“If you want this, we can make it happen.” These words belong to my mother and I have always known them to be true, even before she spoke them last February. They ring in my ear at every crossroad I have met along my journey through life especially in the last few months. I value them more than anything she has ever said to me because of everything she didn’t say. These words carry the weight of our family’s past. Humbling moments that could have easily turned our family into the same statistic it seemed everyone expected to see.

            When we immigrated to California from the Philippines twenty years ago the odds were against us. My mother was a single woman with three young children escaping every comfort she knew to start fresh in a new country. She was either completely out of her mind, or completely driven. Lucky for us it was the latter. 

 A book launch, a research scholarship, three kids in three countries, and uncompromising love and support. Now, as we celebrate our 20th anniversary of coming to America, I couldn't be more proud of my family.

[my sister, bruce lee's son, and me during our first christmas in the States]