Our decision was driven primarily by financial concerns. I’d gotten laid off from a well-paying job I’d held for more than two decades. Expenses were rising and income diminishing. Our ties to Southern California, while solid, were not tightly binding.
And so, we took the plunge.
We bought land in Northern Mindanao, where my wife was born and raised. Then, spending a huge chunk of my retirement savings, hired a crew to build our dream house overlooking the sea. And finally, in 2018, realizing the construction was taking way longer than promised, decided to get our you-know-whats across that sea to light fires under the crew’s you-know-whats.
“The house is far from finished,” I wrote after arriving. “There are lots of wires everywhere, piles of wet cement, floors that need tiling and walls that need painting.”
A month earlier, just before leaving the US, my tone had been different. “It feels like a kind of death,” I’d written. “Everywhere I go, I wonder whether it’s the last time I’ll ever be there. Each thing I do seems like something I may never do again. A friend recently wondered whether I realized this could by my ‘last and final move.’”
Another friend spoke more bluntly: “Do you think you’ll die there?” she soberly asked.
Eight years later I’m still alive, despite some major challenges. A local intestinal amoeba landed me in the hospital for several days. We lived through a global pandemic that kept us housebound for months. My sister-in-law, grievously injured in a motorcycle accident, now lies semi-conscious in a downstairs bedroom. And finally, a super typhoon nearly blew our dream house away.
A recent Los Angeles Times piece brought it all back. “Rich Californians seek residency outside the US,” its headline screamed. The details proved mesmerizing.
Agencies helping Americans secure “golden visas”—those for which they pay handsomely either directly or through foreign investments—are experiencing an unprecedented surge of applicants. The reason: many, on both ends of the political spectrum, fear a future filled with political and social strife.
“What if the wheels fall off America?” one wondered. “Then I need, just like World War II, a place to go.”
Ahh, but what about ordinary people who don’t have millions to invest? Interestingly, their stories are not dissimilar. Since 2015—the same year we started building our house in Mindanao—the number of Americans living abroad has risen to roughly 9 million, the biggest diaspora in US history. The largest group—about 1.6 million—live in Mexico, followed by Canada and the UK.
The Philippines is number four, with about 220,000 American immigrants, though some place the number as high as 750,000.
And rounding out the top 10 are Germany, Israel, Australia, South Korea, Japan, and France.
The reasons are manifold. Number one, not surprisingly: the economic pressure of living in a country where the cost of living has soared. Other factors include the growing number of retiring Baby Boomers, the increasing possibilities of working remotely, the cultural trend towards globalization and ease of movement, the rising cost of medical care in the US, the swelling number of binational marriages, and, yes, America’s burgeoning political and cultural turmoil.
None of which will ease the challenges of adjusting to expat life. The other day I met a new American immigrant still in the earliest stages of dealing with those challenges. He didn’t ask for my advice. If he had, however, I’d have referred him to that long-ago column.
“There’s only one antidote for the chaos of leaving your life behind,” I wrote back then, “and that’s time. Enough of it so that you’re more involved in the rebirth of your future than the death of your past. More focused on what’s ahead than on what’s behind. And so busy creating your new life that you no longer have time to mourn the passing of the old.”
So here’s my wish for all expats everywhere, whether American or not: May the time pass quickly.
And may whatever comes later be glorious.
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David Haldane is an award-winning American journalist and author with homes in Southern California and Northern Mindanao. His latest book is Dark Skies: Tales of Turbulence in Paradise. This column appears regularly in The Manila Times.
