“Ate” means big sister in Tagalog, and that is her role at the dorm: the mediator of fights, the provider of loans when someone is in a lurch, the only one who dares approach their landlord when there are complaints—mice in the pantry, another leak. At work, Ate speaks with authority to millionaires who in the presence of their babies turn into children themselves, reduced to clumsy beings who seek Ate’s help to get their newborns to eat, or sleep, or burp, or stop crying.
