ABSTRACT
In late December of 1901, twenty-six-year-old Clemencia López abruptly left Hong Kong to travel over ten thousand miles to Boston, in the company of an American man. This was an unusual, even unprecedented, voyage for a young Filipina woman of her generation. The wealthy, well-educated López men had directed family business and politics. Clemencia served mainly as “the general correspondent and factotum,” assisting her mother and elder sister in managing domestic matters. She had no public role, nor did she overtly take sides as the United States turned from military ally to colonizer. Clemencia’s previous journeys from Balayan to Manila and back and from the Philippines to Hong Kong traced family networks, and she undertook those journeys in the company of relatives, mindful of social propriety.
