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IT STRIKES an untrained eye as a simple gathering involving ordinary folks. But for thousands of immigrants attending naturalization ceremonies, it marks the end of hardship and the beginning of a new life. That's why you'll see many of them staring into the distance as they wave miniature U.S. flags.
Some of them often wear the dour expressions of men and women who've gone through a horrible past.
Just like anyone fleeing a homeland for economic of political reasons, they have their own share of bitter experience. It's common to hear about families who escaped the clutches of a murderous dictator, or a mother who ran away with her children to flee from the blows of a violent husband. Indeed, we all have some intriguing, sad or happy, stories to tell. These stories are about us. Where we're from. What we did.
EMOTIONAL JOURNEY TO MALAYSIA
By Pauline Teoh, Special to Immigration Newsman
IT WAS going to be my hardest journey. Now I have returned to this land where I was born — and they stand before me; the many relatives who call me sister, cousin, auntie, daughter. I, who live in America with nary a cousin, was about to face an amazing brood of people linked to me by blood, by name. My kin. My Malaysia.
I returned to understand why this was important. I had to understand that there is value in belonging, that families do matter. I have lived on my own for so long; it was hard to need or to understand this strange comfort. In this foreign America that I call home for the last 15 years, I have proudly called my friends my family.
My grandparents are Chinese, but fled China to find sanctuary in Malaysia during the war. I know nothing of the China they came from, though I see it in their eyes when I ask them what it was like.
Malaysia became a place for them to start a family, and when my parents were born, it seemed as if life would now center in that country. Not quite.
I have lived independent of relatives — people who link my name with theirs just because my cousin twice removed is married to their uncle's wife's third sister. But now the Chinese family calls to me and I don't recognize any of them, certainly not enough to call “friend.” Yet they persist, and call me lovingly to them, and with unfamiliar Chinese names — I am Kah Cheh (oldest sister), Pui Mui (cousin), and most humorous of all, Kwai-Lui (ghost-girl).
I came to America when I was 18, and I never looked back. It was a terrifying time for me; a young girl who knew nothing of the world, but I learned quickly. I know I will live here for the rest of my life. This is the country I dreamed of.
I tell myself to smile and fear nothing. I greet my cousins with both hands and kiss their cheeks. They tell me how pale I have grown, how foreign I sound. But they insist I have not changed a bit -- my face is as familiar to them as if I have left but yesterday. They shake my hands and speak among themselves, commenting on my looks as if I am not there.
I am ghost-girl, back home again from that far away land where it is cold. Yet I am kin and they call me to me, away from my daydreams, in their loud harsh voices.
And what of the country I left behind so many years ago? The Malaysia I knew have grown, a yuppie thirty-something, like me sans the yup. My father's house is temperature controlled, beautifully renovated and furnished. He drives a luxury car; I tease him about the old Mazda we used to have. In my grandmother's house, I stand outside. When I was young, I used to run across the barren land in front of the home. I touched brown earth, rainwater pools and played in the mud.
I could see the horizon ahead and imagined fantastic frontiers as I played explorer magnifico.
Today I stand and I see a busy street with cars zooming off to various exit points, places to go, people to meet. An unfinished structure stands before me, a highway left unfinished because of insufficient funds. The monsoon drain is moss-ridden and it smells.
Off in the distance, an incongruous pyramid looms; it is a shopping mall, they tell me proudly.
Malaysia has become a consumer and a lover of big tall buildings. I find the country all grown up without me and I feel lost. But how can I cast judgment, I, who ran away first?
My family cluster around me, their voices a lovely assault to my ears. I am spoken to in Hokkien, Cantonese, Malay and Malaysian-English. My Tai Yee asks me how I like America in Cantonese. I reply hesitantly and then, to my surprise, the Cantonese comes back and soon I am speaking Cantonese like a native! I find myself code-switching with ease; I speak Malay to my sister's boyfriend, Ali; Cantonese to my two grandmothers; Mandarin to my aunties and Malaysian-English to my sisters.
Forget American English, with her lazy accent and boring drawl! I am immersed in a hot-pot of sing-song voices, sprinkled with a mixture of tongues. I throw in my “lahs” easily and am not afraid of the “gostan, donwan, howcome, can or not” lingo. How come can not? I can what.
The Malaysian child in me longs for the memories to stay forever but I am wise enough to realize that it is not possible. I visited my old alma mater and left with a curious emptiness — there was nothing left there to take back.
My old haunts were explored, with the same results. Nothing was familiar anymore, even though there were a few recognizable places. The buses were shiny red, not the dusty blue that I remembered.
Either I have changed, or the land has. Part of the sadness lies in my not being around when the country was growing, but that sadness is mere childish whims — I do love my America, this land that I now call home.
Alas, one cannot have everything! I had to come back, to complete the circle, to say goodbye to the child and face the adult. It is not an easy task.
I will be back again. I will blend these two lands that I love together. I have loved ones in America that I treasure and will be loathe to part. And in Malaysia , it is surreal to belong to a family, people who accept me without question — I am one of them no matter where I am. It is something I am still unused to, but I like the feeling.
Somehow I don't need to be alone in this world anymore. And that feels good.
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