The American Dream: An Immigrant's Story of America's First Black Tycoon

NEW YORK, Dec. 12, 2024 /PRNewswire/ -- Hot on the heels of an election where immigration turned into a major issue, Filipino American author Rene "Butch" Meily comes out with a riveting tale of immigrating to the U.S. at age 23 and rising to the top of the corporate world. Meily become the public relations strategist for Reginald Lewis, America's first Black billion-dollar dealmaker.

Meily's American success story, demonstrates that legal immigration has been a boon to the U.S.

From Manila to Wall Street: An Immigrant's Story of America's First Black Tycoon (Heliotrope Books, May 2025), is an eye-opening business narrative of American dealmaking at the end of the century when large corporations were gobbled up by outsiders with borrowed money and a wrenching love story where the protagonist does not get the girl in a time

FROM MANILA TO WALL STREET tells two stories:

The first is about Reginald Lewis, a hard-charging Black businessman who bid a billion dollars in 1987 for Beatrice International, an American conglomerate with 64 food companies in 31 countries, won the auction despite the odds but died at the age of 50. FROM MANILA TO WALL STREET recounts Lewis' struggle to reach the top, only to see his attempt to become the first African American-controlled company listed on the New York Stock Exchange fail and his Hamptons mansion burn to the ground.

The second story is that of a young Filipino immigrant at Lewis' side. Meily reaches the top of corporate public relations in New York, making a million dollars in one year, only to discover after his wife leaves him that power, glory and riches can bring loneliness and isolation. Meily began his relationship with Lewis as an employee and became his closest advisor and first-hand witness to the tormented, solitary man behind the image of a wildly successful takeover king.

Both outsiders were willing to pay any price to achieve the American Dream, only for Meily to discover in the end, that the true meaning of life lies in helping others. After his return to the Philippines, Meily finds himself leading a disaster foundation that battles super typhoons and war.

"Butch's memoir promises to make its mark doing double-duty as a history of both a Black American and a Filipino-American who dared to dream the American dream," says Naomi Rosenblatt, Heliotrope Book's founder and publisher. "We feel privileged to be publishing it." 

SOURCE Heliotrope Books