Jewish American Heritage Month

Posted By admin on December 26, 2021

My mother and I spent an afternoon unfurling my lolas apartment a few days after she died, back in 2017. In her closet, my grandmother had stored a big cardboard box with an address in Manila written on the side in thick marker. Inside the box were neatly arranged cans of food, bags of rice, drugstore makeup, and clothes she had bought on sale. Some of the items were labeled with our relatives names, and the package was left open in case anything else needed to be added as she went about her days.

Sending a filled-to-the-brim box to the Philippines each Christmas was a treasured routine my lola had settled into long before I was born. But instead of mailing it that year, she had been waiting until she could ceremoniously take it back home herself. Transporting it to the airport would have been physically impossible for such a small and aging woman, but I imagine that she viewed hand-delivering gifts to the children and grandchildren she hadnt seen in years as evidence of her love. What I didnt know then was that this beloved tradition of sending or bringing home oversize care packages, called balikbayan boxes, had started as an authoritarian regimes effort to stem the Philippines economic crisis in the 1970s.

In Tagalog, balikbayan means return to country. Former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos coined the term to inspire nationalism in Filipino expats and encourage them to return with their earningsinitially requiring them to pay remittances to their family back home before softening the policy. Overseas Filipino workers (OFWs), especially those living in the United States, were offered reduced-cost flights, land for purchase once they arrived home, and the ability to travel back with duty- and tax-free boxes. When Marcoss rule ended, the Philippine government codified the balikbayan program into law. But over the years, what was initially meant to be a solution to the countrys financial instability has transformed into a cherished cultural practice across the Filipino diaspora.

Read: The HR department of the world

Though Marcos may have seeded the program to strengthen expats ties to the country, he simultaneously denied the rights of those still living in the Philippines. In her book Migrants for Export, the UC Davis Asian Americanstudies professor Robyn Magalit Rodriguez writes, The Marcos administrations valorization of the balikbayan on the one hand and its policies demanding migrants remittances on the other, while seemingly contradictory, partly reflect the nature of the dictatorship. Gradually, then, the boxes became a way for expats to help feed, clothe, and heal their loved ones who remained. They became a way for women, who make up the majority of OFWs, to continue fulfilling their familial duties regardless of where they were in the world. Today, some 400,000 balikbayan boxes are sent to the Philippines each monthwith that number dramatically increasing during Christmastimeby the nearly 10 percent of Filipinos who live abroad. Balikbayans have become a lucrative industry: Some shipping companies across the U.S. are dedicated entirely to the transport of the boxes, which can weigh up to 130 pounds. On Amazon, you can even buy fabric covers to make sure that your balikbayan arrives intact.

Beyond their economic implications, balikbayans can also keep families feeling emotionally tethered to one another. Often when I think of a balikbayan box, I think about when the family receiving it gathers to open it, Clarissa Aljentera, a Filipino American writer from Fremont, California, told me via email. And if you arent there, someone will put the item aside and make sure you receive a piece of the U.S. Theyre a reminder to many that they arent alone and havent been forgotten. When government assistance falls short in supplying resources such as clothing and food to those in need, families can show love and support from abroad by serving as a safety net.

While completing his Ph.D., Anthony C. Ocampo, a Cal Poly Pomona sociology professor and the author of The Latinos of Asia, conducted an ethnographic research project on balikbayans. He rode along with a balikbayan-box companyfirst, picking up the boxes from homes in Los Angeles, then delivering them to families in Manila. Ive been to a number of Filipino [American] homes where the balikbayan box just takes up the entire living area or apartment, Ocampo told me. Its essentially an assembly line: soon-to-be packed items on the ground, on the dining table, on the sofa. It felt like there was no separation between American life and Filipino life. One was an extension of another. The often months-long process of collecting the right items to send is a caretaking practice all its own.

The contents of balikbayans are just as much a portrait of America and the Philippines as they are of individuals. Inventory lists tend to look similar throughout the diaspora: Irish Spring soap. Jif peanut butter. Dove deodorant. Spam. Ferrero Rochers. Nikes. McDonalds Happy Meal toys. Folgers Coffee. Colgate toothpaste. Bath & Body Works lotion. Hanes underwear. The wealth gap between many Filipino Americans and their family back home is wide, but the mere fact that the box comes from America can engender a rosy interpretation of the immigrant experience that might not be the senders reality. Balikbayan boxes [are] also a kind of currency, Cherry Lou Sy, a playwright from Baguio City who lives in Brooklyn, told me via email. Those who receive balikbayan boxes are rich because they have someone they can turn to and ask when things get tough. Ocampo echoed this notion: A lot of the stuff people send can easily be found in the Philippines, but theres something about sending the box that conveys to loved ones back home that we remember you.

I didnt have the same meticulous ritual of sending balikbayans as my lola didfirst- and second-generation Filipino Americans, especially those who have never been to the Philippines or arent close with their relatives there, tend not to. But adopting this routine by sending boxes each Christmas, starting with this one, feels like one way for me to keep loving my lola even after her death. I kept a big cardboard box in my own closet, regularly filling it with the same food and clothing and toys that she always did. I wrote the address in thick marker, taped up the box, and sent it off. While generational and cultural differences across the diaspora become more profound over time, traditions based in ongoing community care are worth preserving.

Original post:

The Tradition That Keeps My Grandmother's Memory Alive - The Atlantic

Category: Diaspora
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