LOS ANGELES – Sharon Arlanza Yost, a 33-year-old Filipina based in San Diego, is suing the United States government for negligence, false imprisonment and for negligent and intentional infliction of distress. Yost claims that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents wrongfully imprisoned her from May to December 2011. She also alleges that ICE officials then…
THE First Reading of last Sunday’s Mass from the Book of Wisdom still echoes in my mind. “For you love all things that are and loathe nothing that you have made; for what you hated, you would not have fashioned. And how could a thing remain, unless you willed it; or be preserved, had it…
Are you struggling with debt problems? Are you doing your best to pay but simply can’t? Have you thought of filing bankruptcy but are afraid that this might not be the right solution to your problems? Filing bankruptcy is a personal decision that should be taken seriously. Whether or not it is necessary for you…
Who says nobody could equally serve two masters at a time? A majority of people fanatically subscribe to this adage but not the second generation Filipino-Canadian banker Marie Claire Lim Moore who, during the entire period of her pregnancy, was still able to utilize her mental faculties to the hilt by documenting her childhood memoirs…
By Peter Schurmann & Video: Jacob Simas – New America Media Ed. Note: In September former secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano took over as president of the University of California, the first-ever woman to hold that position. She now heads a $24 billion system of 10 campuses, five medical centers and three national laboratories….
LOS ANGELES—An alliance agreement signed on October 28 by the Philippine Consulate General in Los Angeles and the US Department of Labor’s Wage and Hour Division (US DOL WHD), Western and Southwest Regional Offices, aims to educate Filipino workers, both legal and illegal, on their rights to fair wages and working conditions. The alliance agreement…
Who says nobody could equally serve two masters at a time? A majority of people fanatically subscribe to this adage but not the second generation Filipino-Canadian banker Marie Claire Lim Moore who, during the entire period of her pregnancy, was still able to utilize her mental faculties to the hilt by documenting her childhood memoirs…
On a weekend trip to Las Vegas, Rosa, a United States citizen, ran into some old friends, and was introduced to a friend of a friend, Domingo, a tourist who just arrived on a B-2 visa. Rosa and Domingo quickly fell for each other and were convinced they were madly in love. After a week…
Dear Atty. Gurfinkel: I was able to receive my green card, but then the priority date on my petition retrogressed (went backwards) before I was able to bring my family from the Philippines. I have now been waiting several years, and the priority date is moving forward so slowly. Is there any other, or faster,…
HANDSOME actor Dingdong Dantes has never been without a project. Acknowledged by his home network, GMA 7 as their Primetime King, his shows on the primetime block have always been certified hits. Aside from managing his own film studio, AgostoDos Pictures, he is now focused on his new primetime series, Genesis. With its pilot episode…
Various complications and even deaths, like those of the three Filipino politicians a few months ago) have been reported following stem cell therapy. We are revisiting this issue to put in proper perspective the facts about this widely advertised form of therapy, which has been misrepresented and abused by some enterprising people. Stem cells are…
It’s been said that those to whom reading is important, gets started on books early. This specific human act of word-making and word-reading, the scanning of small black markers on plain surfaces (just like the movement of a camera), when it catches, becomes a kind disease — a fascination proliferating cancer of the mind. When…
THE fault of one man should not be taken as the fault of an entire nation. This was the point reiterated by President Benigno S. Aquino III, in stating his position over the apology demanded by the Hong Kong government from the Philippines. “Our position is the act of one individual who is probably mentally…
FUTURE LEADERS OF TOMORROW (I have a guest writer in this edition of my column. She is my 17-year-old daughter Katrina Relos, a senior high school student from San Mateo High School in California. Katrina delivered a powerful and inspiring speech before Filipina leaders from different parts of the world in the Filipina Women’s Network…
AS the Federal Government bogged down in its tiresome partisan war over the budget and Debt Ceiling last month, any hope for “immigration reform” was placed on indefinite hold. In California; however, Governor Brown signed legislation to enhance school, workplace and civil protections for California’s hardworking immigrants. “While Washington waffles on immigration, California’s forging ahead,”…
IN 1999, Vigan was recognized as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and recently was hailed as one of the finalists of the New 7 Wonders Cities. Vigan, one of the country’s 16th century Spanish colonial villages, is a living museum of the country’s long and vibrant past. Renowned for its establishments that depict one-of-a-kind combination…
GLENDALE – Calm, cool, and collected, Glendale City Mayor Dave Weaver seems like he’s always prepared to answer any questions fielded his way wherever he may be. In an exclusive interview with the Asian Journal at Max’s Fried Chicken in Glendale, Weaver casually talked about his love for Filipinos, and his work as a public servant. Love…
ALL Saints Day and All Souls’ Day, for many Filipinos who immigrated to America, are not so much about costume parties, nor trick or treating. It still holds the same sanctity and tradition — days to commemorate and remember family and friends who have passed on. This includes commiserating with families of kababayans, who have…
ACCORDING to a report from Inquirer.net, President Benigno S. Aquino III’s speech on Wednesday left “more questions than answers,” when it was intended to provide “clarity and focus” on the controversial Disbursement Acceleration Program (DAP) and the pork barrel system instead. The president’s televised speech centered on denying that he was “a thief,” “when observers…
LOS ANGELES – Historic Filipinotown (HiFi) Council officials announced on Wednesday that they will hold a Lantern Festival and a Christmas Chorale Competition on Dec. 14, 2013 at the Silverlake Medical Center grounds. During a press briefing held at the Philippine Consulate, HiFi officials said that there will also be a parol designing competition where…
It is a wild spot, a world apart, a two million-ton landfill — the world renowned Smokey Mountain. It is where generations of Filipino families were born and raised amid the smell, the noise and the squalor of the third largest landfill in the world. Day in and day out, families navigate and literally scrounge…
IT IS hard to imagine why you should not worry about your debt problems, right? Probably everyone reading this article thinks that the right thing to do if you have debt problems is to worry about them, as if worrying does anything to correct the problem. “I have a lot of debt. I can’t pay…
IT IS a common situation specially within the Filipino community in California to listen to paralegal marketing about “Quick” Nevada divorces.?Since there is no divorce in the Philippines,?many Filipinos?come to the US still married to?their spouse in the Philippines.? After settling in the US,?some Filipinos in this situation end up?meeting an American boyfriend or girlfriend…
MORE employment laws were recently passed by California’s lawmakers. These include: New minimum wage laws to take effect in 2014 The new law raises the $8 an hour minimum wage to $9 an hour, effective July 1, 2014, and from $9 an hour to $10 an hour, effective Jan. 1, 2016. California’s minimum wage has…
QUESTION: I have a friend who came into the US and filed a fake asylum application. Is there anything that can happen? Answer: Yes. This would be one of the worse things that your friend could do. In fact, the consequences for filing a frivolous application are extremely severe. If such a ruling is made,…
MAKING the decision to file bankruptcy can be a painstaking process that most people put off until they realize that they have no other way out of debt. Unfortunately, however, sometimes people wait to long. When they finally do make the decision to file, they soon realize that they would actually have been better off…
Hosted by The California Endowment LOS ANGELES – Parents and students attended a town hall meeting hosted by The California Endowment on October 28 at Hollenbeck Middle School in Los Angeles, to raise awareness on the new Fair School Funding Law as part of The California Endowment’s 12-city School Success Express bus tour. Established in…
Los Angeles, October 31, 2013. The Federation of Philippine American Chambers of Commerce (FPACC) presents a three-day 2013 Bi-National Conference entitled “Lights! Camera! Business! The Pivotal Role of Entrepreneurs in Philippine-American Trade and Investments” to be hosted by the Filipino American Chamber of Commerce of Los Angeles at the Sheraton Gateway LAX Hotel at 6101 W. Century Blvd., Los Angeles, California…
SOME time ago, a parishioner caught my attention when she expressed her concern about the “forgotten souls”: those who have no one praying for them anymore. They may be the ones whose tombs that family members no longer visits. They are the ones who might be in purgatory and are still in desperate need of…
I have just gone over a qualitative research study that confirms what most of us believe – that corruption in government is the root cause of the hardships that the people endure. The current pork barrel scandal is certainly proof of that. Because of this Mother of All Thefts, we have been deprived of the…
