Taglish
/Dedicated to my Auntie Encar – I hope you’re still dancing.
A photo of my Auntie Encar and myself during my last visit to see her (Photo courtesy of Mikko Jimenez).
I. California
I am driving along the coast in southern California on my way to say my final goodbyes to my Auntie Encar as the sun sets in the Pacific Ocean.
The rental car I’m driving hugs the coastal hills just like it did when my Tatay would drive them when I was a kid. Like many Filipino Americans, California has a special place in my heart. I’ve never lived here, but I have family sprinkled across the state, which means I spent much of my childhood visiting. Many of my early memories are tied to this place, most so vague that I don’t even remember exactly where they were. I remember teasing my Kuya Eric about how he rapped the Beastie Boys with a Filipino accent, while he teased me and my sister about how we said “adobo” like white people. I remember my Kuya Jay taking me to an underground sneaker spot because I wanted SB Dunks like Lupe Fiasco. I remember building a house for my Tita Annivee and Tita Rosemary’s cats out of cardboard boxes, and I remember how they curled up inside once I had finished.
California is home to the largest number of Filipinos in America, and every time I touch down here, I remember what that means. I have a Filipino community back home in Chicago, but California feels different. It feels a little closer to the place my parents were born in, both geographically and culturally. Visiting California often feels like visiting the home I forgot I had. The warm ocean humidity wraps me like a blanket and Tagalog floods my ears as I walk through the airport. Even if I can’t understand all of it, it comforts me.
As I drive on, the sun falls on the horizon and the chaparral landscape slowly fades. My headlights illuminate a thin strip of interstate that leads to Brookdale Assisted Living, where my Auntie Encar is waiting to see me.
II. Taglish
I am sitting next to my Auntie Encar at one of her favorite Chinese restaurants for dinner.
In true Filipino form, we share gifts in food. I take her out for meals, she tells me stories. We had coffee in the morning, and I took her out for sushi for lunch. I’ve spent most of the day asking my Auntie about her life. She told me about California in the 1970’s, how she enjoyed dancing, and how she missed her friends as she moved around the state. When I asked what prompted her to immigrate to San Francisco in 1969, in the aftermath of the Summer of Love, she responded simply “because I wanted to.”
My Auntie Encar (middle) with her friends Nally Bautista (right) and Nenita Tameta (left) outside the Riviera Hotel in Las Vegas, where they attended an Elvis Presley concert (Photo courtesy of Nenita Tameta).
Now, I sit at a large, round table full of relatives I barely know. We pass plates of food around, tell stories, and catch up. My Tito Fronny and my Ate Frances remind everyone not to speak in Tagalog, so I can participate in the conversation. I feel a little embarrassed. They ask me how much I understand and test me by asking me questions, some of which I can respond to in English.
I don’t speak Tagalog. I speak Taglish, or a mix of Tagalog and English. I sit around the dinner table and pick up bits of sentences, trying to follow along. I ask my Auntie Encar about her life and cling to the small anecdotes she shares with me. I visit California and only catch a glimpse of what my family’s life is like here. I collect the pieces of my culture that are offered to me and try to make sense of them – then I return to the latitudes of home.
As we leave, I am urged to take leftovers home. In true Filipino form, we share gifts in food.
III. Balikbayan
“I need to start a garden.
I need to start a garden.
I need to start a garden.
I need to start a garden.”
- Oom Sha La La by Haley Heynderickx
I am sitting in the sand just off the San Diego freeway.
I decided to pull over and spend some time at the beach on my way back to the airport. I’m watching a common tern, a type of bird, glide over the waves. I study bird migration for a living, so I know this species is migrating south to spend the winter in Central America. I can tell you all about this bird’s biology, where it’s going, and how it might get there. But science has its limitations; I can’t tell you anything about the courage it takes to leave everything you know in the hopes of finding a new home.
Staring out over the ocean, I realize that my vantage point is the exact opposite of what my Auntie Encar’s was when she immigrated here. I realize that her frontier was the reverse of what I’ve been taught it means to be an American pioneer; that to find something new, she pushed east, contrary to so much of the American identity I’m familiar with. The end of America’s frontier was the beginning of her own. I wonder if she ever questioned her identity in the opposite direction I have; if she ever felt like an impression of an American, just as I sometimes feel like an impression of a Filipino.
As I prepare to leave the beach and catch my flight home, a wave comes in and touches my feet. I realize that, as I’ve been sitting here, the tide has risen. It hits me that this was my last visit to California to see my Auntie Encar. Somewhere out over the horizon is the place she once called home, and it feels like the distance between me and that place has grown, as though it has permanently receded further out into the ocean. Suddenly, I wish I could see that place from this beach. I wish I could hold it in my gaze and be assured that it’s out there.
And, in this moment, I feel closer to my Auntie Encar. Because, even if it’s only a thin strip of California interstate that led me here, I am certain that she once wished she could see that place from this beach too.
Mikko Jimenez is an PhD student in the Fish, Wildlife, and Conservation Biology Department of Colorado State University, where he studies the intersection of bird migration and urban life. He has written for the National Audubon Society and BirdCast. Follow him on Twitter @MikkoJimenez.
