The first part of this book was utterly confusing, with how it shifted perspectives and time periods with each chapter. This book made me feel a lot of things - I felt recognition in all of those peculiarities of being Filipino, the heaviness of that experience, but also the joyful resilience. It's odd reading a book that spoke so frankly of the US genocide against the Filipino people, when that's something I never learned in school as an American, or even from my mother who is from the Philippines. I feel angry and sorrowful - when will we see justice? When will we have our own self determination? The book doesn't answer these questions beyond the simple fact that we must struggle for it ourselves, and expect it from no one, especially anyone posing as our "benevolent" saviors.