Welcome to Club Diaspora

It's a rare moment when our laptop is free for me to use. Sharing it with an eighteen year old really means 95:5. She has it 95% of the time while I'm on it when allowed. Which is when she's sleeping.

So all these blogs that I have incubating inside my head never make it to my fingers until rare moments such as these. I'm stealing time. While there is nothing like writing in the moment, the compositions in my mind get edited and take a different shape as I type. But I'm not complaining. The light of day is the light of day.

There is a large table at our hotel's employee cafeteria where the Filipinos find themselves at lunch. We're all from different departments - Housekeeping, Concierge, Front Desk, Stewarding, Kitchen, Storeroom - yet there is no such thing as rank & file or manager among us when we are together. We are just Filipinos who now call America home and who long for the Philippines in varying degrees. The streets of Cubao, the posh of The Fort and Alabang, the quiet of Ilocos drift into our conversations always followed by the question: "Kelan kayo huling umuwi sa atin?" ("When did you last go home?")

(I have come to terms with calling myself a true Filipino-American. Not an American of Filipino descent like others who spent their childhood or entire lives here but equal parts American - courtesy of my father and childhood in the Pacific Northwest - and Filipino - courtesy of my mother and my twenty-seven years in Manila.)

Who we were back home doesn't seem to matter to any of us here in the US although little hints and traces of our lives in the Philippines slip into our conversations from time to time.

"Saleslady ako ng sapatos noong araw!" ("I used to be a shoe saleslady!") Said a bathroom attendant to me one day when she was resting her feet in the changing area and realizing that at her age, the long hours prove her feet can't keep up with her.

One busy noon at the table we share, exhausted from a hundred percent occupancy, a wardrobe attendant and I sat in silence together, lost in our separate thoughts while eating the day's free meal voraciously.

I broke the silence in between bites. "Grabe, pagod na pagod ako." ("I am so tired.") She agreed. "Dito lang ako sa Amerika nagtrabaho ng ganito kahirap!" ("Only here in America have I had to work this hard!")

I smiled. "Back home we at least had an hour for lunch. And then of course there were all these little breaks in between! Dito, thirty minutes lang talaga ang pahinga." ("Here thirty minutes is all we get to rest.")

"Akala ng mga tao sa atin we're so rich because we're earning in dollars. Hindi nila alam bawat sentimo, pinagpapaguran natin." ("People back home think we're rich because we're earning in dollars. They just don't know that we work hard for every cent we make.") She commented.

We finished our meals in silence and wearily dragged ourselves back to our floors and duties. As I took the elevator back to the seventh, I couldn't help remember the season in my life as a Training Manager. A boss. And how cushy life as a manager in the Philippines was like - not in the trenches but calling the shots from a nice office with a view. Some days I remember my sixteen-twenty hour days/nights at the call center and regret wishing for a job that was eight hours and simple. Nowadays, while I'm so thankful to have a job, I'm reaching the point of wanting more of a challenge beyond making coffee and dinner reservations.

But such is life in the diaspora. It's damning and it's a blessing. Here we are all on equal footing. It's what you do with your steps that makes a difference. The choices are easy - long for what you once had, or make the best of the cards you've been dealt.

"In my country, I was a lawyer." Said a Haitian recently. "Then why don't you just go back home if you don't like being a guard?" Came the reply from a Latino-American face. The Haitian didn't reply.

Sunday Night Art

It's been awhile now since we've watched any arthouse films. Living in Orlando, one's expectations of such endeavors are thought not be realized. Or so we assumed.

But before we are accused of being hypocritical tourism capital living, big blockbuster watching poseurs, allow me to explain. Kyera and I love movies. Plain and simple. I've dragged her to watch things beyond her years and I'm happy to say that she's developed a wonderful taste in cinema. All kinds.

Today we found a movie we've been wanting to watch - Young@Heart. It was recently in limited release very briefly. Tonight it's at a cinema cum cafe called Enzian Theater. Cinema with restaurant style dining inside the auditorium kind of cafe. Pretty. Cool.

We ordered a Margerhita Pizza. Since K got in on a Student Discount, we splurged a tiny bit.

Check it out at www.enzian.org for details.

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Alabang in Orlando

Kyera's good friend Trisha was in town recently doing touristy stuff. She was one of the last people K got to speak to before boarding a plane to join me here almost six months ago. As fate would have it, Trisha is one of the first of our Alabang friends to visit Orlando.

May she be the first of many. And may this be the first of her many returns.

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E&E on PinoyCentric.com

I had minor surgery the other day and have yet to blog about that and share pictures from Kyera's driving test. Just posting this quick note to share that one of the blogs was re-published on the website - PinoyCentric.com. You can find it here.

Hi! This is Kyera. I haven't posted on here in a while... So I figured I should just link one of the blogs I wrote on my Multiply. I update my Multiply more often than I do here.

Kyera's Multiply

A Little Bit of Italy in Orlando

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United Colors of Thelma

"Puerto Ricena?" The guest smiled at me as I waved hello.

"No", I smiled back as I continued walking. "Filipina!"

I get this a lot. The choices are always that I'm from: Puerto Rico, Panama, Thailand or China, or a mixture of any of the above, but never the Philippines. Unless it's a fellow Filipino asking me where I'm from. Even then, there is always doubt in the asking.

I often make the same mistake. My heart skips a beat as I tentatively ask, "Are you from the Philippines?..."

"No," came the reply one day from the pretty girl with brown skin and long black hair. "Indonesia." She smiled.

But the one thing that I am never wrong about is detecting a Filipino accent. My years in broadcasting trained my ears to discern my fellow comrades in radio and TV commercials. "That's Rey." I would declare at my car radio while stuck in traffic on EDSA as the Mitsubishi ad came on. "May has yet another ad I didn't get hired for…" I would continue when the latest PLDT commercial played. "And this one went to Lily…" I would announce as a Pamper's commercial aired. It's a gift I have not been able to use since arriving in the US last September. This knowing-who-it-is-who-did-the-ad trick of mine.

What I do get to use this skill for is in knowing when I'm speaking to a Filipino either in person or over the phone when I call Dell, or Capital One, or the Orlando Sentinel, or Sprint… The first thing I ask is – "Pinoy (or Pinay) ka?" After which, I proudly launch into my second tongue and conduct my side of the customer care call 95% in Tagalog. Depending on the company, the poor rep is sometimes not allowed to speak in our shared tongue, so they politely tell me so, to which I say, "Okay lang! (That's fine!) Ako na lang ang mag-Ta-Tagalog para sa atin dalawa. (I'll speak Tagalog for the both of us.)" They always laugh. Having once been a Training Manager for Customer Contact Centers in the Philippines, I know how tough their jobs can get so now that I'm on the other end of the phone, I figured the least I could do is let them hear a kindred language.

The Voice Talent in me has nearly mastered a New York accent courtesy of one of my colleagues who was born and raised in the Bronx. When I'm on a roll, Edwin tells me I sound pretty good. I don't know if I could keep it up consistently in Manhattan though should I decide to pass myself off as a local when or if I get to visit. I am absolutely sure though that I can say "cawfee" just like Fran Drescher.

The hotel is the perfect place to hear accents and to learn the most basic greetings in at least four languages – Creole, Spanish, Russian and English. What amazes me is how similar Tagalog and Spanish are. Words that I never realized found their origins in Spanish now play in my ears in a new way.

"Como esta?" is merely the longer version of the Filipino "Kumusta?" The phrases go on. We greet each other in the hallways in each others' languages. "Kumusta ka?" comes at me from an African American face. Or I'll smile a reply to my Latino friends' greetings, "Muy bien!" Or "Todo bien!" in Portuguese.

It's all good. Soon, I will learn more than just hi's and hello's. You never know where life can take you. Another language or two can always come in handy whether in person or on the phone back home with a customer service rep who just might find it amusing to hear a caller half way around the world speak his native tongue.

A Day @ The Lounge

Everyday is about restocking, refilling, replenishing all food and beverages. And washing dishes.

Hmmm.

Oh. And making sure guests are happy.






Carrying cases of water and sodas and gallons of coffee are giving me strong biceps.

Seriously.