Transmigration Minus the Dying

In my early twenties, I worked data entry for an HMO in Southern California. During a soul-crushing meeting about EOBs and unapplied payments, I stared out of an indistinguishable office building at cars zipping by on the freeway. My focus zoomed in on one passing driver at a time, imagining what the world must look like through their eyes. 

To whom were they racing? From whom were they running? What hurt them? What brought them joy? What, in that moment, were they dreaming of?

Reading gives me the magical power to answer those questions and experience the world as someone other than myself. It allows me to break free from the limitations of my own body, mind, and environment, from the color of my skin, the shape of my eyes, the length of my bones, my gender, my sexual orientation, my spiritual practices, the city and country in which I live, my perception and interpretation of past experiences, and the class and caste into which I was born and raised.

No matter which character I inhabit, no matter the programming or laws that limit and/or free them––if that character’s story is grounded in humanity, I always manage to find myself there. 

I’ve recognized myself in stories about British aristocrats living in the nineteenth century. I’ve recognized myself in clones, monsters, and Artificial Intelligence. I’ve recognized myself with brilliant clarity in a Puerto Rican parrot. 

Like traveling somewhere new or listening to someone’s deepest secret, reading has taught me to find myself, not by remaining sheltered in the comfort of my own perception, but by temporarily surrendering my own view of the world while exploring someone else’s. And with a brief letting go, my perception inevitably evolves, expanding in depth and breadth. 

That was my experience the first time I read “Flight Patterns” by Sherman Alexie. 

As a once self-hating Filipino American who had no interest in reading about the minority experience, I believed reading even a short story about an Indiginous American would be a grind. Instead, it set me free. 

I saw myself reflected in Spokane Indian William because I too remain “ambiguously ethnic, living somewhere in the darker section of the Great American Crayola Box.” I too do not want to choose between Frank Ocean and my ninang Cora.

Up until the experience of inhabiting William, I believed no one wanted to read a Filipino story. And even if someone did, I certainly wasn’t Filipino enough to write it.

But I am Filipino-American enough to write a Filipino-American story. And if I write that story in a way that captivates readers with the same energy “Flight Patterns” captivated me, readers who don’t look like me or share the same class or caste as me will still see themselves there.  

This realization unlocked a universe of stories for me to tell, which meant my unique experiences are worthy enough to be shared. And if my stories are enough, maybe I’m enough as well.