Grapes

Mountains

Freeways

Grapes

Those were the first three things that stood out to me when I first moved to the U.S. I grew up in a small city in a provincial town in the Philippines. So small, that you could count the number of stoplights on one hand. We didn't have a lot of modern luxuries like warm water from a faucet or our own car but I loved our little barangay.

We didn't have a lot of money growing up. My mom would carefully plan our trips to the grocery store and the open market. We made a weekly menu and drew up a list of ingredients based off of it. And we stuck to the list. Pointing out something we liked while shopping and getting it was an exception, not the norm. When it came to buying fruits, we usually got apples or pears, one or the other but not both. My absolute favorite fruit was grapes. But the grapes were always so expensive that we never got the quantity we wanted. We were a family of six and the price to satisfy that many people would be exorbitant. Bigger fruits that were just as nutritious, such as papayas and bananas were usually less expensive. To me, grapes were something special. When discussing moving to the U.S., my mom would tell us about the variety of opportunities that would open to us. All my life, I had lived in the same town, on the same island, knowing the same people. To be suddenly pulled away from all of that was extremely terrifying. My eleven-year-old mind could not grasp the importance of an adult's career options and the depth of the word "opportunities." I did, however, understand choices. Apples, pears, or grapes, which will it be? In the U.S., you can choose grapes even on a regular day.

After a long flight, we deplaned at Los Angeles International Airport, LAX. This was it. This was the land of opportunities. My 13-year-old brother and I stuck close to our mother as we navigated through the airport, immigration, and customs. Then it was out into the cold air. We had arrived in December and while Southern California's winters are not known for the cold, for a girl moving from the tropics, it was freezing! We had bought jackets and winter clothes leading up to our move but the wind just passed right through them and stole warmth from my body. When I later mentioned this experience, my mom said that it was 86 degrees Fahrenheit when we arrived. Nowadays, I would consider that warm but then, I was unaccustomed to the weather, and a strong frosty wind added to it. My aunt drove up to the curb in an SUV. We loaded our luggage, bags, and boxes into her car and drove off. On the middle backseat next to me were two bags of grapes, one red, one green.

The year was 2008 and the land of opportunities held few for us. Watching my parents struggle to find work, I secretly scoffed at the idea that this land was as plentiful as they claimed. Back in the Philippines, we had a house and miles of the outdoors that served as my playground. Years later, when I went to Disneyland for the first time, my friends would say, "This is the best place," retelling the hundred and one times they had visited before. "How have you lived your entire life and never been to Disneyland?" they would ask. "I grew up with a zipline in my front yard," I would reply. Who needed Disneyland when your own home was a theme park unto itself. We climbed trees and slept under the night sky filled with stars. We swam in rivers and camped next to the ocean. We had a wide variety of pets, your regular dog, cat, hamster, and the more exotic pets such as parrots, owls, eagles, and snakes. Where the U.S. is the land of choices, the Philippines was the land of adventures. It was the perfect place to have grown up in. The innocence of childhood had sheltered me from the financial burdens my family faced. When a wealthy relative came to visit our home, with its cement floor bathroom without tiles, no shower, or flush (you would have to manually pour a bucket of water), she would disparage my parents' choices. But that was my life, all I had ever known. I did not understand the life she contrasted to our poverty. My life was a good one and I had no need for a fancy bathroom to enjoy it.

In the U.S., hot water came on demand. There was no need to boil it on the stove beforehand. In the U.S. we had a shower, bathtub, and a toilet that could flush by pushing a tiny handle. In fact, two of each. But it meant giving up a front yard, green forests, clear ocean water, beautiful beaches, and the outdoors. I thought it cost too much. It would take me years to realize that in the U.S., I still had access to all of those things. My family struggled for a bit and in some respects are still struggling. But by sticking to our values, prioritizing family, and making wise financial decisions, my siblings bought our family our own house two and half years ago. It comes with front and backyards. I worked my way through youth programs and paid for trips and events myself. The Disneyland trip I mentioned earlier was with my Girl Scout troop. By selling cookies, I paid for that trip as well as summer trips to surf camp, white water rafting, San Francisco, and Yosemite. As I grew older, I came to understand the importance of an income. I wanted to do so many things and I resolved to do them without placing a financial burden on my family. I took flying lessons, figure skated, traveled to Costa Rica, and am about to graduate from college. How much do I owe in student loans? Zero. I worked my way through college and even studied abroad. My family paid for my ticket but I paid my own rent, tuition, and living expenses. In the U.S., a young person can work and go to school at the same time. In the Philippines, it is one or the other. A family would pool together all its resources to send one child to school. All their hopes, dreams, and the future of their family rested on that child's shoulders. I have not had to carry such a burden because my family ensured it. I am not my sibling's responsibility but they, together with our parents, made sure I had the resources I needed to succeed. When my work got inconvenient, my eldest sister urged me to quit my job and focus on my studies. Because of them, I had that option. Because we lived in the U.S., we were able to rise up out of poverty. In the U.S., a girl from the provincia, with no money to her name could raise enough funds for her education and graduate without debt. By no means is this even the norm in the U.S. Like I said earlier, it is the land of choices and certain choices still lead to debt and poverty. However, within the same generation, a family may also rise up from them.

When I moved to Japan, in September 2019 and went grocery shopping for the first time, I was shocked by how expensive fresh produce was. Fruit, in particular, was priced astronomically. Prices for grapes at a typical grocery store would range from $12-$50/lb. The higher-end grapes would be beautifully packaged. I waited till my birthday to buy grapes. I bought the lower end grapes, spending about $13 but they were absolutely delicious. Even in Japan, grapes were saved for special occasions. But in the country that adopted me, I could choose grapes, even on a regular day.