By Leonides ‘Junby’ Saguisag Jr

Christmas with Filipino friends

Prior to migrating ‘for good,’ I spent my summer vacation, April and May 1997, in the United States, trying to get a feel for life there. It would be a little over a year before I’d finally migrate in June 1998. My reason for emigrating was really more of a ‘going along for the ride’ rather than an outright search for a ‘better life,’ as many other migrants have done. My maternal grandmother was already living in the USA then and had petitioned for my parents to join her. When my parents' petition came through I was a nineteen-year-old college student, finishing third year at Ateneo de Manila University, majoring in Computer Science. The opportunity to be based in Silicon Valley, the heart of the computer industry, was too good to pass up. So when I was granted a Resident Alien visa, the ‘green card,’ I took the chance that God had given me and emigrated a few months after I graduated with a Bachelor of Science degree in March 1998.