A hotly debated topic on social media in the past week was the cover story of The Atlantic’s June issue—a long, powerful narrative both acutely moving and vexing by Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Alex Tizon, about the woman he called his family’s slave for 56 years.

The Philippine-born Tizon refers to Eudocia Tomas Pulido, known to him as Lola, the woman gifted to his mother as her personal slave, and who devotedly raised him and his four siblings as his parents struggled to fulfill the American dream.

Until the piece came out last week, Lola was the big, dirty secret of the Tizons, who, as the writer was growing up, were a poster family of model immigrants to their American neighbors.

Lola lived a harrowing life of indentured servitude. As an adolescent, Tizon struggled with his helplessness and guilt over what he felt was serious mistreatment of the woman who lovingly cared for him and his siblings.

It was Tizon’s livid older brother who put a label to what the young boy already felt was askew in the way his parents treated Lola: she was a slave. “Wasn’t paid. Toiled every day. Was tongue-lashed for sitting too long or falling asleep too early. Was struck for talking back. Wore hand-me-downs. Ate scraps and leftovers by herself in the kitchen. Rarely left the house. Had no friends or hobbies outside the family. Had no private quarters.”

The article spurred lengthy, heated debates on social media.

There were those who praised Tizon—who, at age 57, died in his sleep in March, on the day The Atlantic decided to put his story on its cover for his courage and honesty to bring Lola’s story to light—his final act of contrition, they wrote.

Others were outraged and railed at the writer for being complicit to his parents’ sins. He could’ve done more, and sooner, they said. His essay romanticized slavery, others said, and it did nothing to absolve him of his family’s sins against this woman whose life they stole.

Lola’s story also touched the core of a painful and sensitive period of America’s past when African-Americans were traded and treated as commodity. Many readers and social media commenters equated Lola’s case with American slavery—a point Filipinos found peevish, citing cultural nuances.

Some Filipinos acknowledged that Lola’s story is not uncommon even to this day, and that they’re simply overlooked or accepted as the norm. As Tizon himself wrote, in the Philippines, “my parents felt no need to hide their treatment of Lola. In America, they treated her worse but took pains to conceal it.” In modern-day America, they broke the law.

Surely in writing this difficult story—it took Tizon five years, according to his widow—the author knew the kind of harsh judgment he would face. And, surely, too, he anticipated the reproof.