I AM OTHER is the true story of Manette Trogani, a young Filipina-American in search of her cultural identity. Disturbed by her mixed-race heritage and hybrid looks, Manette struggles to understand why her English grandmother and three great aunts chose to marry Filipino men and relocate from Liverpool to the United States. 

      The story is told from three points of view: 

      Part One describes Manette’s experiences growing up as a Filipina-American in Irvington, New Jersey and the ninth of twelve children. The Troganis are one of the few Filipino families in the community and since they aren’t considered either white, black or Hispanic, their racial category is “Other.” Although Manette’s father strongly encourages her to take pride in her Filipino heritage, she is one of the few in her family that can “pass” for white, so she often pretends that she is. In order to overcome the shame and guilt of hiding her ethnic origins, while also struggling with her own poverty and ambition, she begins researching how and why these couples got together. Delving into her father’s family history, she interviews relatives who were still living, spends hours sorting through stacks of faded photographs, poring over research, even travels to faraway countries in an attempt to put together the pieces of her past.       

      Part Two tells the story of Manette’s grandmother, Dolly Lowe. For Dolly and her sisters, life in Liverpool is akin to the weather in that northern port city—overwhelmingly bleak. Desperate to escape the madness of their troubled home life, the two eldest, Dolly and Flo, attend a dance social at the upscale Adelphi Hotel in search of eligible men. There Dolly meets Ropo Trogani, a Filipino merchant seaman, and following a brief courtship the two are married on July 23, 1918, just one week after her sixteenth birthday. After five years of intermittent visits with her seafaring husband, Dolly’s first child is born. Much to Ropo’s disappointment, it is a girl. Eventually, Ropo—who like all other Filipino citizens at the time, is considered an American National—manages to save enough to bring Dolly and their daughter, Tillie, to the United States. Dolly joins her sister Flo in Newark, New Jersey, who has since married Ropo’s shipmate. Their two younger sisters, Connie and Evelyn, arrive several years later and, for different reasons, also marry Filipino men. The four sisters settle into a comfortable life in Newark. However, outside of their tight-knit circle they face the cruel prejudice of those who oppose mixed-race marriages. The treatment is especially harsh for their children, who become pariahs because of their dark skin. Things grow worse when the Great Depression hits. After several years of struggling financially, Ropo learns of the Filipino Repatriation Act of 1935. An outgrowth of growing racial tension and heated competition for limited jobs, the act offers Filipino citizens free passage if they agree to return to the Philippines. In the fall of 1936, Ropo relocates his family to his native country. After traveling via train to the West Coast, followed by a stormy shipboard journey across the Pacific, they finally arrive in Ropo’s native village of Tigbauan, only to be treated with the same suspicion and discrimination they faced in the United States. Ropo’s young children find adventure in the river and the jungles, but his wife, pregnant with her sixth child, pines for her sisters and civilization as she adjusts to her new life in a nipa hut without running water or electricity. Eventually, Ropo teaches Dolly to wash, bathe and cook like a local, but she and the children are never accepted by the other Filipinos. 

      In Part Three, young Martino describes how his father’s gambling addiction and job instability force the family from one location to another, each move bringing them closer to the capital city of Manila. There they have access to schools, medicine and shops. This is also where his eldest sister, Tillie, meets an American pilot, Horace Preston Barham II, and marries him in hopes that he will return her to the United States. On December 8, 1941, just days before Martino’s sixth sibling is born, the Japanese invade Manila. Tillie’s husband Horace sends her back to her family, believing his newly pregnant wife will be safer with her Filipino family. Soon afterward Horace disappears in the Bataan Death March, and Martino’s family flees the city. The Japanese begin a reign of terror, attacking and starving the Filipino population, who are seen as allies of the U.S. forces stationed there. After General MacArthur departs the Philippines on March 12, 1942, vowing to return, Manila falls to Japanese troops and conditions in the Philippines worsen. Martino’s parents struggle to keep their seven children and one newborn grandchild fed, even as his mother is expecting yet another baby. After a surprise attack by Filipino guerrillas on a Japanese airstrip, both thirteen-year old Martino and his father are taken prisoner-of-war, suspected of guerrilla activity. Young Martino stands up to his captors and, as a result, is tortured and starved for eight days. Eventually, the Japanese release Martino and, weak and exhausted, he returns home on foot, much to the joy of his anxious family. The war continues and the Trogani family fights a constant battle to stay alive. When the American troops finally do return in January of 1945, Martino’s mother uses her American-born children as a bargaining chip and negotiates with the Red Cross to send her family back to the United States, choosing to leave her ne’er do-well husband behind. However, before they leave the Philippines, Martino injures both of his legs, dodging Japanese bullets and rushing into a burning warehouse to salvage food for his starving family. Martino may not survive unless he receives proper medical attention. The Red Cross offers to transport the injured Martino on a hospital ship. However, his mother refuses to separate the family and chooses to tend to his wounds herself. At last the family is reunited with their relatives in Newark, where Dolly delivers her ninth and last child. 

Ultimately, Manette’s research taught her to appreciate the extreme hardships that her family endured and embrace her mixed-race heritage.