WHAT IS YOUR IMMIGRATION STORY?

I was born in a second-generation Filipina American. Both sides of my family were in the Philippines during WWII and came here post-WWII. And my grandmother, a Filipina Makahili, was widowed during WWII. So, my grandfather died, literally saving people who were victims of a mine that was in the lagoon outside of their village. People were drowning, and he was swimming out to rescue them. So, my grandmother found herself widowed with four babies. My dad being the eldest. I think they were six, four, two, and an infant. So, she was able to come to this country after the war to make a better life. She was educated as a registered nurse. She came alone as a single woman, this is late 1940s, to try to save money to bring her children over to the United States. She's a very, very brave woman. So that's kind of the post-World War Two brain drain as they call it.

On the other side of my family, my mom's dad was a part of the Philippine Scouts during World War Two. And actually, survived the Death March of Bataan. So, because he was a soldier and he survived that piece of history, the United States made him an officer in the US Army and he was able to bring his family, including my mom and her three siblings, to the United States and they were able to come US citizens through that process. So, they bounced around from different military places to live and train. My grandfather's job was to train West soldiers on how to fight in "the jungle" as they called it back then. Part of my family was the post-World War Two brain drain. The other side of my family was post-military poll, World War Two.

My grandmother was widowed, and she came to the United States. This was a time when there were not a lot of Filipino women who would come by themselves, so, she actually was able to marry another Filipino man. So, it's very clear to me that there was the Requiro family, which is my surname, and then the Makahili family, which was who she married in the United States. So, we talked a lot about what that meant as a child. I didn't understand that he wasn't my biological grandfather, but as we got older, I really sort of dug into the story. It was really important, and it showed me why my grandmother was so incredibly strong and independent, and strong-willed, and didn't take s*** from anybody.

I mean, that's why my family, they all went to college. Even though they were first generation immigrants, we had some advanced degrees including a PhD from my auntie. And so that's kind of unusual for a lot of first-generation immigrants who came especially after World War Two. And my mom's side of the family with my grandfather being in both the Philippine scouts and the US military, that was something we were really proud of. I mean, he was forever a military man, and he would have the Philippine officers come to their house. It was constant, people visiting and playing mahjong and poker, and eating food, and just kind of being aware that we were very much of two cultures in terms of the Philippines and the United States.

I was born in the Bay Area. So, I am a hundred percent a Bay Area baby even though I live here in Los Angeles. We lived in Mill Valley, and we were the poorest family in the area because we were immigrants, but my dad got a job down in the Salinas Valley area and became kind of like I think he was a controller for McCormick Schilling. So, we got a professional job, moved to a nice house in the suburbs and that's really where I grew up. So, Salinas was primarily agricultural money. So, lots of rich families who had been there all white, a sprinkling of Asian immigrants. And then when I got to about second or third grade, there was a bigger influx of farm workers who were from Mexico, who would come in to our community. Where I grew up on my side of town, there were very few Asians. I don't remember any other Filipino families except for one who lived in my side of town. So that's where I grew up with my brother and my sister. I'm the youngest. We all were very aware that we didn't look like everybody else, but I think my brother and my sister integrated a lot better than I did. I was always feeling like the outsider at school.

I think in my brother as a kick-ass, super social, big man on campus surfer, dude, I think her kind of found his tribe. They were the surfer, guys, athletes. My sister was also an athlete and trailblazer in her own industry. She actually works in entertainment now and has been doing a lot. I think for me, because I was so much younger than them, they're ten and seven years apart from me, I didn't have them to lean on, so they kind of had each other to lean on when they were in high school. And for me, I kind of grew up on my own. They're kind of tired by the time you come around 10, 7 years later. I was very much a latchkey kid for a lot of ways. Really smart for my own good. School was so easy for me. I didn't have to study. I played sports and I kind of let myself in, but I always was very conscious that kids on the other side of town were brown. Whereas my classmates tended to be mostly white until I got into later years of high school, they were Latino kids, there were Chinese kids, there were Vietnamese kids, but again, very few Filipinos in my high school.

I think that when I moved from Northern California to Los Angeles to go to UCLA and I kind of toyed with studying economics or studying business they didn't have a full business degree so I was going to get a business admin tacked on to whatever I studied and I landed on sociology and really studied stratification race ethnicity and part of the reason why I did that was because I always felt like the other in all the spaces I was sort of walking around and what it was athletics or academics. I always felt like it was sort of my responsibility to provide a voice for myself and for other people who didn't have voice. I didn't know what that was going to look like, but I thought, we're good multicultural marketing or, I'll do something where I'm providing access to underrepresented voices.

And that ironically led me to working in entertainment. So, I worked as an NBC page right out of college and part of why I was hired was they were looking for diversity. They wanted to bring in people who were not the traditional mold of NBC pages. And so, my class was two Black guys and a blonde, blue eyed woman from Michigan, and myself. And we were the most diverse class of pages that they had seen in a while. One of them is still my best friend to this day. So really strong connections with one of them. He's like my little brother even though he's 6'3" but I realized that there aren't people who look like me behind the scenes much less in front of the camera. And so, it just seemed like an opportunity for me to get my voice in somewhere and I didn't know what that was going to be. when I was right out of college, but it has definitely led to something. I feel that's been impactful for the community.

WHAT DOES YOUR CURRENT JOURNEY LOOK LIKE?

I'm actually a single mom and my daughter is biracial. And so, one of the things I've been trying to do is set an example for her in terms of how to be successful in the world, whether you go to college or don't go to college, I think the core of all of it is, are you working hard? Are you being authentic to who you are? And I think in the last five years or so, are you taking care of yourself? We lost my mom on Christmas a couple years ago and so getting my daughter grounded with family and we're so far away from everyone who's still in Northern California. How am I keeping her connected to that? That is really important to both of us. So, the future for me, is she going to be able to carry on that legacy? Whatever her family winds up looking like in the future?

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