The Foreign Service Journal, November 2021

THE FOREIGN SERVICE JOURNAL | NOVEMBER 2021 47 and he has published more than a dozen peer-reviewed articles on issues related to economic policy and development. In the Typhoon’s Eye: A Story of Childhood and Leaving Home Bles Chavez-Bernstein, Outskirt Press, 2020, $18.95/paperback, 300 pages. As its title suggests, this memoir follows Bles Chavez-Bernstein’s personal development from her childhood to her coming of age in the Philippines and her departure for the United States. In high school, Chavez-Bernstein had told her father that she wanted to be an art major and a writer, but he angrily said: “You’re going to have an empty stomach if you do that! Those courses are only for the rich.” The author duly became a nurse and migrated to Florida for work to help send her siblings to college. She successfully pursued careers in two clinical specialties—mental health and addictions nursing—putting her artistic aspirations aside for 25 years as she worked, married and raised three children. Bles Chavez-Bernstein is a Foreign Service family member who has accompanied her husband, Diplomatic Courier Steven Charles Bernstein, to several overseas posts during the last 16 years. While working as a consultant to UNESCO from 2006 to 2007, she authored a 100-page health manual on Adolescent Sexual and Reproductive Health in the Pan-Pacific Region . Also a trained classical vocalist, Chavez-Bernstein performed in a concert honoring spouses of Foreign Service employees at Consulate General Frankfurt in 2017, and the proceeds from her performances have supported women’s and children’s causes worldwide. In 2018 she rediscovered her path as a writer, publishing her first poetry collection, Without Rhyme: A Poet’s Story. Chavez- Bernstein is currently working on her second collection of poetry, Sensuous Healing .