A Migration Story from the Philippines
During the time that Anna lived in the Philippines, it was stuck under the dictatroship of Ferdinand Marcos. Marcos was fond of nepotism, and siphoned off the countries financial resources for years. In 1983, Benigno “Ninoy” Aquino Jr. was assasinated while re-entering the country after being exiled in the U.S. for three years. Aquino was Marcos' political rival, and the great hope of the people to end Marcos's corrupt rule.
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“When my aunts would send us the balikbayan boxes, it would be one box per family. And I would say that 80% of the contents of that box would be food. And maybe 50% of that would be chocolate. And so we would freeze these bags of chocolates to make them last longer. And we could only have like one piece every day and there’s three of us. So, we had to fight over limited resources. So, um, I thought 'Wow, when we get there, there’s not going to be this issue. It’s just you know, all the chocolates you want!” This was 11-year-old Anna's perception of what the U.S. would be like when she and her family would eventually be able to make the trip. However, there's more to Anna's story than the candy coated dreams of a little girl. “We left in 1985, and it was 2 years after the assassination of Benigno Aquino, he was the hopeful, you know, opposition to Marcos. We were really hopeful for that. Then when that happened in ‘83, we were like 'Oh, is there gonna be another martial law?' My mom said that during the initial martial law, I think in ‘72, that things just got really harder. There’s not much mobility in terms of your employment, um Marcos had control of pretty much everything: the media, the markets, I mean things were just inaccessible. So that I think many folks were really trying to leave, especially with the 1965 Immigration Act. It opened the doors for; you know if you had professionals who were in the U.S. they could petition you. That opened up a lot of doors and I think Filipinos started to think that the U.S. is a definite possibility, and my family was one of those. My mom comes from a family of 10 and her oldest sibling married someone who was recruited to work in the U.S. in the professional category. So she was able to petition my mom and her siblings. My aunt left the Philippines around... let’s see in ‘70. So, my grandparents were the next who were able to go in 1974. So, whoever was eligible was able to leave. I think um, we would have been able to leave sooner had my mom not married before the petition. So that was sort of a limitation, so we had to wait about 10 years before we could leave. After we were notified, I think it took us maybe 4 months to process everything. The passports, the paper work everything. It was really easy at the time. Um, I remember we just had to do everything, in like, yeah a few months. Like, get rid of our stuff, including my stamp collection that, to this day I’m very bitter about (laughter).” Though Anna laughs now in understanding, how would you feel at 11 to have to leave a prized collection or a favorite toy, never to see it again and go to a new home across the ocean?
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Balikbayan is actually a compound word. Balik means return and bayan means country. Balikbayan can be both a box shipped to the Philippines containing items from expatriots living abroad, or a status given by the Philippines government to a Filipino temporarily returning to the country. For more information on balikbayan boxes and status try these links:
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