""If you want it” is the opening track of her album “Anak Ko” which translates to “my child” in Tagalog. A term of endearment from her Filipino mother. I love her blend of droning guitar lines and bouncy bass lines"

"My mother wrote this memoir about her childhood, her bohemian and Beatnik friends, and her early love affair with Jack Kerouac. She was with him when On the Road came out, and witnessed how his sudden rise to prominence hastened his dissolution."

"Your mother wouldn’t approve of how my mother raised me, but I do, I think I do. And you’re an all-American boy, I guess I couldn’t help trying to be your best American girl.” I love that she opened up a conversation in this song about trying to navigate the coveted life of the “American Dream” while coming from a different culture and how difficult it can be for those ideals to intersect."

"Maya Angelou’s final work, published a year before her death, in 2013, when she was 85 years old. It was the first book to focus on her mother, Vivian Baxter, who abandoned Angelou when she was a child and it portrays their complicated relationship. The story is about the special connection between mother and child; both women found a way to move on and form a profound and enduring bond of love and support."

"Terms of Endearment. I absolutely love that movie, with Debra Winger, Shirley MacLaine, and Jack Nicholson. One of my first tearjerker films. It was so good to see that mother-daughter dynamic, the love story kind of playing out, and just to see their love, and dealing with men. Shirley MacLaine — the acting between her and Jack Nicholson was just awesome. It was just really one of my first tearjerker movies. I remember going, “Oh my God! I love that!” That was a good movie.”"