E.A., 18, a student and freelance author in Menifee, CA

“…Pero saan tayo pupunta? Hindi tayo pwede bumalik sa Pilipinas…”

“But where will we go?” my mother was telling my aunt over the telephone. “We can’t go back to the Philippines.” Living in the United States during this global pandemic has made it clear to my family the outcome I feared most in 2016–that the society they adopted and I grew up within, is out to kill us. Through stunning mismanagement and blatant disregard for human life, the so-called “pro-life” government has blundered, scapegoated, and lied its way to the top of the case numbers and death totals in the world.

Now, as a pandemic ravages the country my parents had so much faith in, they cannot face continuing to live among citizens who don’t care about other people enough to wear a simple cloth over their nose and mouth—continuing to pay a hard-earned income to a military state—continuing to subscribe to the myth of the model minority and “keep their heads down” for the sake of being model citizens.

But now that they have realized this, they have found that there is not much else to turn to.

Both of my parents are hopeless about continuing to live in the US, and are saddened at the state of their birthplace. (Rampant corruption, The Anti-Terror legislation, increasing Chinese hegemony, etc.) Where they had once seen a land of opportunity, they now want to leave. Retirement has been on their minds, but they don’t know where else to go.

I haven’t told them yet, but I have a plan. I’ve never really articulated it before, so forgive me if it’s far-fetched. I am a university student currently, but I plan to actively seek opportunities abroad. I am aiming for somewhere with a notable Filipino population (not that difficult, considering how many have left the Philippines to work abroad) and where English is spoken at least as lingua franca. Maybe Ireland or the UK, though I had the incredible fortune to travel to Austria last year for a music festival and found it appealing. I want to work and, God willing, bring my parents over.

The cycle turns again.

[submitted on 7/6/2020]

Life in Quarantine: Witnessing Global Pandemic is an initiative sponsored by the Poetic Media Lab and the Center for Spatial and Textual Analysis at Stanford University.

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