This memorial website was created in memory of our loved one, Cecilia Cantero Laserna Pastrana. We will remember her forever.She passed peacefully at 12:45pm on December 30, 2020 from Alzheimer's disease.
Cecilia is predeceased by her spouse Apolinario Trinidad Pastrana, her sons Audie and Albert, her parents Diego Cirilo Cantero and Paz Laserna Cantero, siblings Leticia, Diego and Judith Cantero. She is survived by her children, Alex (Marilou), Aileen, Apolinario (Holly), Alvin (Karla) and Annelyn and daughter-in-law Vicky; and her siblings Antonio, Fernandita Tatad and Vicenta Rimando and half sister Felícitas Cawaling. Cecilia was an educator and scholar and worked in various institutions including UNESCO, and the University of the Philippines in Diliman Quezon City.
In the 1980s, she immigrated to California for a better future for her family, begetting two generations of American-Filipinx grand children and great grand children aside from her grand children in Manila.
Her story of exceptional courage and resilience is reflected in her many stories as a young girl surviving the Japanese occupation in the Visayas, as a Fulbright scholar in the deep South in the 1960s, as an English teacher and PhD educator in Manila thru the late 1970s, and as a widow immigrant to California in 1980. In pursuit of a better future for her family, she exchanged the fruits of her academic achievements to start at the bottom. Her sacrifice and inspiration is reflected in the many descendant faces of builders, healers, artists, entrepreneurs, educators , nurturers, and dreamers who carry her legacy forward.
Finally she was the avid adventurer who would climb mountains, cross continents and oceans and trek across the globe. She inspires us with a life fully lived. She was an independent and exceptional woman ahead of her time.
