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Dream come true
By Elton Lugay Aaron Enrick Gernarde, 18, had mixed feelings when he heard the news that President Obama is putting an end to the deportation of undocumented students. “Sana green card na agad,” he was exuberant at first and skeptical next. “Is that a sure thing. And then what?” Aaron and his family came to […]
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A bittersweet memoir of hope, family devotion and one deportation after another
By Cristina DC Pastor Feet in Two Worlds Even by Filipino standards, Jen Furer’s immigration journey is one colossal heartache: Her entire family, meaning her parents and five brothers, were deported after living in the U.S. for several years. The worst episode came when a brother in California and another in New Jersey got their […]
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‘Mute’ in America
By Shakira Andrea Sison I learned early on that I could never be American. I knew I could never tell the story of having been teased by a boy named Jimmy Chestnut who would later give me a Crackerjack ring while eating snow cones after a football game. I didn’t know this when I arrived […]
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In L.A.’s Historic Filipinotown, Filipinos are in the minority
By Cristina DC Pastor In Los Angeles, the center for cultural activity among Filipinos is an area called Historic Filipinotown, a stretch of roadway where the population of 25,000 is 60 percent Latino, 25 percent FilAm and the other 15 percent a mix of ethnicities such as African Americans and Armenians. Dennis Arguelles, director of […]
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The immigrant once called ‘nigger’ is now mayor of Ridgway, PA
By Cristina DC Pastor In the lethargic town of Ridgway, Pennsylvania – which is closer to Canada than to New York City – the mayor is a Filipino. The 72-year-old Guillermo Udarbe is also a doctor and so his town runs like clockwork. Mornings, this family practitioner tends to patients, and evenings he holds court […]
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42K Filipinos became U.S. citizens in 2011, up 20 percent
Filipinos were the third largest immigrant group to acquire U.S. citizenship by naturalization in 2011, according to the Department of Homeland Security. A total of 42,520 Filipinos were naturalized last year, representing a 20 percent increase from a year ago. Mexico and India were the top two countries of birth of new U.S. citizens, says […]