Author Grace Talusan gives voice to the Filipino immigrant experience in the US
Writer Grace Talusan. Photo: Alonso Nichols
Marybelle is a Filipino domestic helper who lives with Lincoln Chow, a Chinese-American professor, and Jing, a Hong Kong-born homemaker who yearns for a child she is not able to have. Marybelle earns money not only from the Chows, but also from weekends spent cleaning the rooms of local students. Her hard-earned dollars transform into large remittances home to her mother and daughter in Manila. In turn, her mother mails Marybelle photos of the sprawling family's newborn babies and of relatives at funerals - a token connection to family milestones that happen while she toils, several continents and oceans away.