Life in the Heart of Cebu City: A Returning Immigrant’s Memoir is a sequel to An Immigrant Goes Back Home to Cebu (2021). In that previous memoir, she revealed how, as she was retiring from her senior instructor’s position at a community college in Canada in 2012, she took to heart the persistent call of home from Cebu in the Philippines and decided that Cebu is her spirit place where she’d stay around for retirement. This meant, however, that she had to give up continuous and readily available access to the medical health care provided by Canada’s social safety net to which she had contributed and enjoyed as a provincial government employee for more than 30 years. Despite losing this advantage, she has set herself up to regain a foothold in a place where she knows her belonging is not questioned as she makes practically livable and pretty her brand spanking new condominium in the heart of Cebu City in the past year and a half. She recounts how her new living arrangement has provided a convenient jumping board for engaging with friends and acquaintances from the past and present as well as planned and serendipitous engagements with people from all walks of life. Interwoven in these narratives is her rather disconcerting recognition of the widening gap between the rich and the poor and that between the emergent middle and the lower classes. Nonetheless, grateful that she is not on the needy end, she recounts with optimism the first concrete steps in her self-assigned project to build a permanent food bank depot and lodging house for poor students in a now run-down city area where she once lived during her student days. Underlying this apparently workable enterprise are reminiscences of her parents giving to others often at so much cost which they lightened up somehow with a metaphor about the talisay, a tropical almond tree’s fruit which could be found along beaches as rivers carry them into the sea usually after a storm: “No matter how small the talisay is, it still could be shared if there’s a will to do so.” On this note, the author also pays undying tribute to the good-hearted overseas donors who share their talisay to fund the feeding programs and other community projects she has operated with her husband since 2008. Gratefully, she recognizes their empathy for the condition of the poor back in the Third World who, unlike the First World’s poor, have meager access to social assistance, if at all available.

Emma came into the world and captured her father's heart. But because of alcohol, Emma's father was this fierce tyrant to his wife and his boys. Nonetheless, nothing could ever displease him when it came to his sweet girl, Emma. However, when her Papa finally left for another woman, Emma was left at a tender age to tend for her family, a role she took upon herself with determination and dedication. Life was hard, but Emma faced every trial with hope that as long as she did not give up, life would get better. She was a dreamer with a plan, as her tenacity and hard work proved. Against all odds, she would love a man that she was not intended to have by the prevalent laws of culture and society. But how could he give her up when his heart vowed from the first time he laid eyes on her that life was meaningless without her. There were countless obstacles they had to overcome to be together. As a mother, she discovered that motherhood was a privilege as much as a sacrifice, a role she cherished most. As a wife, she was her husband's greatest supporter even when she fought not to at times. Together they would discover the one truth they both love and agree upon, the restored Gospel. She was an example of patience, understanding, compassion, faith, and unconditional love. She had the capacity to give of herself and touch lives, care for and accept all without discrimination. She was a cherished friend to all that knew her, rich or poor, popular or disliked, literate or ignorant. She loved every soul, and everyone loved her. How could they not? She gave abundantly and loved genuinely. Thus, she was her family's shining star and to others a true friend.

In Our Journey, author Joel J. Clemente tells his family’s life adventures in making America their second home way from home, from their humble beginning in the Philippines, to their migration in the USA. A testament of how he and his family continues to live their lives with strong faith to the Lord, filled with gratitude and compassion. Clemente’s story gives a deeper meaning into his family’s mission as a family in the Holy Spirit, Renewing the Face of the Earth. Part of which is his narration as a Jesuit Volunteers Philippines volunteer which prepared him to be the kind of man he is for his family and others. Also, the Couples For Christ that helped his family in their spiritual growth and transformations to imitate Christ. Our Journey shares his family experiences and lessons in life that makes them a simple and humble family in devoted service to God and others. As always he and his family offers their success in life to the Divine Providence.

This book contains the biography of Mayor Catalino Gabot Hermosilla, Sr., a Filipino politician, who was the mayor of Ormoc, Leyte, Philippines during World War II from 1941 to 1943 during the occupation of Ormoc by the Imperial Japanese military. His term of office was characterized by danger in the hands of the occupying military force where he demonstrated uncommon valor with the skillful and diplomatic handling of the affairs of the government under the yoke of the oppressors while cuddling with his Filipino brother-in-arms who were fighting the Japanese as guerilla warriors in the town and around the hills of Ormoc while at the same time, “played ball with the enemy” in order to save lives and protect the population under the detriment of his own safety...a fete that he later called “walking on a tight rope.” It also contain numerous historical accounts and records of Ormoc that is a “must read” to every fellow Ormocanon. Mario Yrastorza Hermosilla, MBA-TM Author

In the early twentieth century—not long after 1898, when the United States claimed the Philippines as an American colony—Filipinas/os became a vital part of the agricultural economy of California's fertile San Joaquin Delta. In downtown Stockton, they created Little Manila, a vibrant community of hotels, pool halls, dance halls, restaurants, grocery stores, churches, union halls, and barbershops. Little Manila was home to the largest community of Filipinas/os outside of the Philippines until the neighborhood was decimated by urban redevelopment in the 1960s. Narrating a history spanning much of the twentieth century, Dawn Bohulano Mabalon traces the growth of Stockton's Filipina/o American community, the birth and eventual destruction of Little Manila, and recent efforts to remember and preserve it. Mabalon draws on oral histories, newspapers, photographs, personal archives, and her own family's history in Stockton. She reveals how Filipina/o immigrants created a community and ethnic culture shaped by their identities as colonial subjects of the United States, their racialization in Stockton as brown people, and their collective experiences in the fields and in the Little Manila neighborhood. In the process, Mabalon places Filipinas/os at the center of the development of California agriculture and the urban West.

This historic collection of all of Sri Chinmoy’s university lectures in eBook form has been released to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Sri Chinmoy’s arrival in the West on 13 April 1964. Sri Chinmoy’s very first university lecture was given at the University of the West Indies in Kingston, Jamaica, on 10 January 1968. It was entitled “Spirituality: What It Is and What It Is Not.” This inaugurated a whole era of talks which saw Sri Chinmoy travelling ceaselessly across the length and breadth of America and around the world to address the youth of each country. He would spend countless hours travelling by car or train to reach far- flung universities, sometimes visiting two or even three in the course of a single day. After many of these sublimely inspiring discourses, he would answer questions from the audience or spend time instructing sincere seekers in the age-old practices of concentration, meditation and contemplation. By the mid-seventies, Sri Chinmoy had spoken volumes and he began to include longer and longer periods of silent meditation in his lectures. Then, in 1984, in a significant departure from the spoken word, he introduced the theme of Peace Concerts. At these concerts, Sri Chinmoy would play his own soulful and devotional compositions on a variety of instruments of both Eastern and Western origin, meditating between each instrument and sometimes giving aphorisms on peace and related themes. In 2003 yet another form of Sri Chinmoy’s self-offering unfolded when he travelled to a number of universities to honour distinguished professors for their significant contributions to the betterment of humanity by physically lifting them overhead. This remarkable endeavour was part of his “Lifting Up the World With a Oneness-Heart” award programme. Thus, through words, silence, music and a combination of physical and spiritual upliftment, Sri Chinmoy has shared his profound spiritual message with the aspiring Truth- seekers and God-lovers of the university-world for four decades. Sri Chinmoy’s words are mantras for the modern age, reverberating in our hearts with their timeless and truly life-transforming wisdom. In his exquisite prose, which is suffused with the very breath and cadence of poetry, Sri Chinmoy has revealed all the many stages of the seeker’s journey towards the Golden Shores of the ever-transcending Beyond. For generations to come these three volumes will awaken the inner mounting cry of seekers everywhere to achieve the highest Goal of Yoga—union with God—in this life.