Jennifer Santos Madriaga
Jennifer Santos Madriaga was born in Honolulu, Hawaii and has lived in the Philippines, California, Virginia, Rhode Island, and North Carolina. Her family immigrated from the Philippines, which meant a childhood filled with the challenges of living biculturally. She states, "America has turned out to be a mixed blessing for my family. Poverty, racism, and cultural adjustment were and are huge issues for myself and many of my relatives. However, my grandfather always kept his buoyant optimism and had a certain enchantment and innocence when he came to America. He believed you could transcend, and indeed he did despite the modest trappings. I took my cue from him." She came of age in a working class suburb of Virginia Beach, Virginia and has spent most of her life in the American South.
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