After I missed my mother’s 65th birthday and she had a mild stroke after, I made a resolve to visit her every year, even if I went broke.

In April, 1999, I was coming back to Chicago from a surprise birthday visit . Entry point: Wisconsin. Between the pages of my Philippine passport were inserted, my via rail ticket to Toronto, where I had legal residency, and a fake business card… The white customs officer made whiter by her grizzled hair took one look at my passport and ticket and startled me with her observation: “It seems to me that you live here, young lady.” First of all, I was 36 years old, and second, I was no lady. I had a shaved head and a chain wallet, for pete’s sake. Can’t be anymore un-lady like than that. But maybe that’s why I was targeted. She told me this as she looked at the computer screen, bluffing. I lied and said, “I’ve only been in the U.S. since August and just went to the Philippines for a medical emergency my mother was having. I have a ticket going back to Toronto, where I actually live.”

But my words came out slow and slurred. My tongue was suddenly coarse and dry as sandpaper, my heart, wildly palpitating; I could tell she knew I was lying. Maybe they were trained human lie detectors?

“Take your luggage and go to the Immigration office,” she commanded. “The one with a yellow sign.” I didn’t even protest. I must have looked suspiciously pale for a brown Asian woman.

A million things were going through my head as I waited for my balikbayan box and my hardy mountaineer backpack to be unloaded from the plane. I was resigned. Do I take a train back to Toronto or a plane back to Manila? What about my girlfriend? What’s gonna happen to us? Will she follow? Are they going to rummage through my stuff, read her love letters, my journal, find out how we plan to live together in a house by the lake? God, where the fuck is the ticket counter? Let me save myself any more trouble and humiliation and just leave.

I saw my luggage and as I was pulled them from the carousel and loaded them on to a baggage cart, they seemed to have gained a thousand pounds. That or the carpeted floor was covered with glue, the cart laboriously sliding along. I left the luggage by the door of this immigration office and went in looking for a water fountain. There wasn’t any, perhaps intentionally, to further agitate the dry-mouthed into incriminating themselves. To keep from hyperventilating I took deep breaths – breathe in through the nose, breathe out through the mouth, just like warming up before a performance. I took a number and wished they would never call it. 61, 62, I looked around. Mostly folks who looked like me. Mostly women. 63, 64, I prayed for God to be with me, along with my mother, my sister, and my girlfriend. I prayed for strength. 65. and then I thought: WWMD? What would mommy do??? Well, she would walk into the room like she owned it, her elegant neck stretched, chin up, back straight, handbag slung on her right forearm. She would not smile.

Then, 66. The guy with the blue uniform had a smirk on his face. “They named a city after you?” What? I asked. Was he joking with me? Oh. I smiled, briefly at ease. As he was looking, flipping through the pages of my passport – numerous stamps of entry to the Philippines, to Canada, the U.S. and then one, just one other country, Cuba, I thought, Fuck. America hates Cuba. But I asked, feigning confidence, my mother’s voice in my head: “Is there a problem, Sir?” I lied again and said I’ve only been in the U.S. for three months, well within the time allotted for tourists. And I had a J1 visa. Truth was, I had been living here for 2 years after I ran away with the circus called Pintig theatre group. Then, he said, “You live here.” And I said, “No” with the calm vehemence of a swindler.

At that point he saw the calling card tucked purposefully in between the first and second page of my passport. I had it custom-made in Manila using a fancy template, printed it on glossy cardboard. Just 10 copies. The smirk broke into a smile, and he looked like a cute white kid’s uncle. He read my fake title out loud: “Producer/Director, Sinag Productions,” he said, his tongue curling around the word Sinag, Si-nag? In Tagalog, it means “Shine.”

“Hah. You do movies?” like he was gonna follow it up with “Can I be in it?” and I said, “Just short videos.” Then, he asked, “What kind?” And I responded facetiously, my mother’s bravado fully uploaded into my system. What’s the worst that they could do to me? A free ticket to Toronto? But I already have one. “Nothing pornographic, sir. Mostly about people.” He laughed, “Not birds? I’d rather see one about birds.” I smiled through my filtered face as he stamped my I-94 and let me go.

WWMD. What would you do now, Mommy? If you were me and you were sitting beside your mother’s unresponsive body? You said she died from ectopic pregnancy when you were 12, the corpse of your seventh sibling stuck in her fallopian tube. I never did ask if you saw her before she passed. How scared you must have felt then. How helpless.