Marife Domingo

Director of the Philippine Folk Arts Society Rondalla +
Vice President of the Asian American Women's Coalition + Manager of XCS Program Delivery at Comcast

Nomination:

About Marife:

Marife wears many hats. Her day job is Manager of XCS Program Delivery at Comcast. She is also the Vice President of the Asian American Women’s Coalition and manages a band of Filipino mariachi. 

A tumultuous journey

Marife came to the United States as a grad student, after which, while many of her international student friends used the year after school to travel through the States, she opted to get more work experience here through the Optional Practical Training program. She came to the United States with intentions to return to the Philippines, for she was on a study leave. However, after a year working for Temple University, her work was so appreciated that she was offered to be sponsored for a work visa, and then her Green Card. She decided to accept this offer. While working at Temple, she used the tuition benefits to earn another degree in Information Science and Technology. After receiving her Green Card, she found her current career.

Marife had applied for her Green Card right before the attacks of September 11th. After this event, everything changed. It took her a decade to get her Green Card, and for the entirety of this time, she was not allowed to leave the United States. She could not get back to her home country to visit her family. However, she was still able to work and volunteer here. 

“It's not very often that you get nominated for something. Of course my non-profit organization that I work for recognizes people that contribute a lot, but coming from other organizations to recognize you…it's different, because it's different when it's your own people recognizing you. Coming from you guys, it's really an honor. I'm very, very flattered, very, very pleased. Very excited, very proud.”

Article byI Belong Philly. Created byBen Goebel and Silvia Roldan.

Quotes from Marife:

“In The Philippines, we have all those disasters that we get every year. But despite that, you can see the Filipinos are very resilient […] I think that's one of the traits that I'm very proud of in our people. “