Filipino American History

Birthdays in the Cemetery by Katinka Floro Rodriguez, A Memoir of a Filipina Woman’s World War II Childhood

Birthdays in the Cemetery by Katinka Floro Rodriguez, A Memoir of a Filipina Woman’s World War II Childhood

Just after Pearl Harbor Day, a motherless six-year-old girl awakens when a bomb falls a block from her home, the beginning of years of shattering deprivation.

In World War II Manila, Katinka suffers starvation, illness, and cruelty and loses family in the infamous Bataan Death March. She survives the Japanese occupation and the Battle of Manila. By the end of the war, Manila is destroyed and a million Filipinos are dead, but Katinka has endured the worst and now experiences the American liberation and reconstruction.

Available now on Alford Marr Press.