Last month, on the morning of the day that I left for my Christmas vacation, I was getting ready for my trip while listening to NPR and was surprised to hear a story on balikbayan boxes. If you’re a Filipino-American like me, this is a familiar piece of culture, especially around the holidays. Balikbayan (from the Tagalog words for “return” and “country”) boxes refer to the packages of goods that Filipinos abroad send or bring back to their family members in the Philippines. In airport lines for Philippine-bound flights, you see many passengers waiting to check in their large balikbayan boxes; there is also a growing cottage industry of balikbayan cargo companies.
The NPR reporter talked with a woman in California who is sending items to her mother, and the reporter picked up the story a couple of weeks later in Manila as the box arrives at its destination. I got a little teary-eyed listening to it, especially since I had been getting ready for a journey of my own to visit my parents over Christmas, and also because balikbayan boxes are a part of Filipino culture that I nostalgically associate with my childhood, when relatives including my late grandparents would travel with or send boxes packed with clothes, food, and other gifts (pasalubong).
The story (“Gift Boxes Help Migrant Filipinos Keep Ties to Home“) was part of an NPR series called “Global Returns,” on how U.S. immigrants give back to their home countries.
Aside: I just found out that this year the Smithsonian is celebrating 100 years of Filipino immigration to the U.S. with events and exhibits here in D.C. and elsewhere.
4 replies on “Balikbayan boxes”
Thanks for the link to the piece in The Advocate about the invisibility of Asian men. I’m not American, so I don’t know know the American media scene. But methinks the writer doth protest too much. If young Asians were ‘out there’ would they not be seen?
One certainly doesn’t have to go far in the East Asian media to find plenty of accomplished fine looking men — whether in the Japan, Korea, Thailand, Singapore and maybe the Philippines, too.
(People too readily talk of Asians and forget the huge size and diversity of Asia.)
The irony for me is, as someone delighted to bring Asians and Asian-ness into his life, I’m liable to be typecast too, as a ‘rice queen’. Well, if the label fits, I’ll wear it proudly.
I’d be interested to know what you think, mom ami.
So…I know this is totally unrelated, but are you going to get to see Nevermore?
You 2 have been following it for so long, I just wondered…The extension will be sold out soon, if not tomorrow…
love,
SGS
What a nice tradition… who doesn’t like getting a goodie box/bag full of great things!
i thought that nothing beats opening a balikbayan box especially when i was young back in pinas. but now that i am the one sending boxes home, it can be a “rewarding” experience itself! nakakataba pala ng puso! nice post this is, warms the heart in this cold city… and thanks for the smithsonian link!