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From Nelson Street to the Loop: A Fil-Am Love Letter to Chicago
On June 3, 1979, my family sat outside Warren Barr Tower at 856 W. Nelson Street in Chicago for one final photo before beginning a five-day drive west; the destination: California. We were leaving behind the only American city we knew. At just a few years into our lives as Filipino immigrants, Chicago had already given us a crash course in American living—and left a permanent imprint on our identity. Nearly a decade later, I returned. It was 1986, I was a little older—and in love. My girlfriend Liza Franco and I strolled downtown beneath Chicago’s iconic skyline and posed in front of “Duo” by Charles O. Perry , a vibrant sculpture at 55 E. Monroe Street. That photo reminds me how Chicago isn't just a city you live in—it's a place that lives in you. Its architecture, art, energy, and neighborhoods stay in your bones long after you’ve left. “Chicago raised us in a way Manila never could—it taught us how to be Filipino in an American world.” For many of us ...
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