No matter how busy her days become, they always start with stillness.
It’s still the thick of winter where Loida Nicolas Lewis, attorney-at-law, entrepreneur, historian, and media practitioner is now, in the United States’ East Coast, 13 hours behind Manila Time, where summer now peeks around come noontime.
A snowstorm kept Lewis home, and she used the time to catch up on her “journaling backlog,” testifying to how important the act is to her. Aside from this, she also makes time each day to pray, and if it’s Sunday, then hear mass and take communion. Zazen, or Zen meditation, rounds out the routine.
“If you know you’re good, fight for it.”
Even when in other time zones, and other seasons, “snow shovel or leaf litter,” she tries her to best to maintain her morning routine, which grounds her. “You have these emotions all over the place, and after these practices, they’re sorted out. Like clutter now organized,” she says of her mornings.
The calm in the storm
Her life outside, however, is anything but uneventful. She’s been a staunch advocate for the Filipino-American community, and people of color as a whole and more so after the passing of her African-American husband, Reginald Lewis, known for building one of the first billion-dollar black businesses.
She took over after Reginald’s passing, and cut down its luxuries – including a private jet and an HQ in a penthouse suite – to better balance its books, and when it was most profitable, she sold the company.
Loida is a lawyer by profession; her US career starting in earnest after she sued Immigration and won her case, all without studying in a US law school. She did graduate from the University of the Philippines’ College of Law, which still rendered her eligible to take the US bar exams. “If you know you’re good,” she beams, “fight for it.” Suffice to say, such experiences likely informed the communities and cases she decided to represent and take on, as her early work centered around Spanish Harlem.
“Don’t burn bridges, you never know when you’ll cross that bridge.”
Lewis eventually worked with the US Immigration Service, the very agency she sued for discrimination, where she continued to advocate for underrepresented communities, this time with institutional support. Born at a time when the Philippines was still a US colony, Lewis exudes an old-world, Continental charm and poise.
In today’s polarized world, such an act provides a keen example of bridge-building. “Don’t burn bridges,” she reflects, “because you never know when you will have to cross that bridge.” One can see why she also authored books about getting green cards and immigrant life.
On that note, one can also call Lewis a mini media mogul, as she runs a podcast spotlighting inspiring people while publishing books on the side, such as Look Younger When You’re Older, first published for the Philippine market and slated for an international release in mid-2026.
She’s since done a lot over the course of six decades. But in between life stories, she always circles back to notions, bible verses, and anecdotes about two things: stillness and service. It’s been said that eyes are the windows of the soul, and that beauty is in the eye of the beholder.
But when it comes to Lewis, her eyes reveal a soul beheld by beauty, all as people are surprised she’s in her 80s. Stillness and service, her Botox, a Philippine broadsheet quipped. With smiling eyes, Lewis welcomes the humorous take.
Steady love
Loida recalls how Reginald had a hot temper, chalking it up to lived experience of “discrimination, or downright insult,” which was common at the time, an era when Martin Luther King was in the thick of organizing the black community all as civil and women’s rights and anti-war protests rocked the nation.
Nonetheless, Reginald was a driven man, “a genius,” as Loida puts it, and that’s what attracted her to him.
Their love survived because “we know what roles to take in the relationship.” As her story illustrates, she is the farthest from lacking in drive and dreams for herself and others, and yet, she shares her husband was even more intense than her.
Hearkening to American football and basketball, she believes that within couples, someone will always take the role of captain, someone will “be the CEO, so you might have to be the COO. You just have to know – and agree on who each of you are. It’s about complementarity, not competition. You compete with the world, but never with each other, you’re a team, steering a ship.”
Paying it forward
It’s a fraught time politically right now in the US, and Lewis and I discuss the irony of the current generation having to fight battles her and her husband’s generation already fought – and largely won.
I ask what’s in the pipeline. With single-minded conviction, she shares that her main focus now is on ensuring that the United States recognizes children born from military deployments in the Philippines, especially as more defense cooperation bases are being built in light of geopolitical events.
Lora respectfully, but also playfully and enthusiastically chimes in, not just her niece and production manager, but also Loida’s eager agent. “All right, the floor is yours,” Loida laughs, and Lora tells me more about Look Younger’s international version.
Their dynamic is warm to witness. There is a palpable warmth pulsing through the pixels and static of this video call. Despite her busy life then (and now), she made it a point to attend all the recitals and proverbial football games of her children. I’m pretty sure she was also one of the aunties children looked forward to seeing during reunions, the one they were excited to share good news about their lives to.
“Martin Luther King said the arc of the moral universe, no matter how long, bends towards justice,” Lewis can’t help but reflect. It’s late evening now in her New York home, the cold calling for a cup of tea. “And if you think about it, doesn’t ‘Gospel’ mean ‘good news’?” Everyone in the call is silent, but eager, “to deliver good news, to remind people that life gets better, isn’t that the core of Christian faith?”
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