Love in a Global Village: A Celebration of Intercultural Families in the Midwest

Family Photograph: Saad & Julie

Family photograph saad& julie Julie & Saad. Photo by Jessie Grearson. t was part of the liberal tradition,” Saad tells us when we ask him about cultural influences on his 1995 wedding. From the beginning of our interview, we have been trying to understand how the two cultures of Saad Elzanati, a Lebanese math professor, and Julie Dalisay, an American graduate student in biology, have been woven into their marriage. Over and over again the couple insists on the international, the universal quality of their individual experiences and their lives together. They identify themselves by their politics, their choices, their intellectual interests rather than by ethnicity or nationality, and what we can see as we sit on their couch, with our tape players running, steno pads and cameras at our feet, reflects an intellectually committed universality . On the living-room walls are three paintings of human figures — abstract, primitive, brightly colored—that could have been inspired by African masks, European abstract expressionists, or children’s drawings anywhere. There are books in the bathroom and the bedroom, and in the living room an extensive collection of international music. Both Saad and Julie wear blue jeans and T-shirts, the international uniform of the young and educated. At first Julie’s description of her family is subdued, almost apologetic — as though she is sorry her story is not more interesting — but as she talks, Julie’s pride in her parents comes through clearly. Her internationalism is an inheritance from them. Julie’s father is a doctor from the Philippines, and her mother is an American homemaker originally from Ohio. Julie’s parents met in 1966 when both were working for the same Ohio surgeon, he as a medical intern, she as a secretary to the medical director in charge of the internship program. Despite the surprise and discomfort of both their families, they married. Their civil ceremony took place in Charleston, West Virginia, “only four hours away from Mom’s 20 { Family Photograph } I hometown,” Julie notes, though none of her mother’s family members came. The couple had a bigger wedding in the Philippines , which was much better attended. “Dad wore the traditional white shirt,” says Julie. “Mom wore the sleeveless Filipino dress, tight-fitting and very colorful.” In any case, Julie tells us, the couple persevered. “Mom’s family got over their disapproval when my brother was born.” They lived in West Virginia for three years and in the Philippines for two more before moving to Hamilton, Illinois, a small town near the Missouri border, where they have lived ever since. Evidently, Hamilton was not a bad place to have an intercultural childhood. We find Hamilton on our map — d7. It looks like little more than a village to us, close to the Mississippi River and a coffee stain, but far away from any urban center, with St. Louis and Chicago both at least a four-hour drive north or south. Despite its rural location, Julie describes a comfortable family life there. “I felt like a minority. I was darker, I stood out.” But Julie emphasizes that the curiosity of the townspeople was friendly. They wanted to know who she was, how her family lived; they wanted to know about the mundane facts of her life, about the Filipino food her mother had learned to make. There were other Filipinos in a neighboring town, Keokuk, and Julie’s family would get together with them to play mahjong and eat huge Filipino meals. Julie’s memories of this time are very vivid. “And it was always fun to see our parents get tipsy,” she adds. Still, we sense that the biggest drawback of life in Hamilton was the relative lack of things Filipino for Julie to identify with. Because of this gap in Julie’s life, a trip she took to the Philippines as a young teenager was especially important to her. It was a sad occasion because her grandmother was very ill and would soon die, { Saad & Julie } 21 but Julie rejoiced in everything around her: the landscape, the homes, the people, the food, the sounds of voices. Her Filipino family took Julie to historic sites and treated her like a special guest, stuffing the refrigerator in her room full of juice and treats. “I especially enjoyed the other kids, who threw me a party when I was leaving. They all wrote something for me in a little journal...