MONTEREY, California – Before coming to the US, I had in my mind a picture of Americans being brash, rude, loud, impolite, and abrasive — the stereotypical “ugly American” that is almost universally perceived to be the norm these days. Don’t get me wrong: I have a lot of American friends in Davao City, and they are almost without exception some of the nicest people on earth. But an American friend who lives in Chicago warned me that his compatriots actually living in the US are the exact opposite, and his views somehow colored mine.
So while I was excited about my trip, it was also with some trepidation that I stepped off the plane in Los Angeles and stood in line for the process of entering the country. What if I made a mistake? Would I be scolded? Would someone shout at me? Would I be sent home? All these thoughts ran through my mind and kept me from enjoying my moment of actually being in another country. It was, after all, my very first time to go anywhere outside the Philippines.
Before this trip, my usual joke was that the only other country I had been to was Mindanao (because when I first got here in 1990 the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF) was going strong and had even printed its own currency). This time I was really, truly, undeniably standing on foreign soil. And my misconceptions and preconceived notions were getting the best of me.
For those who don’t know, I am in the US for the International Journalism Exchange (IJE), a training program conducted by the International Center for Journalists (ICFJ) designed to give editors hands-on, all-around knowledge and experience of US newsroom operation and management as well as exposure to the social and cultural life in a US community. I made the 15-odd-hour trip to Los Angeles (with a two-hour layover in Narita, Japan) and as I stood in line at LAX, my fears slowly melted away as I saw officers treating the entire group with a courtesy I didn’t even see among Pinoys — and we’re supposed to be a very hospitable people.
When my turn came up at the immigration officer, he flashed a big smile and asked me a few questions, and then stamped my passport and sent me on my way. Customs was a breeze; I was only asked, because I was Filipino, if I had chicharon in the box I was carrying, and after saying no I was on my way out of the airport to meet my brother. Thus began my adventure in the land of of the free and the home of the brave.
Driving from the airport to his home, I told my brother that it didn’t feel like I was in another country. “Same solid earth,” I said, just that the roads were wider, the cars bigger, and the weather cooler. But the feeling of sameness mostly came from the people: we stopped at a Starbucks and people were greeting me left and right — and they weren’t even Starbucks workers. We walked to an ATM a few meters from my brother’s home, and people all around were smiling at me and greeting me. I mean here I was, thousands of miles (yes, they do miles here, not kilometers) from home, and people were still the same: friendly, smiling, human. It wasn’t so bad after all, nothing like my friend from Chicago told me.
I spent the next three days in LA and San Diego, then I was off to Washington DC for the start of the IJE. Now DC was a little different: the people were a little more in a rush and not as many people stopped to say hello. But there were still a few who greeted me, and those who didn’t at least weren’t rude. I was also too busy getting to know the other IJE participants to particularly notice the locals in the first place. There were six other editors from all over the world — Argentina, Pakistan, Kenya, Croatia, Macedonia, and South Africa — and we all spent the next four days not just learning from ICFJ but from each other as well.
There is nothing like talking to someone from, say, Pakistan, to give one some perspective: it is not only in the Philippines where journalists are under fire but there as well, and in Kenya, and South Africa, and Argentina, and Macedonia. The reporter from Croatia had a particularly interesting story: a few months ago he wrote a story on organized crime and actually got beaten up and ended in hospital for it. Journalism, as it turns out, is a dangerous profession wherever one practices it (with the possible exception of the US where, I was told, only two journalists have been killed in more than 30 years).
The DC sessions ended on Wednesday night, and on Thursday (September 25) I flew to Monterey. Joe Livernois, the executive editor of the Monterey County Herald, picked me up at the airport and immediately took me to the absolutely beautiful place called Carmel where he had a speaking engagement. While Joe joked that he had “subjected” me to a speech right out of the airport, it was actually quite interesting because it gave me insight on the Herald and how it does its work. Carmel itself, of course, is gorgeous, stunning even, but I will take time to write about it in a future article. For now let me just promise that I will keep my eyes open and try to learn as much as I can both from the Herald and from the community it serves. Perhaps we’ll all learn a thing or two.
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