Magic I was Promised

I consider myself an immigrant. My Filipina mother was an immigrant. My white, military father was born and bred in Indiana, but most of my early life–from ages two to seventeen–I spent in Europe: Germany, then England. 

I consider England home. Princess Diana, my queen, and I will never forgive Charles for his wrongdoings. I love roundabouts and fish and chips. I watch Premier League soccer. I Netflix British crime shows and go to sleep to the delights of The Great British Bake Off; Dame Mary Berry is a sweetheart. I secretly enjoy watching Parliament as they shout, Mr. Speaker, at each other. Though I was born in Texas, my first Fourth of July in the States, in Canalton, IN, forever left me feeling un-American. 

My first major trip outside of Europe, my family and I flew to the Philippines, the PI, to visit my ailing grandfather, my Lolo. He had refused to take his medication for some illness that immediately cleared up the moment my mother scolded him, which led him to start following the doctor’s orders. I was thirteen and the humidity in the PI choked me, slurped my sweat. Everything seemed yellow and misty. Dirt roads clouded my eyes and the clip clop from flip-flops reverberated off tropical vegetation. I had longish hair and somewhat chiseled features so locals shouted at me, Rambo, Rambo, halika dito, waving their hands in fast downward motion, adding psst, hoy, to get my attention. Rambo, for some reason, lingered in theaters for years.

My last trip out of Europe, I moved to Canalton. My father’s birthplace. The crumbling, old town my grandmother, Granny, lived in. I was almost eighteen. I was entering my senior year of high school. There were no people of color in Canalton, and in the town over, Tell City, where I graduated high school, there was, coincidentally, a Filipina and her two half-white daughters. Some townsfolk mentioned that there was a Black family who lived there a few years before, but they had moved away. No one knew where they went.  

In the PI, we played basketball. Filipinos love basketball. I towered over cousins. I outweighed them by thirty to fifty pounds. I was Shaq on the clay court. We made “family” bets for two-liter bottles of sodas. We made “secret side bets” for 1000 pesos, ten dollars. Opposing teams shouted, malakas siya, talking about my strength in the paint, then they shouted, mataba siya, calling me fat as I used my body to push them out of my way. My Filipino family high-fived me. We laughed and joked. We bought nightly dinners for twenty-three people at a cost of eight dollars total. I loved visiting my Filipina mother’s people and how her community referred to me as Rambo. 

On the military base in England, friends came, then went. They stayed for three years, the whole time bragging about all the wonderful American experiences I was missing. My white, military father took trips to the States, bringing back evidence: VHS tapes of six hours of Saturday morning cartoons, tapes of the Dallas Cowboys versus the Washington Redskins, tapes of malls and fast food restaurants and other all-American things. So, when I arrived in IN, my eyes searched for everything: McDonald’s, Long John Silvers, drive-in theaters, Ma-and-Pa joints with roller skating, blonde-haired girls. I was in American heaven. I made friends who cruised Main Street. We cruised for hours. We circled and circled then circled more, sometimes lingering in the community pool’s parking lot, where my father’s people asked, Who’s the Black kid?

We stayed in the PI for thirty days. I learned to use half-coconut shells to clean wood floors. I slept under mosquito nets. I used my Filipino fork–my fingers–and sat in my Filipino chair–squatting cheeks to calves. I too learned to use a tabo, which translates to dripper, to pour water down my butt crack until I felt satisfied that I was clean. I learned to say, magandang umaga, when I woke up, and to say, maganda ka, to pretty girls. During that visit, I felt authentically Filipino for the first time. Out of joy, I played along, mimicking Stallone’s deep drawl saying, They drew first blood.

My first stateside Fourth of July, a group of young, white, chubby Indianaians stalked me. They trailed me from booth to booth, from ride to ride, from porta-potty to open field. They wore trucker caps and denim jeans and cowboy boots. They mumbled, Look at this shit, and Can you believe this? I don’t know how, but at one point my trackers surrounded me and the person I was with. They pushed each other. Their eyes glowed with craze. I saw their sharp fangs. 

A girl standing in front of me–who I later learned was a third cousin–shouted, What’s this nigger doing here?

My body quaked and my eyes searched for help. 

I heard, Go back from where you came, and, We don’t want your type here, and, Who’s this nigger, over and over. 

At some point, someone punched me. My nose bled. I don’t know if I am related to that person. I would guess I am.

Since that day, I have struggled to feel American. I don’t understand what the American Dream is or how to achieve it. I haven’t been to the PI since I was thirteen, and my mother has died, taking with her my Pinoy identity. I feel like a nomad here in the States, moving every three years. I often look over my shoulder when it feels like someone is following me. I too look over my shoulder still searching for all those American things that my temporary, military friends described so long ago, hoping to catch a glimpse of the magic I was promised before I immigrated back to the land of my birth.

James Morena earned his MFA in Fiction at Mountain View Grand in Southern New Hampshire. His stories have been published in The Citron Review, Orca, Forge Journal, Pithead Chapel, Rio Grande Review and others. He also has published essays and poems. James teaches English at university and high school levels. You can interact with him on Insta: @james_morena.