This weekend is the 2nd anniversary of Filipina. American. Creative. It’s almost impossible to believe we’ve crossed this milestone because last year flew by.

I started filming today’s video thinking I was going to talk about how I upleveled in 2023, and instead, I started crying.

Chill out with me with some lounge music and special never-before-seen footage I captured during my trip to the Motherland (Pilipinas 🇵🇭 The Philippines).

Has it ever happened to you that you’re looking for something, and instead of finding what you’re looking for, you find something MUCH BETTER than you were expecting?

That’s exactly what happened when I went to my mother’s birthplace of Tarlac City, Philippines and went searching for her ancestral home.

My mom recalls walking through Manila’s Chinatown on her way to school when she was a little girl. She told me it wasn’t considered an official Chinatown at that time, even though the restaurants and shops were predominantly owned and run by Chinese Filipinos.

Today, the Manila neighborhood known as BINONDO is recognized as the oldest Chinatown in the world.

My mom has told me many stories about her childhood in Tondo, Manila. Mostly they’re filled with danger.

So when I went back to the Philippines earlier this year, at the top of my “must see” list was visiting her old neighborhood.