Mirror of My Past

MIRROR OF MY PAST, Reflections of a Filipina After Immigrating to America, by Melba Speer --Lonnie's wife -- is a reflection of the author looking back at her life growing up in the Philippines and how she is now able to see many of the events of growing up quite differently with more experience in life. Sometimes emotional but always brutally honest, she lovingly explores the complex Asian mother-daughter relationship and provides deep insight into the events that affected her so as she was growing up. She tells of her struggles within her own family to make her wishes and dreams of coming to America known. And how the prejudices among her own relatives and in her own neighborhood had a profound affect on her childhood

and of how she had often fantasized of leaving the Philippines and going to America -- perhaps, in part, to fulfill the lifelong wish of her grandfather who had fought along side American troops during World War II; And how he, himself, had filled her with many stories about America and about Americans before she had even reached school age. As a result, the author tells of the heartbreaking episodes of growing up poor with her close-net loving family and, eventually, how a change in environment can sometimes create a whole new outlook on life and the lives of everyone close to her.

MIRROR OF MY PAST reflects on her life as Melba finally succeeds gambling with her future, benumbed with the attitude Bahala na (come what may) getting to America to realize her dreams. Finding it much diffferent than she had ever imagined, Melba is greatful and thankful for fortunately finding a loving and caring older man and realizes how much she has changed, herself, by the experience. Once regarded as a tremendous obligation to her family, Melba is now looked upon as the matriarch of the clan. MIRROR OF MY PAST explains how that came to be. (Xlibris Publishinng, 2007, 177 pp., notes, illus.) HB: $30; PB: $20 postpaid.