The Star Spangled Bummer

My name is Ali Lu, legally known as Alexandria de Guzman, professionally known as "that girl from the meeting who took home all the bagels." I took my stepfather's last name, Lu, as a stage name because it is a known fact that “Ali Lu" lends itself to a career in comedy more so than Alexandria de Guzman. Too fancy. The last name Lu is Chinese, which I am not. I'm Filipino-American, but that doesn't stop people from speaking Spanish to me every day.

The stage name change really pissed off my biological father's side of the family, the aforementioned de Guzman’s. To avoid all controversy over the holidays, I've decided to go by, "Ali Blart: Mall Cop."

My biological father killed himself on April Fools Day, which is a real bummer because I love pranks. Growing up, I was never able to participate in the April Fools festivities. When classmates would ask, "why not?"  I'd explain, "because my dad killed himself on April Fools Day." They would respond, horrified, "that's not funny, Ali!" And I'd say, "You're telling me!” The awkward silence that followed echoed throughout my childhood and adolescence, and even now as I do my best impression of an adult.

After my dad passed, my mom did not receive the support she needed in Anchorage – that's right, Anchorage, Alaska. As if the suicide didn’t make this story dark enough, it's set in the desolate north. Both of my parents were born in the Philippines and ended up in Anchorage, where there are only two seasons: freezing and “not that cold.” The tortuous winter months are long and shrouded in an unforgiving darkness. A bittersweet respite can be found in the painfully short summer, in exchange for a relentless ever-fluorescent glare. My dad didn't stand a chance. Breathtaking scenery though. Truly majestic! 

My mother immigrated as an adult, but my late father was only 13 when his family relocated to Anchorage from the Philippines  in 1977. Ten years later he'd marry my mom, bring her up north, and they'd have me on April 25, 1987. On April 19, 1990, my twin sisters were born. He killed himself the next year.

April 1, 1991 left my family wishing the self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head was just a cruel April Fools Day joke, but it was our unfortunate reality. My devastatingly young mother turned 27 less than a week after his death; two weeks later, my infant twin sisters celebrated their first birthday, and the next week I turned four. Somewhere in there is also when taxes are due. I can only speculate, but maybe going from one kid to three, in a place where the sun doesn't shine half the year, on top of an undiagnosed mental illness might have contributed to his decision.

Hi mother (my grandmother) was an accomplished medical professional, but she and my grandfather couldn't come to terms with their son being mentally ill. He was their charming, dutiful, affectionate son. He was more than fine until he met my mom, she’d say. They absolved him and blamed her. They even went so far as to suggest that since she was so young, she could just leave the twins and me with them and go back to The Philippines. She could get married and start a new family. They told her over dinner that no one would ever know she already had children. This is when my mom takes her top off at a party to reveal her cesarean ravaged midsection, putting her "elephant skin," on display.  She stood gorgeous and defiant, daring anyone to insinuate she'd even consider leaving us behind ever again.

She told me that story when I was 17 and in crisis. I had expressed feeling odd, anxious, and rejected by my peers. I told her how I felt unwanted and unsure of my place in the world. She found my turmoil laughable and said, "Look, they had to cut all three of you out of me because I just couldn't let any of you go! If  your head ever gets too loud, if you ever feel lost, just remember a timeline doesn't exist where I don’t want you." Two months later, in an era without cell phones or email, she moved us back to Tuguegarao, Cagayan. It was her hometown in the Philippines, and she wanted to educate herself in peace on how trauma would affect our mental health, figure out the best way to move forward, and raise us outside of the scandal.

I witnessed corruption firsthand at four. When we landed in the Philippines, I balked at the neverending customs line, then watched as my mom slipped the customs agent an American ten dollar bill. He pocketed the cash and waved us and our 22 boxes right on through! I looked up disapprovingly at my mom, who explained that while our boxes were only filled with canned goods and diapers, other boxes could have things like weapons or drugs. "So it's up to you to be good, because no one wants to wait in line."

My mom's side of the family took care of us in shifts. We were surrounded by loving grandparents, aunties prioritizing us right alongside our cousins, and we grew up completely supported and cared for. They embraced my curiosity and fostered my deep appreciation for culture, art, books, and music. It was in the Philippines where my aptitude for singing revealed itself, along with early signs of anxiety and depression. When I was 6, my mother felt I deserved every opportunity both to cultivate my talents and have access to the best mental health professionals. Both could only be afforded to me in America. More importantly, she insisted that because I was born in America, I had every right to all those resources.  Before I knew it we were back in Anchorage, and I was registering at Bayshore Elementary School.

In line for registration at school, I stood next to my mom and gawked at all the white people. Everyone else seemed to know each other, kids were reunited with their friends and excited to see which classes they'd be in. No one looked like me. I clung to my mom. 

Back in the Philippines, I loved watching what school was like in American movies and television. We were lucky  to have satellite t.v. and we watched a lot of it. I couldn't wait to say good morning to Ms. Bliss, or get life lessons from my own Mr. Feeney like in “Boy Meets World.”  I read the list of Bayshore's first grade teachers: Mrs. Johnson, Mr. Young, Ms. Anderson. I wondered which one would be mine! 

We reached the front and unpleasant white woman named Kendra handed us a welcome packet. She sneered down at me, then barked at my mom without looking at her. "Oh! She needs to know the Pledge of Allegiance!" Mom timidly asked what The Pledge of Allegiance was. My Wonder Woman mother always spoke up, loudly and sharply. This was the first time I can remember hearing her speak softly. To hear her sounding so meek felt more foreign than not knowing what The Pledge of Allegiance was. Kendra stared blankly back at her and huffed impatiently, "It's just what we do. We put our hands over our hearts and do the Pledge of Allegiance. Every morning. So make sure she knows it." She dismissed us so quickly to greet the next in line, I didn't get the chance to tell her I was supposed to be starting first grade. Instead, my packet read, "WELCOME to Mrs. Kajikawa's 2nd Grade Class!" Kaji-freaking-kawa!

My mom was a widow with three kids at 26. She moved us across the world and back without the internet. Standing at 4'11, carrying the twins was nearly impossible, so she was put on bedrest for seven months. She used that time to get certified as an air traffic controller from her hospital bed because she was bored. Despite all that, I guess she's still human, which is why she mistook The Pledge of Allegiance for The National Anthem. She bought me my first Walkman that day along with a tape of Whitney Houston singing The Star Spangled Banner at Super Bowl XXV in 1991. Hey, 1991 is when my dad died! She said, "Just do it like this and you'll be fine." I pressed play and my jaw dropped. I had never heard anything like it in all my six years on Earth. 

I had already heard my share of Whitney Houston by then, but this was something else. This made my eyes well and spill over with appreciation and gratitude for the gift of her voice. What I was hearing synced with my heartbeat and made me sit up straight.  I spent the summer waking up and falling asleep with headphones on. It was my very first addiction. I memorized every word, I mimicked every dynamic Whitney explored without knowing what any of it meant. But I knew one thing, I was going to nail my first day of school!

On my first day at Bayshore Elementary, I wore a tartan jumper over a white turtleneck, white stockings, a hot pink pleather Minnie Mouse backpack,  and clunky corrective shoes. Oh yeah – I was extremely pigeon-toed, on top of everything else. I hated those monstrous corrective shoes, but they were a vast improvement from the full-blown Forrest Gump-style leg braces I had worn in the Philippines. At least with the corrective shoes, I was just mercilessly ridiculed (mostly by my own family). Back in the Philippines, everyone in the village thought I had Polio.

Mrs. Kajikawa shook my hand and I tried my best to not look so disappointed that she wasn't the Ms. Bliss of my dreams. I took my seat next to a boy with a bowl haircut, Jordan. "You weren't here last year. Where are you from?" I explained that I was born in Anchorage but moved to the Philippines after my dad died. "Bummer," he replied. I sank into my seat. 

Over the intercom our principal asked us all to stand for The Pledge of Allegiance. I rose with the class, put my hand over my heart, took a deep breath, and sang, "Oh say can you see!" My eyes widened and my heart started racing when I realized that I was the only one singing. Everyone in the room was staring right at me! The teacher from down the hall left his classroom and watched me from the doorway as I continued belting. "And the rocket's red glare..." 

I just had to keep going so it could be over. I wished Whitney was with me. I inhaled sharply before ending on a solid, "and the home of the brave!" I finished with a bow and sat with my head down. Mrs. Kajikawa smiled at me and commended my performance. "What a great way to start our year! Thank you, Alexandria." I told her she could call me Ali. Jordan leaned over and whispered, "Hey Ali, you're really good at singing." I was no longer a bummer, I was a singer.

I told my mom all about it at dinner. She beamed at me and said she had no doubt I would be fine. When I brought up being in second grade instead of first, she just sighed, told me she didn’t have time to deal with incompetent administration, and to just figure it out.

I was at a comedy open mic the night Trump was elected in 2016, and it’s crazy that we might be in the same boat again 8 years later. I told this story of my first day of school in America and sang the national anthem to a sparse room of defeated comics. A week later, I was spit on by a man who bellowed "go back to Mexico," from the comfort of his speeding truck. I was furious! "I'm fucking Filipino!" I screamed at the disappearing bumper, which might as well have had a "NO FAT CHICKS!" sticker proudly on display next to a confederate flag.

As I roared into the void, a little Caucasian boy and his equally Caucasian mom in all her Lululemon glory walked by. I heard him ask, "mommy, what's Filipino?" She looked me dead in the eyes and almost apologetically, with her contorted face, indicated she had no clue. I think Filipinos are a lot like kale, we've been around forever but white people just recently got into us.

I think about the day I was spit on and what I would have done had he been at a red light. I fantasize about banging on his window and dragging him out of his giant truck because hey,  it's my fantasy and in it I am super strong. I'd tell him the story about Kendra and her incompetence, how my mom was so frazzled trying to hold everything down for us that she made an innocent mistake that helped define who I am. When she confused The Pledge of Allegiance with The National Anthem, she allowed my voice to be heard. She opened up a world in which I was able to carve out my place; a world where, because I’m good, people will listen. And if they don't listen? Well, I'll figure it out.

I'd stand with my hand over my heart and sing it to him, my voice challenging him not to be moved. I’d glow with a dawn's early lightheartedness that, when used to express myself, is imperative to my survival. I am a Star Spangled Bummer with so much to say because I was born with the right to be one. Whenever someone innocuously asks where I'm from, or demands that I go back to where they assume I'm from, it is hurtful. I was born in Anchorage, Alaska, part of the United States of America. I'm not going anywhere, I've already left and came back.