THIS HAPPENED TO ME
Confession of a Former Romance Novelist
If I don’t share it now, then when?
FOREWORD: People who knew me, especially friends and extended family, had often asked why I have not written about my own love story. This was during the time when I was writing romance novellas one after the other, published the conventional way by various Philippine publishers from 1985–2011.
My answer was always reticent, “I only write fiction, the romantic fairy tale type.”
That was not a lie.
Now, however, I am ready to tell it as it is.
Mail-Order Bride
Mainstream media invented the term mail-order bride.
This was in the 1980s.
Men from the West sought wives from the East.
These men were of a certain age, in all shapes, colors and civil statuses — single, divorced and even married. They fancied Southeast Asian women who were nubile and younger than them.
They preferred women from the Philippines because, according to them based on interviews, most could speak English. They also believed that Asian wives were obsequious to their husbands.
