In Halina Filipina, an irresistibly charming comics rom-com by Arnold Arre, Halina MItchell, a biracial Filipino New Yorker, makes a trip to Manila to connect with her Filipino roots and meet local family members for the first time. While there she meets Cris, a local low-budget (and low-paid) movie critic, who balances his snide dismissals of hokey Filipino movies with a generous spirit and an embracing charm–as well as an immediate infatuation with the beautiful fun-loving Halina–as he shows her around a wonderfully rendered Manila, sampling the city’s food, sights, people, and culture. In this 12-page excerpt, the two grow fond, exchanging stories about their backgrounds, and Cris teaches Halina a little bit of Tagalog, the language of the Philipines. Halina Filipina: A New Yorker in Manila by Arnold Arre will be published by Tuttle Publishing in August.