Grygla resident becomes US Citizen

Lolit recently welcomed me and my family into her home and cooked us a delicious Asian meal while visiting about growing up in the Philippines. It was such a great evening and fun to hear her stories she shared with us. Lolit has been married to Bill Neuschwander for 6 years now and the couple has two children, Krystal (6) and Brayden (4). Her family still lives in the town she was born and raised in. 

When sharing stories, she says it is similar in size to Grygla, but the weather is obviously different! The average temp in the Philippines is 95 degrees; December is the coldest month at around 70 degrees.

Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it? 

Lolit laughs and says, “I actually don’t miss the heat at all!” Having never seen snow before, when she first moved here she asked Bill when the snow would come. When it finally came she was in awe! “I jumped in it like a little kid,” she revealed. After experiencing a few seasons of the snow and cold temps, Lolit is a bit like the rest of us cold-temp veterans. “I like it for about two days,” she smiled. 

When talking about the things she does miss the most, her family comes up in conversation and she says it’s the simple things like eating supper around the table with everyone is what she misses the most. Lolit has 9 siblings with all of them living in the Philippines. No family members have come to visit yet, although they are looking towards the future to plan a visit for her mom. The process of getting here is a bit lengthy and complicated, however. 

Lolit says when her mom sees photos of all the snow, she comments about all the ice and wonders how one can even survive! “Everything is green back home - green and hot! When we’d get too hot, we’d go to the store and buy ice blocks in order to cool down,” Lolit said.

Where she grew up, the area itself is not  touristy. Being only 30 minutes from the ocean, Lolit says a lot of people don’t go to the coast often as many don’t have cars. She remembers taking a field trip there,  and if someone had a birthday or wedding, sometimes they’d rent a truck and take a visit to the ocean.

The closest, biggest city to where Lolit grew up is Kidapawan City. 

When she was in school, she shared that it was a 3 mile walk one way to the main highway. A Jeepney (like a bus) would pick up the kids and bring them to school at that point. Jeepneys are a popular mode of public transportation. Once she was at school, it was very similar to how it is here. For the elementary kids, there was 1 teacher and about 30 students per classroom. For high schoolers, you’d have 8 different teachers for 8 different subjects.

Lolit shared that the English language was an important subject in school. She, herself, knows 5 languages and shared that there are 108 languages alone in the Philippines. Visyas is Lolit’s primary language; she also speaks Tagalog, Ilonggo, Bilaan and English. Her daughter, Krystal, can sing a lot of songs in Visyas and understands some, but not all.

Growing up, life for Lolit was very different than it is here. She grew up on a small farm where her family would raise chickens and a couple of pigs and cows to sell. Her family never ate beef or chicken so every Saturday at the market, they’d swap the chicken for fish.

Lolit said, “Every Saturday was market day. My mom would always go and we’d all want to go with her so we could eat bread! Back there, bread is just for snacks. Sometimes we would sell pancakes at the market, too, during special celebrations, but stuff like that isn’t eaten there. My mom still goes to the market today, but just to buy, not sell.” 

For them, there were never stops at fast food restaurants and no pizza, or other indulgences, like there is here. Lolit said she had never tried a cheeseburger before coming here and admitted she likes them but prefers the food back home better. 

When it came to meals, there were never specific breakfast, lunch and dinner foods like there are here. No matter what the meal, the traditional spread was usually rice and dried fish. They would eat veggies out of the garden, but fresh fruit was usually too expensive to buy. Although, the family has a mango tree on their property, but it only produces fruit occasionally.

“My parents would sometimes sell our crops during harvest and buy ice cream, but that didn’t happen very often,” Lolit explained.

Speaking of food, the Asian meal Lolit made us that night was absolutely delicious! The menu included spring rolls, which were a pastry/wanton type of roll filled with ground pork, eggs, shredded carrots, onion, and garlic. She also served a fried garlic rice with eggs and a side of noodles in a pork sauce. It was such a treat and my family enjoyed every last bite!

Bill and Lolit, along with both of their kids, visited the Philippines over Christmas last year. After spending 23 hours on the plane, the family enjoyed their 32-day stay visiting family and friends. They had all met Krystal from a visit before, but it was the first time Lolit’s family had met Brayden. While on their vacation, the Neuschwanders stayed at a nearby hotel as Lolit’s family home is too small. “We don’t have mattresses, just wooden beds and mats. Bill says they hurt his back, but everyone else is used to them,” Lolit laughed. She explained that her parents had their own room, but everyone else shared a room to sleep. Even neighbors would sometimes sleep over if the walk was too far home. “We were packed in like a bunch of sardines,” she says.

When it came to moving to America, Lolit mentioned that her sister always wanted her to move here and find a better life and a good job. She was waitressing at the time and met Bill at the place where she worked. It took months to get to the United States, but the process went smoother after Bill hired a lawyer to help. Lolit commented, “It’s so hard to come here unless you are very rich. If you don’t have a lot of money, you need to explain why, what, where and apply and pass tests….it’s very complicated.”

But after living here the required amount of time and getting everything processed and passed, Lolit became an official US Citizen on September 28, 2016, at the Fergus Falls Courthouse and she couldn’t be prouder.

Though she misses spending time with her family back home, they communicate over the phone and internet. Lolit also takes pride in helping her parents from afar. “We bought them a couch when we were there last,” she said. To which her husband, Bill, replied, “We really should’ve bought them a mattress.”

Though the two worlds are very different, Lolit is proud of where she has been and where she is currently at.