Maila Acoba: A Filipino in American soil

Maila Acoba is a Filipina immigrant married to a Filipino immigrant and has an 8 year old son. She is a licensed Philippine lawyer, and has currently passed the California Bar Exam waiting to take her oath as a Licensed California Lawyer. She has been residing in California for 8 years now.

The topics that were discussed in this 25 min long interview, which are separated into 5 segments, are the following:

1. Immigration
2. Identity
3. Religion
4. Diversity

IMMIGRATION 

For the first segment of my interview, the interviewee, Maila Acoba, introduce herself to us along with her current occupation and her length of stay as an immigrant. On the first part of this segment we talked about Maila's background information and her pre-immigrant life. She also shared how she acquired her immigrant status through the influence of his husband and their recently born son 8 years ago. In an academic journal article on page 421, ""We Don't Sleep around like White Girls Do": Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives", Yen Le Espiritu shows us her findings from her interviews that "when asked what set Filipinos apart from other Americans, my respondents - of all ages and class backgrounds -repeatedly contrasted close-knit Filipino families to what they perceived to be the more impersonal quality of U.S. family relations." Maila's decision to become an immigrant to this country was due to her family's condition. The tightness that she has with her family shows how Filipinos practice a family-oriented culture that differs them from other Americans. We then shifted in discussing her immigration experiences and her thoughts of American dream before and while living in the U.S. She talks about the concepts of opportunity back in the Philippines versus the opportunity here in the U.S, the type of living Filipino Americans have compared to Filipino in the Philippines and the difference of employment. The United States has experienced a roller coaster of economy; however, California remain strong in its own economy. According to the book, Competing Visions: A History of California by Robert Cherny, the author highlights on page 438 that even though the United States of America suffered from economic loss, "California maintained its preeminent position within the national economy. [It] continued to have the largest gross domestic product (the combined value of all goods and services) of all the states, produced more manufactured goods than any other state, and ranked number one in the value of its agricultural produce. This proves how wealthy California is and how it can provide better opportunities to immigrants. It is one of the reasons that my interviewee, Maila, believes that this country has more to offer than her home country. She also shared her goals in coming here in the U.S. and her real intentions.

IDENTITY

The Filipino dishes are a big part of the Filipino culture

In the second segment, we talked about her identity and how she was able to maintain her Filipino identity. We also talked about how she views Philippines now compared to how she viewed it before coming here in U.S.  She also shares in this segment how she maintained her Filipino identity despite living in a foreign land where she identifies music and food as ties to her Filipino culture.

RELIGION

The third segment discusses about her thoughts towards the variety of religion existing in U.S. She also talks about the importance of religion in her immigration struggles. She tells us that the religion she's in, whose majority of its population is Filipino, helped her to cope with her social and emotional challenges and adversities on her first years of being an immigrant. 

DIVERSITY

In the fourth segment, she shares to us her experiences of the cultural differences coming to California and how she overcame the culture shock related to them. In an academic journal article entitled, ""We Don't Sleep Around like White Girls Do": Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives", the author, Yen Le Espiritu emphasizes on page 435 that "like other immigrant groups, Filipinos praise the United States as a land of significant economic opportunity but simultaneously denounce it as a country inhabited by corrupted and individualistic people of questionable morals." It shows us how most Filipinos think the same way of America; however, differently of the ways and livelihood in the country. Maila differentiates the behavior of children here in America compared to the children back to the Philippines and how they respect the elders and we can see from this quote that most Filipinos do believe on the differences of these behaviors, which relates to morality. She also shares the differences in implementation of the law here in U.S. compared to her home country. She explains also her idea of how the Filipino race played a role in the making of American history. She expounds about how language barriers affected her relationship with various ethnic groups and her experiences with coworker s and friends. 

Finally, the fifth segment, I asked Maila on what she could share to the students, other immigrants, the Filipino community, and the viewers of this interview. She tells that given the opportunity that we have here in the U.S., we have to take advantage of it and we have to work hard to show who we are and incorporate our uniqueness to become a part of this country.

Works Cited:

Cherny, Robert W., Gretchen Lemke-Santangelo, and Richard Griswold Del Castillo. Competing Visions: A History of California. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2005. Print.

Yen Le Espiritu. "We Don't Sleep around like White Girls Do": Family, Culture, and Gender in Filipina American Lives.