“...personal isolation is something we have the power to overcome...”
Where the Sun Always Shines
by Edessa Ramos
Like majority of Filipinos in Europe, I was born and raised in the Philippines. Then for years I lived in America to complete my studies and raise my only child, after which a bout of restlessness sent me traveling to different parts of Asia. Leaving the Philippines several times in my life has introduced me to one of the greatest feelings I had ever known - that of coming home.
Before I flew to Switzerland one year ago, my parents talked to me separately and gave me their blessing. They gave me a gift I will never forget - the reminder that I was born to dream great dreams. And that I was meant to be great not just to one man but, in fact, to my entire people. Then I visited a very dear friend and mentor, and he reminded me of my responsibility to help change unjust systems, to make the world a better place. Never forget, he said, to accomplish things that would outlast your generation.
During my first three months in Switzerland, I was terrified that I was losing this dream and this responsibility. Stranded in a country which I felt does not appreciate me and whose people I do not understand, I was mired in my very own brand of self-defeat. I cursed each day when the clouds hung low over Zurich and there was no hint of sunshine. I would think of the days in our country when the rain, no matter how long or intense, is always followed by the sun. I often missed the men and women who believed in my capabilities, in whose company I had weighed decisions of tremendous implications to many communities, perhaps to the entire country. The isolation I encountered in Switzerland was breaking me apart. I felt frustrated and angry whenever I thought about the future I had lost.
One time, my close friends from Chicago and Manila wrote to me, seriously wanting to know whether I got what I wanted by going to Switzerland. I told them “no, not yet, but I will find it somehow”. They reminded me that I am a person who lives, who fights and who dies for a cause. I began to wonder if this is still who I am.
I moved to Switzerland because I fell in love with a man who reminds me everyday, simply by encouraging and supporting me, that love is one of life’s greatest causes, and that it is worth fighting for. This thought kept me going.
Early this year, I visited Tuluyang Pinoy Philippine Center in Zurich. Months later, through my friends at TP, I discovered that personal isolation is something we have the power to overcome. While helping out at TP’s Referral and Counseling Program, I caught intimate glimpses of the experiences of other Filipinas in Switzerland - they who have been treated unfairly, physically and psychologically abused, unhappy and isolated. I woke up from the depression which had so immobilized me, realizing then that I have no right to complain while so many others continue to struggle in unparalleled ways. It resurrected the same passion I used to have when I worked for a women’s shelter in Chicago. It brought me face to face with my own internal issues and past experiences of abuse.
The language barrier remains a major one which we migrants must hurdle. As a writer and artist, I have always worked in two languages: English and Tagalog. Now, I find myself struggling to learn German. I was told that this is the only way to be considered functional in this society. While I resented such a thought, I conceded grudgingly. And yet, we discover everyday that no matter how proficient we become in this new language, we can never consider it ours. For language is the bearer of life’s experiences. It is the embodiment of our culture and tradition. In language is rooted our identity, the days of our childhood, the totality of our memories. Once deprived of this means to express ourselves and communicate our most intimate thoughts, we might as well have been a people amputated at the very soul. And thus we channel our frustration into positive endeavors, transforming our longing for our culture into a source of inspiration. By promoting the richness of Philippine culture, we cultivate further the deep pride we have in our race. Our children will learn to make their Filipino heritage a living, breathing part of their consciousness, even as they grow up so far from the motherland. And by reaching out to the Swiss people with whom we have linked our destiny, we communicate to them our hopes of building solidarity.
Migrants are always advised to prepare for migration. It is important to do so. But preparation has its limits in shock-proofing us for the difficulty of being uprooted and transplanted elsewhere across the oceans. No matter how far and often one has traveled, no matter how many cultures were experienced, that stabbing pain of isolation will always accompany the traveler who might realize one day that there may never be another coming home. Even the prospect of yearly visits to Manila does not totally ease this despairing thought. My friends from various international communities have advised me to rise above this by simply believing that each one of us is a citizen of a higher order, a community of diverse human beings with so much to share and learn from each other. But such an abstract thought, no matter how noble, is inadequate in easing the very personal, and therefore unique, crisis encountered by each migrant woman. The only way is for each of us to find our own very personal way of coping.
I remember my friend Lucy; she copes by singing the kundiman while she goes about her housework. Shall I share with you mine? I think of home, I sink into a pool of very personal memories. I think of my deceased grandfather in Tanay and the stories he had told me as a child. They remind me that we Filipinos come from a land of legends. Legends that speak of love and freedom, of dignity and honor. And with the thought of the blood of our ancestors singing in our veins, of a heritage that goes back a thousand years, there comes a surge of pride that virtually lifts me up to that spot above the clouds, up there where the sun always shines.