dinner. In the end they would ofcourse win and have a free bowling game and dinner by the end of the day.

There were also a lot of stories about overcoming prejudice. However, my uncle Ed is one tough person, in the end he became a director at his work. Two days before his depature to the US he asked us to bring him to Luneta. He had his picture taken beside Jose Rizal's monument. He is a Filipino afterall. He went back home to Nevada last February 7 but made a promise to come back after 2 years.