  For a Filipino like me who remembers what it was like living in the Philippines, I feel extremely lucky to have lived in both Canada and the U.S. People will tell you, there's no place like home, like the Philippines. And there isn't. The problem is our home has problems absorbing and supporting its citizens, hence the huge numbers of exports in the form of our people. When I was a little girl, "America" was the golden word and world. Everything from America that relatives would send seemed to smell so much better.
Everyone from there seemed to have been born with a silver spoon in their mouths. The American lives I saw in the big screen was more polished, more sophisticated, more privileged. All the little girls had their own room, versus the cramped quarters that I lived in. I remember spending my nights, after watching American movies with little girls in it, dreaming about my own room.
I imitated their language, picking up lines from the movies that I would drop to impress my friends. When we found out that we would be moving to Canada, it didn't quite have the same cache as going to "America", but people still spoke English there, and they were still "white". I was in bliss and I don't really remember going through culture shock or being home sick. I drowned in the multiple channels on TV and Saturday morning cartoons.
I quickly got used to their weird un-powdered Nido milk. I got used to their weird tasting hot dogs. I was highly impressed with our bathtub and the fact that we had hot water! I made snow angels and snowmen and didn't even feel the cold. In short, I loved it. I remember my Papa, cooking breakfast for us on our first morning in Canda and we actually had bacon, ham, eggs, fried rice, and orange juice and milk to choose from! What a feast for a girl like me! And when we moved to a new place a couple of months later, I finally got what I wanted for so long, my own room. A room where I could stay late under the covers reading my books, where I could sulk when I was mad at my Mom, where I could lock my brother out of, where I could put up posters of celebrities that I wanted.
When my parents announced that we were moving to Texas, it was like dropping a bomb on my lap. Once going to a Texas school, and living a Texas life, I thought to myself: now this is more like the movies I had seen. Cheerleaders and football, the prom, my first serious boyfriend, this all happened when I moved to Texas.
Canadians are cleaner, more polite, but Texas has that Southern charm that makes up for it. I honestly can say that I love America. I got so lost in the reverie that I almost forgot to talk about what inspired this post. That would be the movie In America, where you can see the struggle to assimilate play out, seen through the eyes of a little girl. I highly recommend it. It will strike a chord in anyone, but especially for those for whom America is not their first home.
Here's a haunting song from the movie that I will be singing in Karaoke sessions to come :) Johnny Cash Lyrics - Desperado Desperado, why don't you come to your senses? You been out ridin' fences for so long now. Oh, you're a hard one, But I know that you've got your reasons. These things that are pleasin' you, Can hurt you somehow. Don't you draw the queen of diamonds, boy, She'll beat you if she's able.
Know the queen of hearts is always your best bet. Now it seems to me, some fine things, Have been laid upon your table. But you only want the things that you can't get. Desperado, oh, you ain't gettin' no younger: Your pain and your hunger, they're drivin' you home. And freedom, oh freedom, Well, that's just some people talkin' Your prison is walking, Through this world all alone.
And don't your feet get cold in the winter time? The sky won't snow, the sun won't shine It's hard to tell the night time from the day You're loosin' all your highs and lows Ain't it funny how the feeling, Goes away?
Desperado, why don't you come to your senses?
Come down from your fences, and open the gate It may be rainin', but there's a rainbow above you, You better let somebody love you, You better let somebody love you, You better let somebody love you, Before it's too late. 
