California Dreamin'

To me, home is where the heart is. Being a Pinoy with spread toes and a flat nose, I almost certainly feel like I’m one of the endangered species in Bohol, the Philippine tarsier. According to tales from native folks in Bohol where the tarsiers can be found, a tarsier perhaps among warm blooded mammals, is the hardest animal to take out of its habitat because as soon as it is separated from its natural adaptation, a tarsier holds its breath until it dies. Fact or fiction? Find it out for yourself.

Anyway, over the years that I’ve been separated from the banana republic and being able to have the opportunity to come to the land of milk and honey, I have never really felt that I belong to any place other than my home, the Philippines.

The modern and sophisticated life afforded by the American lifestyle doesn’t really appeal to me. To me, it’s not what life should be. You see, if you are in America, you have to work hard, pay your bills and work even harder and pay even more bills. It’s a true rat race, but people here somehow don’t feel it. To them, having a job, paying a mortgage, having a car payment, having insurance coverage, having debts to pay, and paying bills endlessly is the typical American dream and I wonder why.

Everyday is an endless struggle to race to work to pay the bills. People forget to stop to smell the roses, but they seem pretty content with that kind of life.

I don’t know with you all but if you leave if up to me, I would not waste time in taking the next banana boat to the banana republic. I just miss the easy, laid back lifestyle back home and more than anything else, I also miss being surrounded by the people that I love.

Anyway, I’ve been to the east coast, and indeed it was hard for me to adjust to the cold chilly weather coming from a place where the coolest it could get is probably seventy degrees on a cold December morning and that’s nothing compared to a minus thirty degree weather.

With the turn of events though, we ended up experiencing the other side of America. We moved to the west coast and what better place to be in than California.


When I first set foot in California, I was kind of shock to see how different it was. I almost felt like I was not on a foreign soil. Yeah, honestly, I feel like I was just somewhere in one of the seven thousand and one islands of the Philippines.


Why? My goodness, you cannot turn your head without seeing another spread-toed flat-nosed creation. They are all over the place. I even asked myself, “How did they get here? Why is my family not here?”

Meanwhile, I see a bunch of Pinoys strolling in the malls and the stores, parading themselves like a village on the go, talking with their native tongues and freely enjoying a more Filipino-tailored lifestyle in America. How did they get so lucky? I really envy those that walk around as a family.

Anyway, California to me is probably, the closest thing to home in America. I see a lot of Filipinos. There are a lot of Filipino food outlets like Jollibee, Red Ribbon, Goldilocks and Filipino restaurants all over the place. It’s amazing how these Filipinos managed to build their empire in a land that is not geographically connected to the Philippine islands.

I like the weather in California. It hardly rains in California but when it does it sure feels like rain in the tropics. I kind of like the way the sun shines in California. It’s the closest reminder to warm sunny skies back home.

What’s so good about California is the rich diversity among people and the culture—Latino, Mexican, Spanish, Chinese, Japanese, Koreans, Filipinos, Caucasians, Black Americans, Indians and many more. The vegetation is gorgeous. The views are amazing. And the things that you can do in California? Countless! Living here is like being sent on a vacation to a nice getaway. And the best part is, food always tastes great in California.

Sometimes I even wonder that if I have my close relatives here perhaps I would change my opinion about where home is to me.


But for now, I can only enjoy what California offers. In the back of my head, and in my heart of heart, I still have that longing to come home to the Philippines.

The longing can be sometimes so paralyzing. You almost can understand why it is impossible for a tarsier to be geographically displaced from its habitat.

But no, unlike a tarsier I’m not ready to hold my breath and just die. Not just yet.