It was true I had a good ear and didn’t need much practice to make sounds like those around me, whether in English or French. My family’s premonition did come true, that once I copied their accent, white people thought I was white, or “American,” as Filipinos put it, at least until those white people talked about something obvious I didn’t understand, like homecoming or Jimi Hendrix.

Before I came to the U.S., it did not occur to me to question why people from home said “American” when they meant “white.” I didn’t ask why they called black people Negroes even when they were also American. I wasn’t even aware of other races, that Americans would call my family Asian, or that there were Latinos who came from Mexico and made up the majority of kids in my high school, even though most of the students in my honors classes were white. I quickly confirmed that it was to my benefit to seem white too.

“You go to Harvard?” the driver asked.

“I’m starting this year.”

“You are lucky.”

I wondered whether it was the college I glimpsed in the distance, even though to me those far-off buildings were just indistinct patches of red. As I fantasized about what it would be like to walk through those grand halls every day, I also dreamed up private school friends I’d be seeing soon, a spacious house close to the beach, and a white mom and dad who bid me goodbye.

“Where are your parents?” the driver asked.

“I told them I’d rather go alone.” This was literally true even though my attitude of carefree independence was not.

Because Mama did want to come, but I refused because I didn’t want her to feel any part of my success. With my grandfather’s help, we eventually moved out of the creepy nursing home and into a dinky apartment close to my high school, but it was also around then that Mama discovered the casinos in California. She left me, my younger brother, and our two half siblings from another man she was no longer with, to go on gambling binges that went on for weeks. This forced my other grandmother, Nanay Minyang, to come live with us, a woman whose every word was either a whine or a shout, though at least she kept us fed. I maintained my grades through this turmoil, because I knew a college scholarship was my only chance to escape.

“Why did you choose to come to Boston?” I asked.

“I did not choose,” he replied. “My parents are here and their relatives before. My father drives a taxi so I drive a taxi.”