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Concepcion: An Immigrant Family's Fortunes
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About This Book
"Absolutely extraordinary...A landmark in the contemporary literature of the diaspora." --Jia Tolentino, author of Trick Mirror A journalist's powerful and incisive account of the forces steering the fate of his sprawling Filipino American family reframes how we comprehend the immigrant experience Nearing the age at which his mother had migrated to the US, part of the wave of non-Europeans who arrived after immigration quotas were relaxed in 1965, Albert Samaha began to question the ironclad belief in a better future that had inspired her family to uproot themselves from their birthplace. As she, her brother Spanky--a rising pop star back in Manila, now working as a luggage handler at San Francisco airport--and others of their generation struggled with setbacks amid mounting instability that seemed to keep prosperity ever out of reach, he wondered whether their decision to abandon a middle-class existence in the Philippines had been worth the cost. Tracing his family's history through the region's unique geopolitical roots in Spanish colonialism, American intervention, and Japanese occupation, Samaha fits their arc into the wider story of global migration as determined by chess moves among superpowers. Ambitious, intimate, and incisive, Concepcion explores what it might mean to reckon with the unjust legacy of imperialism, to live with contradiction and hope, to fight for the unrealized ideals of an inherited homeland.
Reviews
"If Concepcion were only about Samaha's mother, it would already be wholly worthwhile."
"Samaha's memoir of his family's experience is a clear, moving, and powerful rumination on what it means to be an immigrant."
"renders an extraordinary look at the freedoms and perils of making a new life in America."
"While the threads don't always tie together seamlessly, it's a small complaint for the insightful, fresh perspective that Samaha applies to immigration, history, and what it means to be American, all so fascinating and engagingly shared."
"imperial history and its role in shaping Filipino and American identity — and never lets us off ..."
"especially timely, reminding us of the promises America fails to keep."
"An edifying, well-written narrative that provides an intimate perspective on the legacy of colonialism."
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