Before I knew the taste of a milkshake or a hamburger, I knew the sharp tang of vinegar, soy sauce and garlic. In our living room, Sesame Street played in the background—a window into an American world I didn’t yet belong to. I liked the bouncy music and the colorful puppets, but they were like a foreign film without subtitles; I can’t recall what any of it meant. During those years, it was all really just noise. Within the four walls of our kitchen, I was at peace, tucked away from a world I didn’t yet have to navigate.
My real world was on the kitchen floor. There, the ‘American’ education continued as I pushed my wooden blocks together to spell ‘F-O-O-D,’ but the reality of that word was found in my mother’s hands. Nanay would crouch beside me, her fingers expertly gathering a mound of rice and a piece of fried milkfish. I would glance up and see the rice looking like a fluffy white star with five points, that figure when all fingers press together making a mouthful compact. ‘Ah,’ she would say, and I would mimic her, opening my mouth as wide as I could. Her eyes would peak over her glasses as she took her aim.
That subo—the hand-fed meal—was my first lesson in who I was. In those years, I don’t recall the cold clink of metal utensils, only the sight of hands—Nanay’s, and even Tatay’s—moving in that ancient, rhythmic way. I was learning the alphabet of one country, but I was being nourished by the soul of another, thousands of miles away.
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