Refugee of Old Dreams

By: Victoria G. Smith

 

She texts me to say she’s at her sister’s home
in California, and won’t I please call her there.
I’m glad. She didn’t sound happy the last time

she emailed, living in her mother-in-law’s house
in our hometown on the other side of the Pacific.
Her husband had decided one day to just quit work.

Twenty-five years of toil in the Land of Opportunity
without much to show for it put a toll on his hope,
like it did on hers when she realized they’d never

buy a home of their own, nor live the American Dream.
It was easier for them to go back “home,” he said.
She’ll welcome having maids at her beck and call

again, he said. But it became clear from the start
that only her mother-in-law had that power.
They were her maids, after all, and my friend

is merely a refugee of old dreams. She came close
couple of years ago when she’d gone back to school
to finish that nursing degree. But her washed-out

husband washed away his own dreams. This wasn’t
the first time he’d done this: Pulled her away from hers,
just when they’d come within reach. So, she folded

her feelings and tucked them in neatly, as if putting away
washed laundry. Continued on the old path of wives—
following fate and husbands where they pleased.

Tried to pick up where they’d left off in the Motherland,
weaving her life around heirloom patterns. But it’s too hot
all the time, she cried. Could no longer bear the heat

and humidity oppressive as her nightmares.
Can’t breathe, she complained. So, she panted out
hours of rote prayers our mothers taught us

like some Lamaze breathing exercise. I call her,
but her sister says she’s still asleep. Jet lag,
I presume. She came to lend support to a sibling

recovering from hysterectomy. I wonder if she also
returned to excise a cancer of her own: Give caesarian
release to stillborn plans festering in her womb

now reclaiming their long overdue birthday,
while her husband wakes up to his mother barking
orders to the maids, thousands of miles away.

Poet’s Notes: This month we celebrate the Chicago Filipino Asian American Hall of Fame (CHOF) Awards. I congratulate all the awardees and wish them more power in their particular endeavors, specifically, in continuing to make a positive difference in the world through their particular talents and vocations. I remember with much humility and gratitude my own recognition and induction into this hallowed list of award recipients as 2013 Outstanding Writer and Community Volunteer.

In the midst of the glorious, glamorous, and elegant ceremonies recognizing this year’s awardees, let’s take a moment to contemplate what this honor means. To me, it marks one’s success in achieving certain dreams—whether it be for one’s self, or in helping others achieve theirs. Many of my fellow Filipino American CHOF award recipients, in particular, can surely identify with me when I say this award marks our common achievement in having overcome obstacles and challenges to becoming a success in our adopted country, the United States. We marvel at the almost impossible hurdles we had to transcend to even reach this stage, let alone, to live in America— arguably now, the most prosperous and powerful country in the world.

At the same time, we might also ponder upon how fortunate we truly are to have accomplished this, considering that we are perhaps the exception, not the norm, among our fellow Filipinos as regards fulfillment of dreams. And this is why I chose above poem to feature this month. For aren’t we all, one way or another, refugees of old dreams?

All of us who are first-generation immigrants, especially, have come to this country in search of a better or more secure life—to realize certain dreams we formed and cherished in our native land, the Philippines, which dreams, for some reason, we could not envision attaining in the land of our birth. The tragedy of this kind of dreaming is that this was what fueled the Filipino diaspora. And do you know what is the greater tragedy? It is the misfortune suffered by the heroine in above poem—the tragedy of having to suffer a second diaspora, that is, of having to leave our adopted country and return to the motherland because she and her husband realized at the height of the financial crisis that America itself could no longer sustain their dreams, let alone the American dream of owning one’s home. A character in a favorablyreviewed novella I wrote reflected on why she still called the Philippines home when she’s lived in the United States for more than a decade already. She said, “Perhaps immigrants like me are doomed to be forever suspended between two homes—never to arrive in either.” It seems the same way for some of our dreams—they are homeless dreams.

This can be seen more dramatically in the case of refugees who have to flee their homes in the dead of night with nary a thread on their backs, risking life and limb to reach other shores. And for what? For the simple dream of making a home in a society that will allow them, at the very least, to live in peace. Most of us only wish to be left alone enough so we can live a humane and civilized life. And yet, humanity remains a mere pawn to the powerful, mere hostages to the propagation of some belief system, in the name of some god, religion, or ideology. Herein lies the merits of a secular humanistic society— where we can be free to live as we choose as long as we don’t harm our fellow human beings, free from the dictates of those who, by their prejudices and egoic extensions of themselves toward whole socio-economic-political systems, would want to force us to their way of life. The mere fact that we don’t believe as they do is a threat to them so that they are willing to harm and even kill us to assuage their insecurities.

And this is why it is most important to keep America what made it great—what Emma Lazarus in her 1883 poem, The New Colossus, celebrated in the inauguration of the then new Statue of Liberty: an America that welcomes the “…tired, …poor, …huddled masses yearning to breathe free….”! For it were these tired, poor, huddled masses of humanity that possessed the hunger and passion for life so necessary in fueling the building of this great nation into what it is today. Despite its many problems, and in view of the destabilization of large parts of Europe, the Middle East, Asia, and Africa, America is still the best country in the whole world within which to cultivate and realize personal dreams!

This is something to reflect upon as we elect the next United States President. In hard economic times, there are those among us who look for scapegoats for their problems. Time and time again, history shows that it is the immigrant who makes for an easy scapegoat. And that is why the topic of immigration is a hotbed issue in this political race. It is where a candidate stands in respect of immigration, among other important issues such as guns and the environment that will expose what a candidate is made of—that tests her or his mettle. Herein lies, to me, the ultimate value of the Chicago Filipino Asian American Hall of Fame Awards: They are proof that given the right conditions to thrive and flourish, immigrants like us can be successful in achieving not only our personal dreams but in successfully contributing to sustaining a whole country’s dream to continue shining an undimmed beacon of hope and freedom to the whole world especially during these epic times of global change. (Copyright © 2015 by Victoria G. Smith. For updates on her literary work and author events, check out www.VictoriaGSmith.com; her Facebook page, Author Victoria G. Smith; and Twitter @AuthorVGSmith.) ###