Additional information
by Isabelle Loy-Odan Bete (Author)
"Where did you get colored chalk? Your grandmother isn't a teacher-she never even went to school."
Long before she found herself in the American Midwest, she was a young girl in the Philippines, sitting on the cold stone steps of her grandmother's home, racing to wish on shooting stars before they disappeared. Her childhood unfolded on the edges of poverty-huddling beneath a leaking roof during tropical storms, being mocked as an "abandoned" child, and enduring the silence of a classroom where a teacher's accusation of theft weighed heavier than hunger.
Raised by the fierce love of an illiterate grandmother and the grit of an Igorot heart, she dared to chase the dream of the "Beautiful Land." But as departure neared, her grandmother's hope hardened into a warning that lingered like a shadow: Those who go there become lost.
In this raw and luminous memoir, she traces the 8,000 miles between a mountainside hut and a life built far from home. It is a journey of resilience, inheritance, and belonging-one that asks a universal question: Can we succeed in a new world without losing the cultural soul that raised us?
"A hauntingly beautiful map for anyone navigating the space between two worlds."
