The way Nia recounts it, her family's beginnings in the US sound like a not-so-typical chapter in an immigrant Filipino family's pursuit of the American dream. "My grandparents on my mother's side are both from the Philippines, " begins Nia, whose father, Bob, is white. "My grandfather,Frank Nuñez Rubic, was from Manila. My grandmother, Emilia Salcedo, was from Cebu." Both are deceased. Although she never learned to speak Filipino,Nia maintains that she's thoroughly Pinay. But her family's saga explains why most migrants eventually lose their heritage. "My grandfather joined the US Navy in the Philippines in 1925 and when they docked over in San Francisco, he jumped ship so he could get his family here," Nia recounts. "My grandmother came over illegally, during the war. So when they had children, they wouldn't allow their kids to speak Tagalog and told them to act like Americans. The kids understood Tagalog but never spoke it."One of those kids was Nia's mother, Elizabeth "Liz" Joan Rubic Peeples, who, at 61, has never been to the Philippines.