This week marks 18 years since I left everything I knew and stepped into a new country, a new life, and a version of myself I hadn't met yet.
I was 15 when I immigrated to the US from the Philippines. Just a teenager- observant, always feeling more than I said out loud. I remember the airport goodbyes. The last look through the glass windows as my dad waved, my 3-year-old sister in his arm, not knowing that that would be the last time I saw him alive, that the next time I saw my sister again was when she was 11.
Despite many challenges during those first years, my mom tried to be strong for us even when everything around us felt uncertain.
It was such a strange thing- suddenly being in the place I'd only dreamed of my entire childhood. To be walking in clothes that I picked, no uniforms, in the school hallways I'd only imagined countless times as I drifted off to sleep as a kid.
It felt like I belonged, but also didn't. I smiled and said hi to everybody I passed in between classes, waved back at the neighbors, tried to laugh even when I didn't understand the joke. Tried to be brave when all I wanted was something familiar.
Art was the only thing that was.
THE BEGINNING OF SOMETHING
As I flipped through an old National Geographic magazine one day in art class, I stopped dead on my tracks as I landed on one page. This was it.
I carefully ripped the page off, drew my grids, sketched the image, and began to paint.
My very first acrylic painting was of The Statue of Liberty.
I didn't know then that this painting would mark the beginning of something. I wanted to paint the symbol I kept seeing on postcards, TV shows, movies, and shirts.
But to me, Lady Liberty wasn't just a symbol of freedom. She was a reminder of where I was and why I was here.
She looked strong, fierce, unshaken by the storms around her. She stood with purpose and that meant something to me.
Back then, I didn't have the words to explain what I was feeling. But I could at least paint it. Without realizing it, that painting became a safe place for all the complicated emotions I didn't know how to say out loud: the grief of leaving family, home, the pressure to succeed, the guilt but also thrill of starting over.
The hope that maybe- just maybe- I could make it here.
Now, 18 years later, I look back and realize how much that painting gave me. It was more than just paint on canvas board. It was the first time I saw myself in something I made.
Every immigrant's story is different, but if you've ever left home and had to rebuild your identity from scratch, then you know the kind of bravery it takes. The kind that no one else sees. The bravery of beginning a new life, of swallowing homesickness while trying to keep up, of feeling small in a place that demands you to be big. It's learning a new culture while holding on to your own, even when the two feel at odds.
And somehow, despite everything, you adapt. You have no other choice. You keep going even when your heart feels split across oceans.
That kind of strength isn't loud or visible. It doesn't have to be. It's humble, it's resilient, it's deeply rooted. It's the kind of strength no one truly understands unless they've stood where you've stood and carried what you've carried.
Here's to you who understand. Here's to us, who stood against all odds, who endured a silent battle in a foreign place to build a better life. I see you.
Here's to 18 years in the land that gave me new roots, and to the home that I'll always carry in my heart. And to that 15 year old girl who crossed the oceans into the unknown, you made it, and I am proud of you.
Keep the dream alive,
