Maverick Mondays are back for another season! Weekly posts about what it’s like to live in the US as a woman of color, as the daughter of Filipino immigrants, as a spiritualist, as a witch, as a poet-writer, and as a mom to three young women. I like to call…

Like the majority of folks of color, I was raised on money stories of scarcity. Add that to the fact that my parents were immigrants, fleeing a country under martial law, and had nothing when they first got here. Super scarcity! (Not a superpower you want! Haha) The other day…

These are the messages we receive in our capitalist society. It’s all GO GO GO. Do Do Do! It’s no wonder we’re all suffering from some kind of ailment, whether it’s physical illness like Crohn’s disease or a mental one like depression. This is the trauma of The Hustle. * …

[content warning: child abuse, sexual violence] When I was in sixth grade, my religion teacher, Sister Pam, a young light-skinned Black nun in our parish, talked to us about how to behave like good Catholics. The night before, I had done something to anger my dad and got whipped by…

You don’t know that you truly don’t belong until someone points it out to you. A few months ago, a Filipina woman was knocked down and beaten in midtown Manhattan in broad daylight. The attacker screamed at her, “You don’t belong here.” After it happened, I talked about this with…

The Summer of 2002 was the first time I entered a space exclusively for people of color. This was the intent of the space: to bring folks of color-specifically writers of color-together WITHOUT worrying about the white gaze. I was dumbfounded. To be able to be authentically ME without measuring…

“You can use my foundation,” I said. “No, Mommy. I can’t.” “Why?” “Because it will be too brown.” Whoops. For a brief second, I had forgotten. My oldest and I were out shopping for makeup at the local drugstore. She was attending her first Sweet 16 party and wanted some…

The last five years have been a kind of reckoning. A revelation into who’s got your back. And who doesn’t. * As kid growing up, I didn’t have many friends. I was friendly with people, but for the most part, I was quiet. …

I am writing the difficult thing. I might get some things wrong. I might get some people upset or mad. And it will definitely be messy. But it’s better than the alternative. Silence is a powerful weapon. I intend to break it. And continue to break it over and over…