As I listened to my father tell his story, I could not help but feel the pain I saw in his eyes. His smile could not hide the fact that inside he was hurting. I watched as the deep crinkles on both sides of his eyes went deeper as he tried to smile. Not knowing how to soothe him, just as the way he soothed me when I was a little girl: crying from a bruised knee or when my brothers picked on me, I just listened.

###

Five years ago, my parents came to the U.S. as immigrants with hopes to find a job to help support our family back home. With courage and determination, they both embraced the challenges of living in a different country: food, weather, culture, tradition, homesickness, and language barrier, were just among the few. They were confident it would be easy for them to get along with other people, adjust to the colonial lifestyle, and find a job. After all, they thought, America is the richest and friendly country.

Mother, reticent by nature, found a job working as a housekeeper at the Westin Hotel. There she met many Filipinas, who then became chummy with her. They would share home cooked meals, exchange magazines, and communicate using our native language, Tagalog. In a way, she felt, she was still back home. Father, on the other hand, during their first week here, found a job at Shoreline Senior Center, as a custodian. Unlike mother, he had to speak English all the time since none of the staff and members were Asians. Work was not easy, but they were both pleased.

As a man who had been in different countries such as Argentina, Brazil, United Kingdom, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan, he had met people with different backgrounds and nationalities, he thought he could somehow communicate without difficulty. He was somewhat right.

As a non-native speaker of the English language, he had complexities assimilating the difference in pronouncing /p/ as /f/ and /b/ as /v/ and problems in constructing correct grammar.

Knowing my father, he was not the kind of man who would just sit and listen while others talked, shared their stories, explained situations, or joked about something. He would always want to be a part of the conversation, whatever languages were used, as long as he could understand, even a little, and speak it. For instance, he would talk to the doctor regarding what was ailing him even though I was in the same room acting as a translator, which, most of the time, only took the doctors valuable time listening. Father's every explanation would start like this, "Because when I took my medicine… because you know, doc I work in the Middle East… and you know, because, doc."

He was a proud man and never realized his mistakes until someone laughed at him.

I remembered him saying with reference to one such remark, "Oh, that's a hard fart." when he meant to say "hard part" with a p. Or "this is a delicious fork!" "Your priend is bery Veautiful."

He told me that at first it was fun having someone tell him, "You mean 'fried pork' not 'pried fork'," that, what he said meant something different. But hearing someone laugh almost everyday at what he was trying to say turned into a jab that went deeper and deeper each time. It was painful as a sliver, sensitive to a touch.

At work, he added, that he would get this kind of aide memoire too. And if unlucky–laughter.

"Sir, I pinished already cleaning the crap room." Of course, he meant to say craft room with an f.

Mother would correct him if she heard him mispronounce a word, thinking that he would somehow learn, but after a while, Mother's constant reminders irritated him.

It hurt him as much as it hurt me. It also annoyed me to hear that the man I looked up to became an object of scornful remarks for his mispronunciation of the English words and rearrangement of sentence structure. Father, now considered a senior, was a simple balding man with little ambition other than patching his roof. He was a friend who laughed at my corny jokes, punished us children by turning the lights off in the bedroom, leaving us in the dark for misbehaving, an arm to embrace us to keep fears at bay.

Now that we siblings are all grown up with families of our own, the house that he built for us when we were little, still offers the same shelter we came home to, like birds returning.

The thought of having a place, permanently open, whenever we were in need, to seek comfort from after our endless wonderings, gives us joy and tranquility.

His words of love still echo in my ears without imperfection. Each word he said, meant to touch my heart, served as a firm ground for me to stand on and as perfect as a world can be. To me, his English was beautiful.

With the house came the education that he provided: life's lessons and the education from the prestigious school I personally chose. It wasn't easy for him when he made a decision to work abroad to help me go through college.

His hard work came to fruition when I graduated. And to that education I owe what I know and possess right now–the ability to communicate and write using the English language. I was able to grasp what I thought would help me, to write something like this–an essay. My father did not get the kind of opportunity that I had.

###

Having this kind of imperfection, jokes coming from different angles followed, such as "Hey, do you eat dogs. Filipinos eat dogs." "I heard you people are loud and liked to sing karaoke when you can't even sing." Degrading, humiliating, uncalled for comments targeting his background, stereotyping Asians, pushed his resistance to the limit and brought us together in his little kitchen.

While nursing my coffee, sitting at the round table with salt and peppershaker in the middle, left over rice in a Tupperware, Asian pears, and letters from the Philippines, I watched him. The strong proud man, with his back hunched, who once walked me along the beach of Manila Bay to soak my feet and breathe fresh air to help my constricting throat due to asthma, succumbed to the denigration he received though delivered in a manner of a pun. My heart ached. I still listened.

"In my decision to come and live in this country brought a bountiful reward that stretched all the way to our home in Manila together with the hard work and pain. This is my decision and I must embrace it."

I left their house without a word to dull his pain. The burden of sadness fell all over me. I bit my tongue and tried to suppress my tears. Crumbling inside, I stood up and touched my father's shoulders. It was a silent message that we both understood–that everything would be alright.

###

Father went to work everyday even when he was feeling low, and hardly called for time off. His attitude towards life never changed despite the scathing humor he oftentimes received. In fact, he considered it as a constructive criticism, though hurtful.

Admittedly, during one of the light conversations we had, he did find his imperfect tongue funny, after the fact.

Having the same language and knowing my parents all my life, I could understand them, especially my father whenever they spoke in English. I knew what he was trying to say even before he could finish the long sentence that he translated in his head.

His English, although it did not pass the criterion of the general public, was a unique, coming-from-the-heart-and mind language. It was pure.