Concepcion

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Nearing the age at which his mother had migrated to the U.S., part of the wave of non-Europeans who arrived after immigration quotas were relaxed in 1965, Albert Samaha began to question the ironclad belief in a better future that had inspired his mother's family to uproot themselves from their birthplace. As she, her brother Spanky -- a rising pop star back in Manila, now working as a luggage handler at the San Francisco airport -- and others of their generation struggled with setbacks amid mounting instability that seemed to keep prosperity ever out of reach, he wondered whether their decision to abandon a middle-class existence in the Philippines had been worth the cost.