by Emil Guillermo
This, I am told, will be the last column for the Filipino Chronicle till further notice. It coincidentally coincided with the passing of my brother-in-law.
My Manong Virgilio could very well be the perfect immigrant. He came to America in the 70s for love and married my sister.
From humble beginnings in Ilocos Norte, Philippines (Laoag City to be exact, home of San Guillermo), Virgilio along with my sister built a solid middle class life in America.
They paid their taxes. Obeyed the law. Caused no trouble. Owned their home. Raised two college-educated Filipino kids.
Success!
When Donald Trump rages about immigrants during his presidency, think of Virgilio—the ones who believe in the Constitution and that American phrase, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.”
More of them are like him. Perfect to near perfect. Not criminals.
But Trump will use any excuse to malign the majority of people who seek a life in America.
Trump did it recently in the aftermath of that National Guard shooting tragedy in DC.
He was just looking for cover to go triple x/xenophobic on immigration.
Without knowing the real motive of the shooter, the president assumed an already vetted CIA operative, an Afghan national who worked side by side with American forces in Afghanistan and given asylum by the Trump administration, was initially not worthy of admittance to the U.S.
But he was.
Just like Filipino vets in the Philippines who fought side-by-side with Americans in WWII and were promised citizenship. That is until the U.S. reneged in the infamous Rescission Act of 1946.
As Trump would say, “Things happen.”
This time, instead of waiting for all the facts, Trump used last week’s shooting tragedy to instill the fear of immigrants throughout the nations and in individual ethnic communities, when he said the U.S. would “permanently halt immigration” from 19 countries including Laos and Burma.
Trump can’t make the kind of wholesale changes on immigration he wants without Congress, but this Congress, so far, has only tested him on all things Epstein, not all things immigration.
If Trump’s xenophobia continues to define policy, it will be in keeping with Trump’s regressive vision of America.
It hearkens back to 1924, when the U.S. adopted the Johnson Reed Act, the worst immigration law in American history that set racist quotas on Asian countries.
In other words, it’s in the U.S. political DNA to have remnants of nativist and eugenicist philosophies determine who gets to be American.
Here comes ethnic purity 2.0, American-style. That is unless we are loud and persuade the public that Trump-style racist is plain un-American.
No Coincidence
But given the imminent demographic shift in the country when minorities are predicted to become the majority nationally by 2035 or 2040, Trump’s reaction should be no surprise.
MAGA doesn’t want to see the browning of America.
But in this column, let’s celebrate immigrants, in our Filipino American community at large of four million.
I don’t mean just the flashy individual success stories: the high-tech AI founders, the doctors, lawyers, entrepreneurs. Nor am I talking of the actors, singers, and other artistic wonders out there.
The vast majority of us are rank and file Filipino American; vin ordinaire.
We are the Filipino Americans who rarely get noticed.
The ones who take care of their families. And, considering our place in the care professions, maybe even others.
They do their jobs.
They keep their nose to the grindstone and work. Then, retire.
That’s the Asian work ethic.
Their joy is in family, family events. When they take a vacation, it’s generally for infrequent family reunions to our ancestral homelands.
They aren’t the headliners. They are literally the fabric of our country, part of the 27 million who make up our broader Asian American community.
They may or may not be fully documented. They may be visa overstays. But criminal? Immigration law is “civil” not criminal.
The majority of them surely aren’t gangsters. In the current ICE age, their Filipino faces make them susceptible for harassment and deportation. They are the unfortunate pawns in the president’s immigration reality show.
Virgilio
I want to salute them all today because they are just like my brother-in-law, Virgilio.
His life changed drastically when my sister went back to my father’s province for a vacation in the Philippines in the 1970s. It was the same year I went east to college. My sister went the other way, back to my father’s home town and met the man of her dreams.
At first, I wasn’t sure. My sister and I were the “born heres,” the Americans. We didn’t need to import a spouse, did we?
In time, I grew to love my brother-in-law for who he was. A good, responsible man, who provided for my sister and his family, and did it all with a smile.
Virgilio had a good job, worked hard, and was the kind of person we want in America. Those who know it is better here.
Virgilio also liked the Warriors, Giants, and 49ers.
He liked sports, wore the gear. He ate fast food. That, not the sports, gave him the body of an average American. But he was careful in recent years to watch what he ate. He even ran 5Ks for fun.
Virgilio wasn’t famous, nor rich, but that was never the goal for the average person motivated by an opportunity for a better life away from the land of pesos and in the land of dollars.
Oh, and I don’t know what his politics was. We never talked about politics. We cared about our teams, the family, and each other.
Last month, on the day after we gave thanks, Virgilio died in San Francisco at age 81. It was a day after the president essentially slurred all immigrants, even the good ones, as perhaps all being worthy of suspicion. But for what? For being “foreign”? For being non-white?
In the end, Virgilio, nearly 50 years in America was the example of what successful immigration is, or at least what it should be, and who the opportunity should be bestowed upon.
The good, humble people who want a chance at an American life. Not a dream. A life.
Virgilio wasn’t the person with the cash to buy his way into Mar-a-Lago. Or the person with valuable “skills.” Not unless you count honesty, decency and respect for the rule of law. (Hey, that makes him better than the president himself).
America shouldn’t be like applying to an Ivy League school, or like getting that top level job.
We want good people; people with such a stake in family and country that they willingly renounce their native land and put America first.
That’s always been the principal idea, the basic deal that qualifies you to take the oath.
They may retain an accent, or practice customs. But there was no doubt, who and what they were.
American.
Virgilio knew it perfectly, as do the vast majority of immigrants to America.
When I stood by him in his final days, I realized as Virgilio took his last breaths, he was as close to the perfect immigrant as it gets.
EMIL GUILLERMO is a veteran journalist, commentator, and stage monologist/humorist. He has written his column on race, politics and culture from a Filipino perspective since 1995. His “Amok” column has appeared in the Filipino Chronicle for many years. He is sad for its demise in print, but hopeful it reappears digitally or in special editions in the future. Email: emilamok@gmail.com See him on Youtube.com/@emilamok1
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