New York City • July 2025. Tracing My Pinay Mom's Footsteps in 1960s Manhattan — With a Little Help from AI. filipina nurse 1960s new york, lualhati reyes perseveranda, 42nd street manhattan, exchange visitor program, fil-am heritage, chatgpt ai history. New York City • July 2025 Tracing My Pinay Mom's Footsteps in 1960s Manhattan — With a Little Help from AI A vintage photograph. A street sign. A Whelan's Drug Store. Sixty years later, AI helped me find the exact corner where my Filipina mother stood on 42nd Street — and what she was part of. Photo courtesy of Lualhati "Nati" Reyes-Perseveranda. East 42nd Street, Manhattan, New York City — circa 1960–1962. There is a photograph of my mother I have carried in my memory for decades. She is young — early 20s, radiant, dressed beautifully — standing on a busy American sidewalk. She is everything I would not meet until years later: Nati, before she became Nanay. The photo wa...
