"Every immigrant is a lover of possibility. Every journey to a new land is an act of faith in the unseen, the unknown, and the hope that love will be enough." — Unknown
Today is my dad’s birthday. He would have been 87 years old. He passed away from lung cancer over 15 years ago.
In February of 2020, I was in the Philippines with my family because my mom was dying. After long days spent taking care of all the heavy things you have to handle when a parent is nearing the end, my oldest sister and I would sit and talk. One night, we dug deep into our family history. And I realized how different my version of our story was from hers.
She’s ten years older than me—she remembers more. She remembers our life in the Philippines before we immigrated to the U.S., and things about our family that I was simply too young to know.
I always thought my parents' love story was romantic. Turns out, the truth was a lot messier. But isn’t that the harsh reality of most things?
My sister once joked that my dad tricked my mom into marrying him. According to her, my mom had come to visit my dad from a neighboring city. He told her there were no more buses running, so she had to spend the night. Back then, if you stayed overnight with a man—even if nothing happened—you were considered "soiled" and not fit to marry anyone else.
The thing is... there was another bus. He lied. He knew exactly what he was doing.
Basically, if you’ve ever listened to "Baby, It’s Cold Outside," my dad pulled that move—with intent.
I don’t even know if my mom truly wanted to marry him. What I remember being told as a child was that my dad heard about my mom, came to see her, fell instantly in love, and did whatever he could to marry her.
Well, long story short: they married. And here I am.
I was 45 years old when I found out that part of my family legacy. Jesus H. Christ on a bike. You can imagine how that scrambled my brain.
Here’s the thing: you can love and hate someone equally. And that was my relationship with my dad. Parent-child relationships are complicated.
I both idealized and resented him growing up. He was a narcissist. He was physically and mentally abusive. And yet... he was still my father. He worked hard to provide for us. He gave us opportunities he never had. He made sure I always had a home to come back to if I needed it.
Your first toxic relationships are almost always with your parents. And when he was dying, I didn’t hesitate. I got on a plane, flew 5,000 miles, and sat by his side. Because no matter how prepared you think you are, you’re never really ready to say goodbye.
I honor my father for the sacrifices he made for our family. I forgave him for the harm he caused. At the end of the day, he raised a family that chooses, again and again, to serve others. And that comes from him. He was a public servant.
As I get older, I think about where my parents were at the age I am now. When my dad was my age, he had only been in America for a few years. He’d crossed the globe to start over, landing in frigid Minnesota—talk about culture and weather shock—and then packed up a station wagon and moved his whole family cross-country to California for a new beginning.
I can only imagine the level of sheer delusion he had to have to believe we were going to be okay. Maybe he thought, "It’ll be good in sunny California... if we can make it there, we can make it anywhere..." Wait—that's New York. Anyway.
As I start new chapters of my own life, I take some comfort knowing I'm only making decisions for myself. My dad was carrying all of us. No wonder he was stressed out. I don’t blame him.
The immigrant story is different for everyone. But at its heart, it’s about survival. About hope. About trying to create a better life.
Immigrants are not the enemy.
We don’t come here to take from anyone.
This land is rich, abundant, and vast.
We come to add to it. To bring our own cultures, our own flavors, our own dreams.
I hope, in my father’s story, you can see the struggle that so many immigrants face.
Seeking safety.
Seeking stability.
Seeking a place to belong.
You don’t have to walk a thousand miles in my father’s shoes to show kindness and dignity to people who don't look like you.
Mahal Kita.
Happy Birthday, Dad. (Vid Vidal R. Castro, April 28, 1938 – October 23, 2009)
“Golf is the loneliest sport. You’re completely alone with every conceivable opportunity to defeat yourself. Golf brings out your assets and liabilities as a person. The longer you play, the more certain you are that a man’s performance is the outward manifestation of who, in his heart, he really thinks he is.” – Hale Irwin
In the novel She’s Come Undone by Wally Lamb, the main character, Dolores Price, loses weight by imagining all food is covered in mold. So she basically starves herself to lose 100 pounds. The reason she gained the weight in the first place is because she was sexually assaulted as a child by a neighbor and found comfort in food. After a failed suicide attempt, she’s institutionalized for seven years, and that’s where she sheds the weight.
The book came out in 1992. I was in high school, and for some reason, that part of the story always stuck with me. I was thinking about it again today—could we do that with people? If we don't want to think about someone, can we just mentally cover them in fuzzy mold? Repulse ourselves enough to stop remembering them?
In a way, I think we already do that. After a falling out, we latch onto all the bad memories to justify the distance. “Good riddance to bad rubbish,” right? But memory is rarely accurate. It shifts. It softens. It distorts. Sometimes we rewrite entire stories just so we can sleep better at night.
I’ve kept a journal since middle school. I started because I was beginning to understand I was gay and needed a place to pour all my secrets. Journals became that quiet vault for my inner life—everything that couldn't be spoken out loud. When I was in relationships, sometimes I wrote about women I had crushes on, ones I’d never act on. I’ve filled pages with unspoken moments, private thoughts, and contradictions. Some of it’s messy. Most of it’s honest. All of it is mine.
My friend Kimi thinks I have a great memory. I used to. Now, it’s like trying to pull data from an old hard drive that’s overloaded and out of date. What I can’t remember, I’ve written down. I’ve chronicled every meaningful moment—and plenty of meaningless ones. Most of it’s from my vantage point, which means it’s probably biased as hell. But whose story isn’t?
Now that it’s been five years since that forced time of isolation during COVID—and we’ve been out here living our lives like a global pandemic didn’t kill millions of people—I’ve realized something. Life feels way more complicated when we have to keep functioning inside this capitalistic mess. That feeling of contentment I found during the quiet? It’s constantly challenged now. Just participating—in other people’s drama, in our country’s chaos—takes energy. It takes real effort to hold onto that peace.
And at the end of She’s Come Undone, Dolores doesn’t get all her answers wrapped up neatly. She just finally accepts her brokenness. That life isn’t about having all the answers—it’s about learning how to live with the questions.
How do I live my best life without measuring myself against everyone else? Because that’s all we’re taught: to measure ourselves. But isn’t that just chasing something that’ll never satisfy?
We’ll always feel like we’re lacking if the bar is set by someone else's highlight reel. And honestly? I hate that. I don’t have time for it. I don’t have the energy for it.
There’s so much judgment out there. It’s exhausting.
The second half of my life isn’t about proving anything to anybody. It’s about growing. About shaking the fuzzy mold off myself and learning new things. Staying curious. Staying alive inside.
What else am I supposed to do? Pretend I’ve already lived all there is to live? Push myself out to sea on an ice float?
Nah. I’ll keep living my best life. Because eventually, death comes for all of us.
Might as well like who you are until then.
And I think—finally—I do.
Thanks for being part of the story. ❤️
"Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinion of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us." —Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice
There are a few people in my life—okay, maybe more than a few—who think I’m vain or that my pride gets in the way of relationships. And I’m sure at least a couple of my exes would’ve happily hit me over the head with a shovel during our breakup if they had the chance. But there’s a reason I have a healthy sense of self. A reason I stand so firmly in what I believe.
I was raised with the classic immigrant blueprint: keep your head down, don’t make waves, work hard, blend in. The whole “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” mentality. And for a long time, I believed that’s what would get me ahead. That submission equaled success. That being “good” meant being quiet.
Wrong.
Back in the early 2000s, I lived with my friend Asal in Fremont. I once told her, “I’m just trying to blend in and not be noticed.” And she looked at me like I’d said the most ridiculous thing ever and shot back, “Vangie, it doesn’t matter what you do—you will stand out. Look at us. We’re brown. We’re butch. We’re attractive. You might as well own it. The rules are different for people like us. We have to try harder, and be better than everyone else to be half as good as people who are mediocre. You will never be mediocre, but you'll be compared to mediocre people. So shine as bright as you fucking can.”
She was right. She always was. And when I forget who I am, I hear her voice in the back of my head reminding me.
It’s taken me a long time to stop letting people walk all over me. Most folks, if given the chance, will take advantage of your kindness. And when you’re someone who gives, it can feel like your generosity becomes an open invitation to be used. But here’s the thing: I’m not a doormat. I may give freely, but I’ve also learned to protect my energy like it’s sacred. Because it is.
We live in a society obsessed with scarcity. We’re taught there’s not enough—resources, love, space, success—and so we hoard. We isolate. We buy into this lie that if you have more, I must have less. That in order to succeed, someone else has to fail. But that’s not truth—that’s capitalism talking.
We’re throwing away food while people starve. We’ve got billionaires launching penis rockets into space while unhoused folks are being criminalized for trying to survive. We could solve hunger and houselessness a dozen times over if we wanted to. But we don’t. Because we’ve been trained to believe some people are disposable.
People are not disposable. You are not disposable.
And if that makes me vain to say? Fine. Be vain. Be proud. Be a damn beast if you have to. Love who you are in this body, in this world, right now. Take up space. Be loud. Be you. Because the world would be better if we all stopped trying to be “normal” and just focused on being good. On being kind. On giving a shit.
Because it’s Earth Day, and you can’t love the earth if you don’t love the people on it.
We get one life. One planet. One wild, precious existence. So go out there. Tend to the soil. Protect the water. Hold your community tight. Fight for justice. Love like it matters. Because it does.
“What does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” – Micah 6:8 (NRSV)
Post-Lenten Reflection: Earth, Pride, and Being Enough
Lent may be over, but the work of becoming—of healing, resisting, hoping, loving—is never done. This Earth Day, let it be a reminder that our sacred calling is to care deeply: for each other, for the land, for our spirits.
🌱 What parts of yourself have you reclaimed during this Lenten journey?
🌍 How can you show up for the earth and your community with renewed commitment?
🌺 What does living a life rooted in justice, pride, and joy look like for you?
This is holy work. Keep going. The world needs your light.
Happy Earth Day.
As above, so below.
Take care of yourselves. Take care of each other.