Making it Home

“Americans just cannot get over my name,” Christmas says, clearly annoyed. (She was named after her mother’s favorite holiday.) “In the Philippines it’s really not a big deal, but here everyone seems to be fascinated with it.” She rolls her eyes she sighs, “You don’t know how many times I’ve heard the same jokes about my name. But they’re so amused by it that I just go along with it.”

As she continues her brisk walk crossing 96th Street, she pauses to drop some spare change into a homeless man’s coffee cup. As he responds with a “God Bless You,” she nods her head and is silent for a moment.

“You know, some of the homeless people here are so different from in the Philippines,” she eventually continues. “Over there, they’re not picky, and they’re frail, so you can see that they’re actually starving. But here, some of the homeless people are bigger than me!”

At this she shakes her head and laughs, quickening her already breakneck pace to get to a grocery store on 100th Street. Though this part of East Harlem is now being gentrified by predominantly white couples, it is clear that she is semi-fearful of the place, due to some parting advice from an uncle in New Jersey as he dropped her off at her dorm for the very first time.

“You know, I don’t usually go past 96th Street,” she says matter-of-factly. “That’s the ghetto.”

At Nick’s Restaurant & Pizzeria on Second Avenue and 94th Street, Christmas meets up with her best friend Loiselle Du, a 24-year-old nursing immigrant also from the Philippines. She works in the Intensive Care Unit of the hospital and also teaches nursing at the Borough of Manhattan City College, the only two-year college within the City University of New York system located in Manhattan. The two affectionately greet each other with a hug and a kiss on the cheek, then pick a corner table and sit down at the noisy, family-oriented restaurant. After carefully studying the menu for a good 15 minutes and after the waiter has come by twice, Loiselle finally decides on an entrée–the chicken parmesan. Both order root beers and smile as the waiter brings two glass mugs and the root beers, still packaged in their frosty brown bottles.

“In the Philippines all the corner stores [called sari-sari] sell sodas for about 40 cents in their glass bottles with a straw,” Loiselle explains. “We always order the root beer here because they bring us the actual bottle just like in the Philippines. It’s something small that reminds us of back home.”

As both continue to reminisce about the sari-sari stores in their home provinces, the chicken parmesan arrives, an alarmingly large square of chicken smothered in mozzarella cheese and marinara sauce. The two dig in. Christmas laughs.

“In America,” she says, “the portions are so large, no wonder I’m getting fat!”

Adds Loiselle, “Well, the chicken parmesan here is actually not as big as the one we ate in the Lower East Side . . . ”

As the two debate about which Italian restaurant actually does serve the biggest chicken parmesan, they seamlessly blend in with the diverse crowd of New Yorkers in the crowded restaurant. Though Loiselle referred to the Philippines just a few minutes ago as “home,” at this moment it is as if both women are home. Their mannerisms are more New Yorker than tourist–the waiter knows their names and they smile fondly at a family of obvious tourists at the next table who speak with a Texas twang. They look over at the family’s table and smile at each other, as if saying with their eyes, “Look at these cute tourists.” When walking back to the dorm on 96th Street they even give directions to an elderly man trying to reach a restaurant on First Avenue called Pio Pio, and warmly greet the security guard at the front desk of their dorm. They enter the rusty pink elevator, sighing and tugging at the fingertips of their gloves, relieved to be home after a long walk.

Stepping out onto the ninth floor, Christmas rubs her hands vigorously though they have already turned pink from the cold. “I couldn’t imagine needing a heater back in the Philippines,” she says, “but now I can’t live without it.”

As she opens the front door of her dorm room she turns around and gives Loiselle a wide grin.

“We’re finally home!”