How a Community Created a Path for Me

We often hear, that it takes a village to raise a child. I’m honored that several villages raised me — the family that helped my single mom, the women mentors that imparted all of their knowledge and resources, and the music community that I didn’t know would create a life path for me.

I grew up with music all of my life. It started with piano lessons with my dear teacher, Professor Mila Esguerra Edwards who at 94 years old, I still get to see today. She pushed me to take vocal lessons, join her choir, play for her choir, perform in several musicals, help organize rehearsals and concerts. She’s the matriarchal Filipina grandmother I never knew I needed in my life.

I grew up in Daly City, California and without knowing it, was immersing myself with the music coming out of the Bay Area in the 1990s, particularly from the Filipino American music scene. Hearing artists such as Jocelyn Enriquez, KAI, Pinay, One Vo1ce, Drop ‘N Harmony on the radio — and then going to Serramonte Mall to purchase their music and any music I saw that was by an Asian American music artist, became a regular thing. In my freshman year of high school I met Adrian Feir who shared the same immersion of music as I did. She passed away from lymphoma cancer, five years after we met.

Before Adrian passed on, I learned that the Greater Bay Area Make-A-Wish Foundation granted her wish to go to Australia. Devastated but touched, I decided to put together a benefit show for Make-A-Wish Foundation, in honor of my dear friend. I never did anything like it but…