The Caravan: A journal of politics and culture, November 1, 2011
Sitting outside of the small pharmacy she and her husband own in Palawan—the Philippines’ western-most province, a far-flung island known as the last frontier—Diana recounts how she let her application for American citizenship lapse.
“We never responded to the [US] embassy,” she says. “So then they sent us a letter: ‘It seems you are not interested in pursuing your application, so we are canceling [it].’”
Diana, 31, shrugs and takes another bite of fried banana, a popular Filipino street food. A motorized tricycle coughs by, its driver looking for a customer. A few stray dogs, whip-skinny, drift past. I watch them make their way down the road, which is dotted with palm trees, nipa huts, and the occasional cement building. It’s typhoon season and heavy grey clouds arrange themselves on the horizon.
