Jill Damatac

Jill Damatac was born in Manila, Philippines, in 1983, during the final years of the Marcos regime. At the age of 9, she and her family immigrated to the US, living in New York, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and New York (again, as an adult) as an undocumented immigrant for 22 years. In those years, she and her family struggled through temporary homelessness, poverty, and fear. As the decades ground on, Jill experienced domestic violence, sexual violence, and grappled with her mental health, striving, alone and often hungry, in New York City as a young adult.

After making the difficult decision to self-deport from the US, Jill is now a writer, a filmmaker, and a British citizen. A graduate of the University of Cambridge, she holds a Master's deg

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