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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.