Immigration Blues (Criticism)

Criticism

Bryan Aubrey

Aubrey holds a Ph.D. in English and has published many articles on twentieth-century literature. In this essay, Aubrey discusses "Immigration Blues" as a study in old age and assesses the degree to which the story embodies or rejects the negative stereotypes of the old that are common in American culture.

Santos is known in the United States as a writer who chronicled the difficult lives of Filipino immigrants, especially those "old timers" (as they became known) who came to the country from the 1920s through the 1940s. The old timers remained in the United States for the rest of their lives, but they never lost their sense of exile from the Philippines, and they were often lonely and isolated.

"Immigration Blues" is one such story. The protagonist Alipio is an old timer who lives alone in California and still thinks often of his homeland. But more than being a study of a Filipino immigrant from a certain era, "Immigration Blues," as well as other stories by Santos, are studies in old age.

In American culture, the elderly do not generally occupy positions of honor and respect. In a society that values youth, success, and material productivity, the old are relegated to a position on the sidelines of life. What they contribute to society is not so easily measured as it is for those in the prime of life. In addition, popular culture, in everything from television to jokes (the cognitive lapses of the elderly often being the subject of humor), creates negative stereotypes of old people. Numerous studies of attitudes to the elderly on the part of the young as well as the middle-aged suggest that old age is viewed as a time of helplessness, loneliness, dependence, senility, and passivity. Old people spend most of their time sitting around and doing nothing — or so many people appear to believe. Not all the studies suggest such a negative view, and over the last twenty years, as people live longer, more healthy, and more productive lives, this view of the old could well be slowly changing. But it remains deeply ingrained. The term "ageism" was coined to describe such biased attitudes to the old.

With that background in mind, how does Santos depict his old characters? Does he reflect the negative stereotype or does he undermine it?

The first thing to note is that Alipio is a character drawn realistically from life. When at the age of eighty-two Santos wrote his memoir Memory's Fictions: A Personal History, he confessed that in his old age he had come in some respects to resemble Alipio. Like his character he spent much of his time alone, and also like Alipio he was given to reminiscing, wondering whether his friends all over the world were well and knew he was still alive. "I have become my character, a character I created before I knew what direction my life would take," Santos writes. In his article "Pilipino Old Timers: Fact and Fiction," he again quotes a passage given to Alipio in "Immigration Blues" and uses it to point out that there is no difference between the "old timer" in real life and his fictional representation.

So what is the nature of that real life fictional representation? An examination of Alipio seems in some ways to suggest a negative picture of old age, one that confirms the kind of stereotypes that researchers in aging and advocates for the elderly deplore.

This is Alipio: he lives in the past a lot (exactly the way the old are routinely perceived); he is in poor health since his car accident; he is hard of hearing; he does not have enough to keep him busy. He even prepares lunch early because he has nothing else to do. He spends a lot of his time sitting on his porch watching construction work and nodding to strangers as they pass. He has few visitors, and he hardly speaks to anyone as there is no one to whom he wants to speak. Gerontologists (those who study the aging process) sometimes call this kind of withdrawal "retreatism" or "disengagement." In many cases it is considered a defense mechanism: the aged may convince themselves that they do not wish to participate in social life, or do not mind being alone, rather than face the painful fact that they, like most others, are dependent on other people, and not having enough people in their life is a cause of loneliness and distress.

There is a deep sadness about Alipio. He still broods over his wife's death, and since he has no children, he is truly alone in the world. When it transpires that often he whiles away the time by watching television or listening to the radio until he falls asleep, the impression given is of a man who has given up on life. This is a sign of what gerontologists call "alienation." As Zena Smith Blau describes it in Aging in a Changing Society:

Alienation is an extreme form of maladaptation, characterized by the feeling that "there is just no point in living," by feelings of regret over the past, by the idea that "things just keep getting worse and worse," and by abandonment of all future plans.

Those at risk for developing an attitude of alienation include those who, like Alipio, have recently lost a spouse. Being a husband or a wife is a major role in life, like that of having a productive occupation, which keeps people engaged in the world and sustains their morale, their sense of usefulness.

What it is like to be old and have neither of these things is also apparent from another of Santos's stories, "The Day the Dancers Came," which appears in Scent of Apples. The main character is a Filipino called Fil. He is fifty years old, which may not seem very old, but it is his age that is emphasized. He looks old, and he feels old. Old age has prematurely come upon him. This is how he experiences it:

A weariness, a mist covering all things. You don't have to look at your face in the mirror to know that you are old, suddenly old, grown useless for a lot of things and too late for all the dreams you had wrapped up well against a day of need.

Fil lives in a Chicago apartment with another old timer named Tony, who is dying of a wasting disease. Fil is excited because a troupe of dancers from the Philippines is coming to Chicago. He plans to introduce himself to them, give them a tour of Chicago, and then invite them back to his apartment for a Filipino meal. But what happens when he tries to put his plan into action is nothing like what he imagined. When he arrives at the hotel where the dancers are to perform, they and their entourage are already milling around in the lobby. Fil feels unwel-come in the midst of all these beautiful young people. He is conscious of how old his face looks, and his "horny hands." Everyone is talking but he is able to talk to no one. The little speech he had rehearsed in his apartment now strikes him as foolish; they would only laugh at him. He eventually plucks up the courage to invite two of the young male dancers to his apartment, but they just walk away with hardly a word. Fil tries again, and is ignored again. He might as well be invisible.

Fil's story is a sad one, made even sadder by the fact that his friend Tony is dying. Soon Fil will be entirely alone. Can the old timers be redeemed? Is there anything about them that offers hope, or is old age everything the cultural negative stereotypes present it to be? The answer is yes, there is redemption, of a kind. Let us return to Alipio.

Alipio is a religious man. His explanation for the loss of his wife is that God took her. And in his eyes it was a matter of God's will regarding whether he would walk again after his car accident. Monica notices and comments on his strong belief in God. Toward the end of the story, Alipio twice uses the phrase, "God dictates." This does not seem merely to be a routine statement of faith but one that has real practical consequences for him. He is aware that life flows on, controlled by some force (which he chooses to call God) that is beyond the petty strivings of the individual. Individuals may have their plans and their designs, but there is a larger pattern at work too, the working of the divine in the world. Alipio is aware of this. One might call it wisdom. When many other things have departed forever, wisdom is there for the old. In this respect, despite his many failings, Alipio offers a glimpse of the archetype of the wise old man, the man who has lived long and knows the way things are. And in this lies his salvation. Look at how he reacts when Monica suddenly comes into his life. His response could not have been predicted from what has been shown of him up to this point. He had no thought of taking another wife, but when Monica arrives and her intentions become known, he goes along with what God sends. He has won a new lease on life.

This story's ending shows that Alipio defies the stereotypical notion that the old are rigid and stuck in their ways. The message is clear: there is still hope for new things, transformations can still happen and in the most unexpected of ways, even when one does not ask for them or seek them. Life is eternally unpredictable, and as Alipio shows, the old can be as swift as the young to adapt to new circumstances and accept what comes to them. Alipio deserves his new young wife. She may not be another Sensiang, his first wife, but one senses that he will no longer be falling asleep watching television, or aimlessly sitting around the house doing nothing.

In "Immigration Blues," then, Santos presents both sides of the coin, negative and positive images of old age. He shows that life is many-sided and cannot be put in a box with only one label.

Source: Bryan Aubrey, Critical Essay on "Immigration Blues," in Short Stories for Students, Gale, 2004.

What Do I Read Next?

• Santos's Dwell in the Wilderness: Selected Short Stories (1985) contains eighteen stories from the early part of Santos's career. Written between 1930 and 1941, these stories are set in the rural towns and villages in the Philippines familiar to Santos in his youth and early manhood.
• Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults (2003), edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, contains twenty-nine short stories, most of which have been written since the turn of the twenty-first century. The authors include those who live in the Philippines as well as American-born Filipinos. The stories reflect a wide range of issues that Filipino youth encounter.
• Contemporary Fiction by Filipinos in America (1998), edited by Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, includes work by prominent Filipino writers such as Linda Ty-Casper, N. V. M. Gonzalez, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Greg Sarris, Marianne Villanueva, Vince Gotera, Eileen Tabios, and John Silva.
• From Exile to Diaspora: Versions of the Filipino Experience in the United States (1998), by E. San Juan Jr, is the most comprehensive examination of the history and current status of Filipino Americans.
• On Becoming Filipino: Selected Writings of Carlos Bulosan (1995), edited by E. San Juan Jr, is the first collection of Bulosan's short stories, essays, poetry, and correspondence to focus on the Filipino American experience. Bulosan was one of the pioneer Filipino American writers, and his work covers the period from the 1930s through the 1950s.