Transnational Family Life
May Esperanza was born in the Philippines in 1982 and immigrated to the United States in 1992. Her family was separated for nine years before she and her mother could obtain permission to live with her father in the United States.
William, the youngest of five children, was born in Kenya in 1990. His mother moved to the United States when he was six months old, leaving him in the care of his family. His siblings later moved to the United States too, and William joined them in 2012.
Liang tells her family’s story through a stereo that her parents bought while living in a Thai refugee camp. After their family was resettled in the United States in 1987, they used their stereo to record and listen to messages on a cassette tape that they exchanged with family members still living in Laos.
Myla was born and grew up in San Pablo City, Laguna province, Philippines. She explains in her story how she and her three children immigrated to the United States in 2012 after receiving authorization to rejoin her husband, who had arrived five years earlier. The family settled in Saint Paul, Minnesota.