I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir

Gharib gives a brief history of her family: Her mother’s family fled from civil unrest in the Philippines in the 1980s, when it was under the authoritarian presidency of Ferdinand Marcos. Her mother did not want to leave her happy, upper-middle-class life with servants and a stable job, but her father forced her to go to America.

Gharib’s father, who loves American movies, had planned to go to America since high school. In a five-year process, he studies, applies for, and is accepted to UCLA’s School of Management.

In America, Mom works two shifts a day as a receptionist at a Best Western, where Dad is a night manager. They date for six months before getting married. They have Gharib a year after that. Though they are pursuing what they consider the “American Dream,” they bicker about Gharib’s schooling and how to conduct themselves in their new country. Eventually, they divorce.

Gharib lists the differences between her Filipino family and the American families she sees on television. She eats different food, doesn’t get an allowance, and her parents allow and disallow her to do different things than her peers. Her mother has another daughter, Min Min, when Gharib is six.