(as continued from yesterday)
picture this: you're a pinoy immigrant fain to leave all of the dense lattice work of every conceivable obligations to family and community back home in order to be a part of this marvelous social engineering feat such as nowhere in the world called the united states of america.
you, without rancor, consume two decades of your productive life here, exuberantly raise a decent family here, pay your taxes diligently to the government here. you've paid your dues, right? finally, you're one of them, right?
maybe, you feel not that quite deserving yet. so, perhaps grudgingly, you offer one of your loved ones to a war you might not fully fathom. the ultimate of dues, you might say, perhaps.
but for ligaya, it seems she'll forever be that docile neighbor who, despite a lifetime spent dutifully discharging what she must have felt to be her sworn civic duties, could never cop that coveted invitation to the club house.
for in a group that no american mother would willingly desire to be a part of, the sorority of mothers whose children have died in wars initiated by the united states, ligaya was resolutely barred entrance.
because in the eyes of the group's current leadership, ligaya is not american enough. "you have to be an american citizen," the president of the organization said. "we can't go changing the rules every time the wind blows."
throwing the proverbial insult to injury, the group's leader contemptuously sniffed at ligaya's life's choices "why wouldn't you want to become an american citizen?"
in fairness, the less xenophobic american military dares not ask its enlistees, one of whom was ligaya's dead son, this question. and yet, after paying the ultimate sacrifice, a fallen american soldier's mother is now humiliatingly subjected to this discrimination.
a more forward looking member of the organization, its much missed past president, said "there's no discrimination in a national cemetery. there's no discrimination when they get killed side by side. so how can we discriminate against a mother?"
a filipino mother, i'd say again, if the underscoring would not be too much for all of you.
so julio, my friend, tell me again how and why is it that us pinoy here in the so called land of all embracing - what was your word again?- smothering tolerance have it that good?