September 11, 2001. I was in Memphis, Tennessee, in middle school at the time. When the towers fell, all the boys in my class stood up and said they’d join the army or the navy or whatever, just they’d fight for their country because of it. And some of the girls there said similar, though most said they’d support the guys. For me, I just quietly started studying foreign languages, waiting for my skills to become relevant someday.
Two years later, in high school, I had to examine my own life’s purpose. My interest in languages and video games had me lined up to become a video game translator someday, but a college fair made me reconsider that plan. I found a university dedicated solely to the art and science of making video games. I enjoyed video games, I enjoyed building them as a hobbyist. But this university offered less of the liberal arts, less humanities electives, just so you could focus on video game creation…
Did I really want a life centered on that?
Nope! So I refocused my choices, read up on the history of my roots even more, and found I’d rather have an impact on the world, in some way, through my writings.
Maybe, as a Filipina-American, my purpose wasn’t to assimilate completely into the vast melting pot that wiped away our heritage, but rather to go back and change conditions in the land of my blood so Filipinos don’t have to leave to find a future for their families.
My father chose to leave the Philippines when he found, after college, he had no way to help his beloved motherland eradicate poverty due to the politics of the time. He chose to leave so my brother and I – just daydreams to our parents at the time – could have a better future. And over fifteen years after he left, I didn’t want Filipinos to have to leave the Philippines just to find that better future.
Maybe, by writing, I could help the land of my blood instead of the land where I just happened to be born.
So I crossed an ocean at 18, returned to the Philippines, and learned so much about a place I’d only been to for vacations prior. And then I started developing the first novel I’d actually finish: Hunting the Rememberer: Chimera Anamnesis. It was my first manuscript set in the Philippines… I wrote the first lines in June 2007. I finished it in June 2021. 🙂
It’s been a long journey.