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shedding skin

Growing up in the 80s and 90s in the Midwest, everyone wanted golden tan skin. My friends and I went to tanning beds to get a “base tan” so that we could then slather on baby oil and lay out on the beach during Spring Break and over the summer.  With my Filipina...

one home to another

I feel a sense of responsibility and urgency to write about the immigrant and refugee experience, especially with all that we are seeing in the news. For some of you, this may mean a continued exploration of knowing yourselves and living authentically (as discussed in...

recognizing your culture

I often tell the story that I didn’t realize that I was a minority until I won an award for it in high school. My father was a white American and my mother is a Filipina. I was born and raised in a small city in Indiana where my local family, friends, neighbors,...

thankful for our stories

Thanksgiving Day is the only day of the year that my mom shared her sacred kitchen with my dad. One of my favorite memories is waking up to the smell of turkey roasting in the oven, and the sound of the radio as people called into the Turkey Hotline. Weeks before the...

island spirit

Even though I’m half-Filipina and the Philippines is a nation made up of over 7,000 islands, I was born and raised in Indiana, a landlocked state that is 629 miles from the nearest ocean.  During the pandemic, on a rare night out in the suburbs of Indianapolis, I...