Mark Cruz

	Take a look around the room. Just for a second. What do you see before your eyes? Take a look at the person next to you for a moment. Every signle person in this room has a family. A family with history, untold stories, beliefs, traditions, secrets, among many other things. I am here today to talk about my family, about my roots, my culture, my heritage. About who I am.

	The phillipines is a small island nation in the Pacific Ocean. It is composed of over seven thousand islands, divided into 3 main provinces. They are Mindanoa, Luzon, and Visayas. the national language of the Phillipines is tagalog, and the majority of Filipinos are Catholic. My home country has widespread poverty, and is mainly agricultural. Fishing and farming are big parts of the economy. The nationla flag looks like this. The blue stripe represents valor, the red one represents truth. the Sun is the phillipines as a whole, and the three stars represent the three different provinces of the Phillipines, mentioned earlier.

	My family, both my mom and my dad, are from a small town called Bataan. For those of you who may remember a little war called World War II, this is where the Bataan death march took place. Now, as my mom recalls it, they only had one TV in the town, and that was hers. Everyday, kids from around town would come over her house to watch hte telivision.My two parents grew up together in this small town, and even went to school together. 
	My mom’s father was a farmer, and his wife was a housewife. In all my mom has seven brothers and sisters. I have about twenty two cousins alone from my moms’ side. My mom, for the most part, came from a happy child hood.
For my dad, it was different. His dad all but abonded him ever since he was little. When his mom died he was forced to make a living for himself, workign at his parents sotre, which sold and cooked food ofr people. Even though his father was still living, my dad never asked for any help form him. As you can see, growing up was hard for my dad back home in the Phillipines.
	If you have ever noticed, many Filipinos are either in the navy, or nurses. THis is because back home, at the time there was a high demnad for those jobs  in the United States, and it was a way to get here. So that’s how my parents got to America, like so many others. Go to a hospital, and odds are you’ll see a Filipino nurse, or to a naval base, and you’ll probably see a Filipino in the navy.
	Many years paessed, and my mother and my father married in 1980, in New York. I was born Mark Manlutac Cruz, taking my mom’s maiden name, and a shortened version of my grandfather’s name. 
	By 1990, most of my relatives were her in America. My dad never really told me much about his side of the family tree, so I’ll show you my mom’s side. Here, you can see my grandparents had seven children.... and so on.........

[a short tagalog lesson/show off some things from back home.]