I first visited the Philippines when I was 29. I thought I would feel at home there, but I felt more out of place than I did in the U.S. I discovered I was more American than Filipino. It was shattering because I never felt quite at home in the U.S., either.

I didn't go into journalism thinking it would solidify my identity. I did it because I needed to make a living, and I was proficient in writing. But in becoming a journalist, I learned about other people who felt like they were on the edges of American mainstream life.

Wen wu contradicts the very American notion of John Wayne being the ideal of manhood. In the wen wu way of thinking, it's much more important to restrain rather than exert yourself through brute power.

Most of us, when imagining an All-American, wouldn't picture a man who looked like me. Not even I would.

We all, to some degree, absorb the mythologies around us, our vision refracted by the prisms of our particular time and place.

We never thought that we would be more than an opening act.