Discrimination 101

Is Your English Good?

I am one person not easily let down. I mean, I am very secure about myself and I know that no matter how other people treat me, I am valuable in God’s eyes. That is where I am coming from when I relate with other people.

This mindset was put to good use when I went to this government office here in the UK to apply for an insurance number (a social security number). I was the only non-White among the group scheduled for interview at 9:00 that Friday morning. The receptionist collected appointment letters from all of us and when she got to me, she asked: “Is your English good?” Instinctively, I answered in the affirmative, not really thinking that ‘good’ might be relative. I also thought at that moment that she was just doing her job and it would be a concern if I was to need an interpreter during the interview.

Once in the interview area, two staff members approached the two white men ahead of me. They started interviewing each of the guys and it was then that I heard that they were Polish and did not speak English – well, just a little. I watched open-mouthed as this tiny English lady struggled to explain herself and to get one of the Polish guys to produce an identification card.

Nosy me could not restrain myself from interrupting them and suggesting that maybe we should show the guy an example of an ID as I rummaged through my bag trying to fish for my provisional driver’s license (or was that just an excuse to show it off as I just received it earlier that week?).

The mischievous side of me wanted to break into a guffaw when I witnessed that scene. Two white people – a tiny lady and a towering gentleman, straining to understand each other. I, a small Asian woman, was watching them with bemusement and a wicked sparkle in my eyes.

And then it hit me. It was just too ironic that the receptionist presumed that those people with the same skin color as hers would be able to speak English and that I might not be able to. She knew that those guys were Polish but she didn’t ask them if they could speak English. Maybe she just used skin color as basis for her screening questions.

Too often people use appearance as basis for judging a person. This brings to mind God’s word to the prophet Samuel: “Man looks at the appearance but I look at the heart.” Maybe, if we all know how to look deeper into a person, words like apartheid, discrimination and racism would not be in Mr. Webster’s list of words.

And if you are wondering what turned out of that interview, two young Polish guys who spoke good English arrived for the same interview. The two interviewers requested them to interpret for their countrymen. God provides – and how.

So that was how my first encounter with discrimination went. I am thankful that it was mild enough for me to just look at it as an amusing topic to write about. It is easy to miss the point why a newly-arrived foreigner like me makes a big fuss out of a question like “Is your English good?” if you haven’t lived among white people so far away from home. But being in England for the first time – and unemployed at that, makes me touchy, perhaps, or too zealous to protect my dignity as a person.

Maybe the situation was also God’s way of telling me He really goes beyond skin colors – being the God of all nations. He was just as concerned with those men to be able to get insurance numbers so that they could work and be able to send money to their families, too. Yes, they came here for the same reasons that I did – to find greener pastures. And God cares that they be able to find jobs, too.

I thank Him for allowing me to see the situation from His point of view, and for preparing me for possibly more overt means of discrimination. Why, I can never can tell when the experience comes in handy, right?

VIGNETTES (Life in the UK)

Screaming Nurse

I learned two painful truths about life of Pinoys here in the UK. One is a fact that a friend told me about and the other, I witnessed myself in one of the streets in Luton, Bedfordshire.

My husband and I visited a Filipina friend living with her family down the block one afternoon. It was my first time to see her place and they had this nice garden at the back of the property. As I was admiring it, the conversation turned to things like home mortgages and car loans. It is a fact here that loans are very easy to obtain – as long as one is gainfully employed and has proper documents. And out of the blue, she said that most Pinoys from here who build their houses in the Philippines usually do so with borrowed money. Then I remember the beautiful houses in the Philippines owned by nurses working here which I used to ogle at. Now I know why they seemed so easy to build.

Most of us in the Philippines think that because a person has gone abroad, he has all the money in the world already. But that can’t be farther from the truth. It’s not like OFWs are just picking dollars or sterling pounds from trees! They work hard and spend less for themselves to be able to send something back home. The standard of living in any developed country is way, way higher than in the Philippines. And Filipinos usually go to these countries to work. They spend a lot for rent, food and other utilities as well. And usually, the tax is staggering! Whatever is left after all these expenses gets sent to their families back home, leaving the OFW with virtually no savings. There are only a handful money-smart people who know how to invest and stash some amount for the future.

I hope families of OFW’s who do not know how to spend their allotments wisely get to read this. There will come a time when their beloved OFW will not be able to send them money anymore for whatever reason – retirement, death, loss of job. There will come a time their beloved OFW will realize he has to invest for his own future as well. I hope by that time, they would have invested their money wisely or have gone to school and earned a degree to get them into a decent job to earn their own money as well. Instead of just waiting for and depending on their allotments from their beloved OFW. I hope they will also realize that OFW’s are not merely enjoying life while away from their families. They work hard, they feel homesick, they get sick as well. They worry about their loved ones and feel depressed at times. Yes, they get directly affected by anything that happens with their families back home. Like this scene I witnessed…

While on our way home from our friend’s place, we saw this Filipina nurse walking from work (How did we know? – she had her uniform on and she was walking away from the local hospital where most Pinoys are employed in our area.). She was talking to someone on her mobile phone and she seemed upset. She was on the other side of a busy road alright, but we could clearly hear her words: “Ano pa ba ang gusto mo, ako na itong nagpapakumbaba sa yo?” Her question was almost a desperate plea to the person on the other end of the line. As we turned to our street, we could still hear her, this time screaming her lungs out. It was good that the traffic noise drowned her words from that distance – as the desperation in her voice has already started to affect me.

I had a lot of possible explanations why that nurse was so angry. Maybe she was talking to a sibling or a boyfriend, or a husband, perhaps? There might be a third person involved and she wants to save the relationship. Or, she was asking that person to leave the Philippines and come over to settle here but the other person is refusing. A lot of other ugly scenarios played out in my mind. But no matter, I felt really sad for this kababayan – so far away from her family in that state of mind. It must have been hard for her to concentrate on her duties in the hospital with weighty matters like that.

Such is the situation of several kababayans who are away from their families. It does not help that they are almost helpless to do something about the situation. Physical distance is just too difficult to bridge even with our technology today. It still is most ideal to be together with one's family. It can get very lonely especially around winter time when it’s mostly dark outside and freezing cold. The warmth of a home and the security offered by a family close by are most needed to cope with loneliness. And when these are not readily available, one can only guess where they turn to ease the loneliness.

It is a fact here that married kababayans get into illicit relationships while away from home. I know of a pretty English nurse who has a married Pinoy for a boyfriend. The woman is liberated and the man is lonely – dangerous combination. And there is this couple – both Pinoys who are both very married back in the Philippines but who are carrying on a relationship here. When it’s holiday time, they go home to their respective families. I can’t make any sense out of such a schizophrenic relationship. But it happens all the time and who am I to judge?

And there go two painful facts I learned in just one day. They got me thinking and praying that night. I hope and pray that my husband and I will never succumb to the temptation of getting loans left and right to acquire a house here in England and buy an extra car and build a beautiful vacation house in the Philippines and buy a farm there, too. I pray that we will always be tempered in our spending. We came here to escape a life of poverty in the Philippines. May we never turn the wrong way and get ourselves seriously in debt here.

I am truly and deeply grateful as well to have been able to come over with the kids and be with my husband. We may have to work harder here but at least we are together and we can support each other and raise the kids side by side. We may have better chances at owning more cars and a bigger house in the Philippines with his earnings here. But at the end of the day, what matters most is a home and not just a palace with its king slaving in a far away land.

VIGNETTES (Life in the UK)

It’s Not Fire!

I met the first batch of our countrymen (or should I say countrywomen?) here in England in a BBQ one early evening last June. There were four of them, all seemed to be fast approaching their fifties. These four Pinays have been here in England for more than a decade already. They all hail from Samar-Leyte. Two of them are married to Brits.

The host was Tinay (not her real name), a native of Leyte. She is a midwife by profession who came here from Saudi Arabia. She works not as a midwife now but still in a health-related job. She loves hosting BBQs in her lovely little garden and when she heard that we arrived already, she invited my husband to bring us to one of her small parties. I found that quite sweet of her so even if I was not in a socializing mood that day, I graciously agreed to go. I’m glad I did because that was my first time to mingle with the natives here and to meet these four wonderful women.

Tinay, a feisty, small woman, is one of the two who are married. She has married twice already while here in England. Her first husband is a Filipino, with whom she has a child and the second one is this handsome Englishman. They were the perfect hosts. They set up the grill in the garden, brought out all the food and cooked these right infront of us while we were all sipping wine. I pretended to help in the grilling as I found the heat soothing – it was quite chilly for a BBQ, actually (at least for me).

I could see who was the ‘boss’ between the two while we were grilling. Tinay was giving orders and the handsome hubby was there to help. He was suggesting that she lower the fire as some of the meat might get burned. She refused. He pointed it out again after a few minutes. She was adamant. When she found him a bit insistent already, she said; “It won’t burn, dah-ling - It’s not fire! (she meant the stove in that part where the burning meat was, was not lighted)” Then she took off to attend to other things in the kitchen - but not before barking off her final order: "Leave it!". When she left, the husband and I immediately took things into our hands and so we saved dinner from turning into charcoal.

When she was coming back, I whispered to him that the boss was coming and he muttered back: “Yeah, she is always the boss around here.” – with a smile, of course. I found that sweet, again, as I could see he adores her – feistiness and all.

I am happy for this lady. She has worked hard to be where she is now. She may not personify the typical ‘successful’ person. But she is happily married. She found love again after her first marriage. Her daughter found a loving father in the current husband. She works and earns her own money, drives her own car to work and hosts BBQs whenever possible as her home is very nice and charming – perfect for entertaining.

She might not speak perfect English – more than a decade in England didn’t seem to help. She might just be an assistant at work. She must have worked hard when she was in the Middle East. I saw her photos when she was there – big hair and dark skin – so different from how she looks now – bob cut and fair skin. Life must be so hard as she hails from a poor Region in the Philippines. Her first marriage failed. Yes, she must have gone through a lot of hardships in life. But she is happy now. And I am happy for her.

I am happy for every kababayan who has made a good life in a foreign land. Even if they are far away from their loved ones and their own country, they know how to survive and thrive. I feel proud to see them realize their dreams while here. Tinay is made of stuff that makes it anywhere in the world - resilience, patience, industry, guts. There are lots of them like her here in England. I hope they will all have the same happy story as hers.

We went home that night at a little past ten. When she was seeing us off, she said to me; “You are my friend now, not your husband anymore.” It dawned on me that this is what makes her thrive among people more educated, more affluent than her – her natural openness and willingness to welcome anyone in her life, especially a kababayan who just arrived in a country she now calls her home. Even if we were chilled to the bone, I went home happy – warmed by the thought that I found my first friend here in England.

VIGNETTES (Life in the UK)

Settling Down

It’s been almost seven weeks since we (my kids and I) first arrived in England to join my hubby who’s been here for a year already. Time flies so fast, indeed. I can still vividly remember my harassed state when we were departing from the NAIA – I was forced to open our boxes and luggage to unload some of our stuff as we were grossly in excess of the limit! I was so devastated to have been forced to leave important stuff, despite the care I observed to bring only those extremely necessary. And so with sagging spirits, we departed. We were one of the last to board the plane because of the delay of opening and re-sealing our boxes.

Fast forward to today, 27th of July. We have settled in nicely and have met quite a few exceptional, friendly and supportive Filipinos in the area. The kids were able to attend at least a month of this year’s autumn term (which ended on July 20). We were able to attend a Baptist church already, albeit, once only. We now know where the supermarket, the town center and the airport are. In other words, we now have a working concept of our town’s lay-out. Most importantly, we have learned to live with the English weather.

They say we are lucky for having arrived during the warmer time of the year. But it is still very cold for my taste, especially the first month. I even saw my bunso’s lips turn blue right before my eyes due to the cold. I gave him a bath before going to school. As we only walk going there, and he did not have a bonnet on that chilly morning, his wet hair just made him feel so cold. Even with the heater on, I would wear layers and layers of clothing inside the house. Otherwise, I will not have any housework done.

Speaking of housework, I have a lion’s share of them. Naturally because I’m unemployed at the moment and there are no maids around. But now I know why women here manage to raise families and have careers on the side. Domestic work is quite easy with all the technology that they have. This has worked more to my advantage because I am used to the ‘manual’ way of doing things. Now that I have these gadgets, too, everything gets completed in a jiffy. This is the only time in my entire life that I find keeping the house enjoyable and not very tiring.

But the most important thing for me is now, we are all together again. The kids and I wait for their Papa to arrive from work in the early evenings and we all get to eat breakfast together on lazy weekend mornings… just like the old times. If I asses my present state – unemployed and totally dependent on my hubby (for the first time ever in our married life), no helper and can’t even go around the area because of the cold, I am still grateful. Because for a year, I experienced being far from my hubby and was alone raising the kids. It was tough, not to mention frustrating, as there are just some things mothers can’t do alone.

We dreamed of this as a family, prayed for it for countless times. And now, it’s happened. We have settled down to a pretty comfortable routine and we have seen the sun several times already. If you have lived with the temperamental English weather, you will understand why I find this so important to mention. It made me realize that the things we take for granted (like the sunny weather back home) are sometimes what others can only wish for.