Always hiding

"My birth should have been an auspicious occasion for my parents because I was their fist child. But I was born a girl, and in the Philippines that made all the difference," writes Maria Violetta Rosario Dananay, the narrator of this story. Her life is at first a happy one, beloved by both father and mother. But when her father elopes with his latest mistress, who is pregnant by him, the world turns sour. Unable to face the disgrace, her mother flees to New York and becomes an illegal alien. Virtually deserted by her father, Viola lives as dangerously as she can until her father, who is in…