The Hidden Life of Being an Immigrant

ever since i can remember

my life in the philippines was never

meant to be permanent

there were always these talks about

something called visas

something about passports petitions and

citizenships

there are also talks about finally

riding on a plane

finally playing in the snow and my

personal favorite

finally going to disney world

before these talks were just mere words

until these words became a reality

in the summer of 2009 my brother and i

finally made it here

in the united states the glorious land

of opportunity

however getting to this new life in this

new country was a battle

but what i was not expecting was that

the life ahead was going

to have just as much hurdles as the life

ahead let’s start from the beginning

back in 1961 my lola my grandfather

decided to apply for a professional

workers visa to be able to work here

and after his visa was granted he now

had the ability to apply for visas for

his family

and in 1981 him and his family finally

moved here

and while they were here they also

applied to become green card holders

making them permanent residents

they now had the ability to fly back

from their new home to their old home

and vice versa now let’s fast forward to

the 90s when a

wonderful and resilient woman by the

name of christina my

loving mother shout out to my mom

this uh decided to go back home to the

philippines to help with my

grandfather’s business

well back home she also found a husband

and then gave birth to two wonderful

kids

one in 1995 and one in 1999

the one standing on the stage right now

in 2000 2003 my mother decided to move

back to the united states

to be able to work and provide a better

life for her family

however due to many factors years later

my mom couldn’t just apply for a visa

just like my grandfather did back in the

day

there’s a more extensive and expensive

process that was put into place

but before we get to that process in

2004 my mother finally got her

full-fledged american citizenship and

now

my brother my father and i finally had

our chance

now let’s go back to that process so

look at here in this graphic to the left

this is the immigrant visa process as

presented on the us department of state

website

and as you can see there are literally

12 steps the first is to submit a

petition

a petition is pretty much you know

viewed saying that you can provide for

the people that you want to bring into

the country

however in order for a petition to be

approved the petitioner

must be a united states citizen and the

relationship between the petitioner and

the petitionee must be biological

i know that’s a lot right after a

petition has been approved there are

these 11 other steps

that requires a lot of time effort money

and there’s even interviews in there and

if you’re asking yourself

yes just like job interviews i literally

had to interview just to get into the

country just like i would for an

internship which is insane

however once you have your visa approved

there’s still more

you have to go through multiple tests

and checks to make sure that you’re fit

to go into the country

and then you also have to pretty much

book your flight and then have to plan

out how you’re going to move your life

from one country

to another spoiler alert once you get to

the us

you’re not done yet you also have to

apply for a green card to become a

permanent resident

and then you have to apply for your

full-fledged american citizenship

which takes even more time money and

effort

for the full-fledged american

citizenship for those over the age of 18

there’s even an exam for it

if you’re asking yourself yes just like

the ones we take here

at schools about the united states and

civics and if you want you can try it

out for yourself there’s a buzzfeed

version of it online so try it out after

today’s event and challenge yourself and

see if you pass

now this is why when we see pictures

like these and headlines like these pop

up on the media social media wherever we

see them

that the process itself to legally

immigrate into the united states is not

that easy

the process itself is more of a

deterrent rather than an encouragement

and sometimes people choose to immigrate

and jump borders because

they’re fighting for their lives so when

you can imagine

now i address that i’m very privileged i

had the

family support and the resources to help

me legally immigrate into this country

but sometimes when you’re running for

your life you just don’t have the time

to pool all of those resources

so that’s why when we hear people say

something like why can’t they just

legally immigrate into the country that

it’s not that easy

this is also why it’s super important

for as a society to educate ourselves

because by educating ourselves we can

see that this is

not humane the way we treat these people

we’re all human

and by educating ourselves we can be

more compassionate and learn people’s

stories

and see that we are all welcome wherever

we want to go

now let’s go back to my story due to my

mother moving to the united states

i mostly had a childhood without her my

father

and my aunts took amazing care of my

brother and i but there were so many

parts of my younger self that

was just wishing for that good night

good night’s kiss for my mother

a hug from whenever i came back home

from school

or you know just those small daily

interactions that you could have around

the house

most of my memories with my mother

consisted of yahoo instant messenger

video chats

occasional visits and the tears that

i’ve cried at the airport cafeteria

every time we dropped her off

here’s actually one of those instances

in the iconic airport cafeteria

and don’t be fooled by that smile over

there i actually cried buckets when we

got to the car i was like mom don’t

leave me

but it’s okay now let’s fast forward

to 2009. we went through the process and

we finally made it here

i remembered that day like it was

yesterday i remember we landed in the

john f kennedy airport in new york

and after we got through customs all i

wanted was to see my mom

and we got to the arrival section i saw

her literally jumping over the fence and

she was like oh my gosh i’m here

and then i went to the border i passed

the fence and i remember the hug that my

mother gave me it was one of the biggest

ones that she has ever given my brother

and i

and then i also remember the high fives

i got from my cousin and my uncle

and of course after we left the airport

we had to celebrate but after a few days

we started to settle i started to wonder

what’s next

i finally made it here what do i do now

now i grew up and still live in the

humble town of hampden connecticut

hampden is a very diverse town at least

compared to the ones in connecticut

while i always felt welcomed i never

really feel like felt like i belonged

there was a lot of things that’s making

me stand out and one of those

instances where i stood out the most was

actually my first day of american school

which unfortunately was the second day

for everyone else because i had like

documentations

that stopped me from going in that first

day i know i didn’t want to stand up but

here we are going in for the first day

on the second day

so i remember walking up to my school

and walking into my classroom and then

seeing my teacher’s face

glow up she was like oh my gosh he’s

here so she took me from the door

presented me in front of the classroom

and then said something along these

lines like

good morning everyone here’s ramon

here’s a new classmate he’s from the

philippines

and i remember just standing there like

an alien being presented in front of my

class i was like

hi hello i guess cool

now my class welcomed me and i had a lot

of great time at school but i always

still felt different

from the way i carried myself the way i

spoke with my broken english

and the fried rice and spam that i

brought in for lunch

now if you know at school there’s one

place you don’t want to stand out it’s

the cafeteria so i would literally walk

in on there every day

with my tupperware with my rice and

everyone’s like who is that

but being different in many aspects than

the rest of my peers made me appreciate

my differences being different i

appreciated that i have

a lot of interesting stories to tell i

have experience living in a different

country and i can also speak two

languages which is

lokia flex

but aside from the fried rice and spam

there was still something that made me

feel like i never really belonged

it was something that you couldn’t see

it was my beliefs

and my values you see schools back home

are so much more different than the

schools that we have here

back home you weren’t encouraged to have

fun we didn’t even have a playground we

barely had a recess

and teachers are allowed to be tough on

you i remember one time i was talking so

much i took a shoe to the head

yes teachers could do that in the

philippines but here

it was so much more different you were

encouraged to have fun

you were supported and you were

encouraged to explore any interests that

you may have

whether it be sports art music whatever

now i wish that i could just

play in the snow all day and i wish that

i could just

go to disney world every day but there’s

so many factors that’s stopping us from

doing that however schools in the

philippines also had something different

it was competition from a young age you

were taught to be better than everyone

else

no matter the cost now

finally being here in the united states

and knowing that the biggest reason why

i came here was to get a better

education

for a better future and that one-upping

mentality

always stuck with me and it still with

me to this day

when i was at school i remember i would

always be in the playground playing with

my friends but all i can think about is

that exam

coming the next week now let’s fast

forward to high school where the

pressure just kept on going up

there are always the pressures of

maintaining the best gpa

joining clubs to fill up that resume and

all to get to the best colleges in the

land

now getting into college spoiler alert

the

pressure is at the highest that it has

ever been i put all of this pressure

onto myself

to feel like i can make up for all the

effort that was spent getting me here

now i love bryant i really do

but unfortunately brian is not easy on

the pockets

now that there’s a financial burden tied

to academic performance

all of the factors that i just mentioned

about is like all i can think about

now we all know that saying that goes

college

is going to be the best four years of

your life

however it’s hard to enjoy the best four

years of your life and all you can think

about is

again getting those good grades filling

up that resume and

hopefully landing that perfect job offer

by the end of all of this so that i can

provide for myself

and in turn give back to my family now

don’t get me wrong i may have had a lot

of self-imposed pressure

but there is also a lot of external

pressures that were put onto me

you see going to business school was

already a big bet for me

business is not the major choice for

most filipinos

in filipino culture you either become a

nurse or do something else in the

medical field

i remember this one time when i was out

to dinner before i was moving

into my freshman year here at bryant my

father and i had this conversation that

went something like this

my father went business how much money

is that going to make you

and then i remember responding

i don’t know but what i do know is that

there are a lot of opportunities within

it

and then my dad goes okay

with enough doubt to permeate the little

atmosphere and vibe that we were having

there in the table at that time

during my time at college so far there

has been many times that i have over

exerted myself

not because i didn’t want to take time

to have fun or take care of myself but

because doing so

was selfish in my eyes i always had

thoughts that went into my head that

went like

oh so you want to take a nap well what

about that exam you have the next week

if you don’t study now you’re going to

get bad grades and there goes your job

prospects

or other thoughts that went like go join

that club and make something of yourself

now i may have had a lot of pressure and

barriers that has put in front of me

whether it’s physical

emotional mental self-imposed external

whatever form i may have taken

however i did not let those stop me from

living my best

life i would not be the resilient driven

and passionate person that i am today if

it were not for these

for those barriers they helped motivate

me to light a fire under me

to be better and to always strive to be

the best

due to the motivation that those

barriers have given me i was able to

earn a lot of awards in high school

and even get my high school diploma i

was able to get into an amazing

university and finally

get that good american education that i

have been yearning for ever since i was

young

shout out to brian and i have even been

able to land a very coveted internship

in one of the biggest companies in the

world

however this motivation also made me

more compassionate

you see everyone has their own paths and

goals in life

life is not a one size fits all

by embracing our different paths and our

different goals we can actually learn

from each other because we can help each

other into reaching those

and then we can also listen to others if

they need help we can be more

compassionate

and also very more empathetic

now for those of you watching this talk

here in the auditorium today or for

those of you watching online at home

i hope that my talk inspired you to

start looking at the barriers that have

been put in front of you

not as what they are not as barriers but

as learning lessons here to make you

better

they’re only there to make you stronger

and to test your strength so that

moving forward you can be a better

version of yourself

next is to never be afraid to be

different

embrace who you are whether you’re in a

room of

ten a hundred a thousand ten thousand or

a million people

always be proud to be you one being one

out of seven billion

that should make you proud and happy to

be who you are

having these differences is what makes

us human beings shine

next is to never be afraid to educate

yourself

don’t be afraid to engage in the events

that are being held in your community

don’t be afraid to ask those tough

questions don’t be afraid to stand up

and be an ally sometimes all it takes is

one spark

to ignite others to do the same and

hopefully one day when we continue to

spread our wealth of knowledge that we

can come to a world where

diversity and inclusivity is the law of

the land

lastly be more grateful

be grateful for everything and everyone

that has gotten you this far in your

life so far

sometimes we can get so caught up in the

barriers that life has put in our path

that we ourselves can be our own

barriers from stop stopping us from

reaching our highest potential

by taking the time to reflect and being

more grateful

we can see that where we are right now

is enough

i am enough you are enough

we are all enough and that there’s

potential in all of us

now before i leave i just wanted to say

thank you to my family

i would not be who i am without them

i dedicate this talk to them salamat