We Belong Here, Too

Across the Pacific Ocean and from 7,290 miles away: that is how far I was flown to my new home away from home. From the steamy Manila heat to the glitz, glamor, and smog of Los Angeles, what I thought was going to be a short vacation became revealed to me as a new life. Our new life. My new life.

True to form, the first thing I did when I set foot in these United States of America — the gleaming beacon of hope that had been the…