Marivir R. Montebon's memoir, Biting the Big Apple, lends an insightful and inspiring presentation of immigration patterns in the U.S., aside from the fact that it is at times funny and exciting. Her own diaspora is not a typical one, however: Immigration was her only choice after her husband, a leader of the Filipino political party Bayan Muna in Bohol, became a victim of a summary execution perpetrated by military death squads during the past Arroyo regime. She sought and has been granted a political asylum by the U.S. government.
The story that this book tells is a long saga of crossing the seas. In this memoir, Marivir's own family members were in fact part of the centuries-old Philippine diaspora. From the struggling great grandfather who left a young wife and small children in the tiny island of Siquijor in central Philippines, then lost his life in the asparagus farms in Stockton, to this journalist who has become an immigrant herself, this book has so much to share.
- Foreword, Arnedo Valera, Esq.
Human Rights and Immigration Lawyer
Editor-in-Chief, Migrant Heritage Chronicle
Co-executive director, Migrant Heritage Commission
The story that this book tells is a long saga of crossing the seas. In this memoir, Marivir's own family members were in fact part of the centuries-old Philippine diaspora. From the struggling great grandfather who left a young wife and small children in the tiny island of Siquijor in central Philippines, then lost his life in the asparagus farms in Stockton, to this journalist who has become an immigrant herself, this book has so much to share.
- Foreword, Arnedo Valera, Esq.
Human Rights and Immigration Lawyer
Editor-in-Chief, Migrant Heritage Chronicle
Co-executive director, Migrant Heritage Commission
