I think of myself as Californian far more than as American. I realized this identity inclination when I moved to another country a few years ago and was asked many times daily where I was from due to my accent. I […]
The PNB Box Office was the unlikely conduit in sharing a story and documents with me about my namesake and great-Uncle Norbert, a Second Lieutenant in the 522nd Fighter Squadron who died after his plane was shot down by German fighters while defending French soil during WWII.
Norbert,
My parents were born and raised in the Philippines. After they graduated college to become nurses and got married, they wanted to come to America to have a better life and future for us. They wanted their family and children to […]
For my family, America meant opportunity. It meant getting an education and having a better life. In the early 1990s, my mother came to the U.S. from Mexico at the age of 18. She originally came to visit her brothers (my […]
In the eyes of many, America is a symbol of freedom, opportunity, and a more stable way of living. For people like my mother America meant exactly that. At the age of 31 while pregnant […]
I am an artist. It is my responsibility to create space and experience. I am an educator, I have a role to inform and teach. Words and actions require the utmost care and consideration. We need to create […]
Recently, I had a discussion with my parents about where we each felt most at home. My mother, a British-American, and my father, a native Romanian-Hungarian, both agree that New York City, being the melting pot of the United States, was […]
I am an American.
To some this phrase inspires hope and pride, and for others it arouses awkward silence and rolling eyes. But what does it mean to be an American?
Instantly, the images that come to my mind are summer baseball games with a hotdog in […]
I remember going to London with PNB back in 2002. I couldn’t wait to get back to America and everything that made me feel at home. The money, the food, the accents, the winding cobblestone streets, it all made me feel out […]
Both the inherent significance of being an American and my perception of what it means to be an American have changed dramatically for me as I’ve grown older. I was born in 1946. As a child, I completely […]