Transcript. Q: When and where were you born. |--| I was born in the Philippines on the 4th of July 1956. |--| Baguio City, Philippines, summer capital of the Philippines. Q: Why did your family move to the Philippines. |--| My grandfather decided to seek his fortune elsewhere. |--| He decided to go to the Philippines. He was successful. |--| He was able to build a hotel and he raised a family there. |--| My mother had four sisters and three brothers. |--| They were there when the Japanese attacked China that was like in 1937/1938. |--| Fortunately for them, they were in the southern part of China. and they were able to escape back to the Philippines. |--| My grandfather was still in the Philippines at that time and he passed in 1942 during the war. and when the Japanese got into the Philippines, they escaped to the mountains. |--| I remember my mother saying that they actually carried my grandfather’s remains with them. |--| They didn't want to leave it there, so they carried the remains with them when they escaped. Q: When did you come to America. |--| We came in 1972, I was 16 at that time. |--| We were able to come as a whole family except for my sister who was over 18 at that time. |--| She later joined us six months later. |--| We flew to Hawaii, which was actually the port of entry at that time. |--| We got processed, took about three hours and we got our green card. |--| We flew to San Francisco and met with my family,. my mother's sister who lived in San Francisco now. |--| A week later, we flew here to New York. |--| My Aunt Sally was the one who sponsored my mother and then set up an apartment for us. and then later on got us jobs. |--| We worked for Chase Manhattan Bank. |--| My aunt, you know, was able to find jobs for us there. Q: What was school like in the Philippines. |--| School actually was probably very similar to school here in the United States, you know,. because school there was patterned after the United States, the education system,. so all the books were from here so we learned everything that you would learn here. and everything was in English so there was no language problem. because everybody had to be taught in English. |--| As a matter of fact, you were not allowed to speak the local dialect while you're in school. |--| You get penalized for speaking, in our area it was Ilocano or Tagalog. |--| "Filipino" the national language, was actually considered. a subject so we learned Filipino as a subject like you would learn a language here. |--| But everything else, Math, Science, English, Grammar, History, is patterned. after the United States. So no different. Q: Culturally, what do you identify yourself as more – Chinese or Filipino. |--| This is the part where it's hard. |--| I do identify myself more as Chinese because I follow culturally. I follow more the Chinese traditions. |--| However, when you look at it, I'm almost like on the fringe of both Filipino and Chinese. because I don't know enough of the Chinese to be a Chinese,. not enough of the Filipino to be a Filipino. |--| I know probably just the surface of both cultures so I'd say I'm probably more an. American than anything else, having lived here for over 40 years,. so my culture is more, although I follow the traditions, my culture is more American. |--| And I identify myself really as an American..