"Immigration Blues" is a short story about the lives of Filipino people living in America. Alipio is an aging widower living in San Francisco whose life dramatically changes one day with the arrival of two women with a special request. Alipio looks out his window and sees two women at his door; one woman is very large and the other diminutive one reminds him of his late wife's sister. Alipio remembers all the attempts to bring the sister to this country but she could never make the trip even after Alipio wrote to tell of his wife, Seniang's death.

Finally there is a small knock on the door and Alipio limps toward it thinking it had been only a month ago he still needed crutches to walk. Alipio had been hospitalized almost a year with injuries sustained in an automobile accident and he laments that...