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We All Sold Out

August 2007  |  Issue #1  |  Abby Briones

It's official. I am now the black sheep of my family. This year, my younger cousin, Alan, decided to announce to the family that has agreed to abandon his dreams of film school and pursue the new family trend to study nursing. In a few years, he - along with every young adult in my family - will be a registered nurse and I will be the odd one out. Though it seems nursing is a choice that runs in the family, my choice does too. Writing is in my blood. My grandfather and uncle were writers. [They love words and stories as much as I do.] But my grandfather eventually became a lawyer and my uncle now owns a mortgage company. Writing is in my blood, but so is selling out.

As the daughter of first generation Filipino immigrants, I am expected to follow the wishes of my elders. One of the main family values of Filipino culture is what is called Pakikisama. In English, this translates to "harmony." It is a value that derives from Filipino tribal origins in which one must go along with the group. Defying the wishes of the group is considered to be rude and badly behaved. When Filipinos come to America, to a world where the individual is glorified, interests inevitably collide. While finding self-fulfillment in one's occupation is an American concept, working in the Philippines is an obligation expected from of-age children to help out the family and see their younger siblings through school. Because of the economic situation of the Philippines, the majority of Filipinos in the homeland are born poor. They either rise up from their status to gain material wealth or they stay poor. Education is highly encouraged because it is seen as the answer to escaping a life of poverty. With this in mind, nursing schools have risen in the Philippines to allow natives the opportunity to leave their hometowns for other countries that suffer from nursing shortages.

Since the 1970's, the Philippines has held the record for being the world's greatest exporter of registered nurses to countries like the U.S., Canada and Australia. Nursing is a strong practice in the homeland because foreign demand for nurses is steadily growing. It has been estimated that 786,000 Filipino Nurses are now working outside of the Philippines, in about 116 different countries. So many native Filipino nurses are immigrating to the United States that those left behind in the Philippines are now complaining of being forced to work too many hours due to the widespread shortage. Traditionally, Filipinos became nurses as an opportunity to support their families back home. It has been seen as a way of honoring the family. But being a nurse, today, seems to have become culturally predetermined, an obligation to the Filipino tradition in another way.

Because the last of the largest Filipino immigration waves began in 1970, most families have already begun a generation of American born Filipinos. Generally, these children already have their immediate families in America and have no need to support a family back in the Philippines. Despite this fact, a growing trend of Filipinos studying to become nurses has grown. The importance of seizing opportunities, security and making money is still at the forefront. But this time, it is for themselves and the children that they will bear.
Two summers ago, my parents asked me to take one of their nurses to visit a patient of theirs. My family owns a home health company that hires and sends out nurses to take care of the elderly and homebound. I thought I was doing them a favor. I didn't know that they had ulterior motives until the nurse successfully talked me into going inside the house with her. She had made friends with me during the ride and continually talked about how much the job brought her self-satisfaction. The patient was diabetic, weighed about three hundred pounds, had garbled speech and could hardly move because her sores brought her pain. Her bed was in the middle of a cluttered living room where she lived alone since family was too preoccupied with their own lives to take care of her. At the sight, I felt my eyes well up with tears and a sick feeling build in the pit of my stomach. I felt like I couldn't breathe, since the stuffiness of the room seemed to infer that disease had already permeated the air. I tried to watch as the nurse jabbed the needle into the patient's arm once, twice, three times. The patient's age and weight had made it difficult to find a vein. And at the nurse's third unsuccessful attempt to draw blood, I knew I had to leave. I excused myself quickly and went back to the car. My parents' plan had backfired. They had hoped that I would be inspired but instead, I walked away with only a newfound respect for those in the medical field, preferably to be appreciated from far, far away.

It is not only my family that has been hit with the nursing fever. I know over a dozen Filipinos my age who are in the process of becoming nurses. Some have parents that are nurses, others uncles and aunts or even cousins. Three of my closest friends announced just this year that they've changed their major to nursing. They are some of the handful of nursing students who enrolled in a college straight out of high school, with no direction, major undeclared. What I have learned from this is that when young people don't know what to do with themselves, their best bet is to listen to what others say. Luckily, some find that this lifestyle choice was right for them while others are left with the consolation that they can make good money and are now financially secure enough to pursue other interests. Because registered nursing constitutes as the largest health care occupation with an estimate of 2.4 million jobs and the highest 10 percent earning more than $74,760 in 2004, the temptation to fall into the gap tempts me as well as many others, young and old. It is apparent that the cultural Filipino concern over poverty has been passed on to this generation. Nursing has gone from a position of bringing honor to the family to a safety net in a world of financial insecurity.
Until recently, my family has, notably, been the exception. Instead of nurses, the generation before mine is full of entrepreneurs. My family has created a dress shop, a travel agency, a mini-market, two realty businesses, an accounting company, a mortgage company and a restaurant. Because of the growing number of Filipinos in the industry, the numerous nursing connections that my family has built over the years and the financial benefits that accompany this field, my family decided to enter the nursing world as well. My family wants me to become a nurse not only so that I may take over the family company and continue the family's tradition, but also because it guarantees me a job right out of school, comes with full benefits and a big, hefty paycheck. Every time I see them and they ask me what I'm doing with my life, I shrug my shoulders and drown out their lectures about how I should listen to what they say. I've given up arguing with them a long time ago about how writing is what I want to do, about how I want to be happy with the career I choose and how they should know I will never settle for something that will not bring me happiness. That conversation has ended in too many arguments with my parents. So I try to keep my mouth shut. My mother says I'm just stubborn. But to me, becoming a nurse would be like selling out.

Selling out is a term used when giving in to what others want while compromising your ability to be true to yourself. It is usually associated with popular culture. And this is no different. Life is a series of choices between selling out and being true to yourself. Selling out, to me, is going along with the Filipino trend of becoming a nurse. Though for some, it is a symbol of pride and to others it is a passion, it is a choice that I know will keep me from being true to myself. And, ironically, though it is my family that urges me to study nursing, it is also my family and their model to me to do the unexpected, to take risks of my own and to branch off into new, unexplored territory. Wouldn't that, then, constitute as upholding the family tradition?
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