An Immigrant Goes Back Home to Cebu

Book excerpt: An Immigrant Goes Back Home to Cebu is the author's memoir about living within and between the Philippine and Canadian worlds. While this is one professional immigrant's narrative about persistence and fulfillment in Canada, her host country, it is also every immigrant's story about resourcefully dealing with everyday interchanges and challenges in the new country while tapping the old not only for fond, moving remembrances but also for learned coping mechanisms to resolve commonplace and sometimes convoluted issues, such as racism. It is also about our pasts and continuing quests to discover who we are and what contributes to forming the persons that we continue to become. It attempts to answer two existential questions immigrants in the latter part of their journey often grapple with: Is it worth it to continue staying in the now-familiar host country where one has worked hard at having a happy and fulfilled life? Or, is it beneficial and practicable to respond to that call of one's first home which is still compelling despite the new challenges of a changed system and a new set of characters? From the author's journeys with both stayers in the host country and returnees to the native home, she shares with us inspiring stories about creating and extending a meaningful life guided by a sense of others, kindness, and a duty to speak out and act on one's principles. These unsung heroes didn't just stand where they were planted --- they were useful.