(Or why I write about migration, the new home and the old, and everything in between)
I am a journalist by education and profession. Recently, I acquired the status of immigrant to the United States, the latest in a lifetime of twists and turns.
My life has been like a road trip, one that has taken me down beaten paths, face-to-face with dead ends, past new and unfamiliar roads, and humbled by about-faces. In fact, I started this blog with exactly that kind of a story: a road trip that was so familiar and at the same time exciting that an adventurous detour seemed like a given, only to find out it would lead nowhere. Finally, disappointed and defeated, we road-trippers were forced to make a U-turn, but not before we saw the possibilities that that detour could bring in the future.
The move to the U.S. was a symbolic detour. It was not really in the stars. If you asked me 10 years ago where I envisioned to be now, I would never have said here, to be honest. But it is a detour I am certain will lead me somewhere because the road ahead is not unknown. In America, I discovered, the Google Maps app is reliable, unlike what it was in the Philippines when it led us to an unfinished road. In America, drivers just have to be able to read the signs while driving, a skill easy to acquire with practice and a good pair of glasses.
I originally meant for this blog to be a space for life events and journeys that have prompted introspection. Now that I am starting over and trying to make sense of my new environment, I am designing this blog to be a collection of personal essays about my life’s journey. I talk about here and there, the California I now call home and the Philippines where I was born and raised, lived and worked. I write about discovering people, places and things new to me after being uprooted, planted in new soil and striving to grow.
Speaking of planting, I learned to tend a garden in California, the first time I have done so in my entire life. Thankfully, many plant varieties are resistant to the California drought, so they tend to thrive with little care or water. I see that as a metaphor for what an immigrant’s life requires: low-maintenance survival, learning to make do without many things we take for granted. We miss family and community ties and familiarity with everything else. So I also reflect on migration, belonging, community, assimilation and culture.
I write about my travels, near and far, past and present. This blog is a sort of travel memoir, not just a travelogue. It is not merely a recounting of places I visited or hotels I stayed in but the context behind the travels and the insights I packed with me to bring home.
Reading is the lifeblood of journalists and writers so I am also writing about books, newspaper and magazine articles, and social media accounts I follow, especially those relevant to my journey. A lot of what’s happening in the world today affect migrants, and the news media are still the best source of information although credible influencers also help keep me up-to-date.
I write about family members and colleagues in relation to my journey, but I respect their privacy hence their limited presence in my blog.
Finally, this blog is a platform on which I mount my photographs and videos. I hesitate to call myself a photojournalist or a video journalist. I would rather call myself a multimedia journalist, one who has written with photos and videos, usually taken by myself. I was a television reporter in a previous life, and managed, wrote and voiced documentaries, so I know how to meld photos, videos, audio, graphics and text together.
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*The photo at the top is, quite literally, Pebble Beach which family members and I visited in June 2024.
On the road 
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