Manilatown is in the Heart: 02/14/2009 at SFPL

Hip-Hop Lives: On Prometheus Brown

From the Hip-Hop Lives blog, an excerpt of a poem by Prometheus Brown:

"I was both Gabriela and Diego Silang
Lapu Lapu reborn when he talk through the song
I'm Bulosan moving with the tool in my palm
To get the workers and the students and the movement involved
To paraphrase Jose Maria Sison
A hero, serve the people, till the spirit is gone.
I'm Bonifacio
Before Aguinaldo betrayed him
As a child I had beef with both Marcos and Reagan.
I'm like Eman Lacaba
Guerrilla and a poet they will salvage my prose
While my body decomposes.
I'm Viernes, Domingo
From Friday to Sunday I rest
The other days I'm overworked and depressed.."

Read the entire blog entry here.

Luis Francia on Benjamin Pimentel's Pareng Barack: Cool to be Brown 01/27/09

An excerpt:

What does the presidency of a black man mean to Filipino-Americans, themselves the beneficiaries of the black struggle? An incisive reflection on precisely this topic was published late last year: Pareng Barack: Filipinos in Obama’s America. Its author is Benjamin Pimentel, a Filipino journalist (and friend) living in San Francisco and on the staff of The San Francisco Chronicle for many years.

In 2007, he wrote his first novel, Mga Gerilya sa Powell Street (The Guerrillas of Powell Street), dramatizing the plight of Filipino World War II veterans fighting for long-overdue benefits from the US government, adapted last year for the stage. Pimentel also authored UG: An Underground Tale, about the life of the slain anti-Marcos activist Edgar Jopson.

His latest book is an attempt to examine not so much the role the new president might play in relation to the expatriate Filipino community in the States, but the larger issue of how Filipinos deal with race — and the racism that often poisons their approaches to it— as evident in the presidential campaign. He cites examples we are all sadly familiar with, best summarized by the immigrant Filipino father who fervently tells his activist daughter, “You’re not going to marry a black person. Don’t ask me why. Just don’t. They’re up to no good.” But he also cites many instances of Filipinos and Filipino Americans who, in their activism, keep the dream alive of a just and racially integrated society.

Read the entire article at Inquirer.net here.

Article about Miguel Syjuco in The Australian: Prizewinning writer keen to cause a stir

An excerpt:

There has been some criticism [about Syjuco winning the Man Asian Prize]. Richard Lea, writing in The Guardian, expressed reservations about a prize for an "exciting new Asian writer" being awarded to "an English-speaking graduate of creative writing programs at both Columbia and Adelaide University".

"I write against Southeast Asian exoticism and books that italicise Tagalog words or place names," Syjuco says in response.

"The Filipino or Asian experience is global. To say that a novel has to be set in Asia to be Asian is completely wrong."

As for writing in English, he points out that itis the common language, the language ofeducation and government, in The Philippines amid the 50-odd dialects spoken across thearchipelago.

Australia does not feature in the narrative but the 80,000-word novel is the fruit of Syjuco's PhD in creative writing at the University of Adelaide. He says he owes a debt to the university because it offered him a scholarship that allowed him to devote himself full time to writing and gave him the "chance to fail". After a heated auction, he has signed a two-book deal with the Hamish Hamilton imprint ofPenguin in Canada, his base. Random Househas picked up Ilustrado for publication in Australia.

[...]

Syjuco cites Jorge Luis Borges, Roberto Bolano, Saul Bellow and John Updike, along with Filipino writers Jessica Hagedorn, Carlos Bulosan and Bienvenido Santos, as his literary influences, but says it is time young Filipino writers looked beyond the magical realism of Latin America and of India, with its cliched sari-sagas. "It's outdated. We need to go beyond that to write about The Philippines frankly, not as people who are trying to idealise and pander to the West," he says.

Read the entire article here.

This Friday in SF 1/20: SPT's POETS THEATER INTERMEDIA NIGHT

POETS THEATER FEST CONTINUES WITH INTERMEDIA PROGRAM

Please join us Friday Jan 30th for the last night of PT09, with several inter-media works from local & national writers, artists, musicians, & filmmakers, along with our huge raffle & other festivities! Program includes:

Karla Milosevich: "My Past Life" & "29 Palms" (video)
two new videos by Bay Area arts legend & Poets Theater starlet!

Amanda Davidson & Cassie Riger: "A-Verbal" (video & performance)
The Doctors Feelings present preliminary research on the emerging averbal condition.( see the preview at http://partedinthemiddle.com/averbal )

Paolo Javier: "FYEO" (text & images), performed by Dennis Somera live cross-cultural de(tour)nement & comix!

Linh Dinh: "A Smooth Life" (video)
The unconscious of online visual culture whispers its (per)verses into our ears.

Ariana Reines: "Your Mother & I" (audio & performance)
"Now son, you know we are not perverse individuals..."

Heriberto Yépez: "Voice Exchange Rates" (video)
What happens when our machines begin to translate us back into the feedback loop.

Bill Luoma: "The Concept of Ass" (speech & video)
baseball bloopers meet diamond gem poetics...

Henry Hills: "Money" (film)
a classic cut-up featuring John Zorn, Abby Child, Bruce Andrews, Charles Bernstein, Sally Silvers, and dozens more....

Dillon Westbrook: "pan(Oa)ic(k)land" (video, text & live music)
A multi-media investigation of Oakland & its hidden rhythms.

Claudia Rankine & John Lucas: "Provenance" (video essay)
On the head-butt heard 'round the world...

Konrad Steiner: "Suite for Face" (video & live music)
Improvising movie musicians pull the masks of actors into new affective directions.

Friday 1/30, 730 pm. $10 donation.
Timken Hall, CCA
1111 8th Street, San Francisco
smallpresstraffic.blogspot.com
sptraffic.org

Pareng Barack: Benjamin Pimentel at SFPL 01/25/2009

Thanks to Oscar Bermeo for the following video of today's Benjamin Pimentel/Pareng Barack reading and event:

SAT, JAN 31 – Filipino Children’s Stories about Food & Learn How to Make Halo-Halo!

It’s Storytime! A Free Event! Join Us!

Saturday, January 31, 2:00 – 3:30 p.m.

Filipino American Library
135 N. Park View St., Los Angeles 90026

This event will highlight folktales about food, specifically rice and mango. The children will learn how to make halo-halo, the popular Filipino dessert. It is co-sponsored by the Filipino American Service Group, Inc.

--- Please RSVP to filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or (213) 382-0488. ---

Snacks and drinks will be provided. Admission is free and donations to FAL are accepted. Please feel free to donate online at www.filipinoamericanlibrary.org.

The FAL Children’s Reading Program promotes diversity and the love of reading among children and their families in Greater Los Angeles through the introduction of books and activities that promote different cultures and peoples, including Philippine culture. It is coordinated by Celeste B. Diaz, the FAL Children’s Librarian, and funded by grants from Walmart and Citigroup Foundation.

New: NOTA BENE EISWEIN by Eileen R. Tabios

ANNOUNCEMENT FROM AHADADA BOOKS

NOTA BENE EISWEIN
Poetry by Eileen R. Tabios
Release Date: 2009
ISBN: 978-0-9808873-9-6
Price: U.S. $16.00
Distributor (forthcoming): Small Press Distribution (spdbooks.org)
For more info: GalateaTen@aol.com

Ahadada Books (Toronto & Tokyo) is pleased to announce the release of Eileen R. Tabios' 16th print poetry collection, NOTA BENE EISWEIN. In this book, Tabios applies the methodology of making "eiswein," a German sweet wine, for extracting poems from her readings of Christian Hawkey's poetry collection The Book of Funnels and Sarah Bird's novel The Flamenco Academy.

NOTA BENE EISWEIN extends Tabios' body of work that is unique for melding ekphrasis with transcolonialism. Just as she is inspired by other art forms for creating poetry, her poems have been translated into other art media -- Paintings, Video, Drawings, Visual Poetry, Mixed Media Collages, Kali Martial Arts, Modern Dance and Sculpture -- in addition to languages such as Spanish, Italian, Tagalog, Japanese, and Portuguese. Tabios blogs as the "Chatelaine" at http://angelicpoker.blogspot.com and edits GALATEA RESURRECTS, a popular poetry review journal at http://galatearesurrects.blogspot.com

To celebrate the release of NOTA BENE EISWEIN, Ahadada Books is pleased to announce a SPECIAL RELEASE OFFER. For orders received through February 28, 2009, the book will be available at a 25% discount for $12.00. There will be free shipping as well to U.S. residents. Eileen will be processing U.S.-based orders (which means you can get a signed copy!), so you can order by sending a check made out to "Eileen Tabios" to

Eileen Tabios
256 North Fork Crystal Springs Rd.
St. Helena, CA 94574
U.S.A.

If non-U.S. residents are interested in this offer, please contact Ahadada Books through http://www.ahadadabooks.com/component/option,com_contact/task,view/contact_id,3/Itemid,34/

If non-U.S. residents wish a signed copy, you can email Eileen at GalateaTen@aol.com to confirm logistics of international shipment.

Cheers to Muses Reading, SF 01/25/2009

From Debbie Yee:

The Koret Auditorium inside the de Young Museum is a beautiful space (though not intimate). There will be a reading by Cheers To Muses anthology contributors and others this Sunday. I’ll be reading too! Details:

Cheers to Muses: A Reading Sponsored by the Asian American Women Artists Association

In conjunction with the de Young’s Artist in Residence: A Place of Your Own, members of AAWAA will read poetry and prose, including work from the anthology, Cheers to Muses, Contemporary Works by Asian American Women. This diverse collection comprises a compelling part of today’s literary voices.

Sunday, January 25, 1 - 4 pm, including a book signing

Koret Auditorium, de Young, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive,
Golden Gate Park, San Francisco

Admission into the Koret Auditorium is free

Related Exhibitions: Asian/American/Modern Art: Shifting Currents, 1900–1970

Writers

Grace Ilagan Angel
Olivia Boler
Clara Hsu
Michelle Meeseon Koehn
Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen
Grace Tzeng
Maw Shein Win
Nellie Wong
Debbie Yee

Bios

Grace Ilagan Angel is a painter, poet, mother of two girls, successful event planner and a breast cancer survivor. She is currently working on her latest collection of poetry entitled, “Dreams from the Orchard.”

Olivia Boler is the author of a novel, Year of the Smoke Girl. She has written for a variety of publications including the America 24/7 photojournalism book series, the San Francisco Chronicle, and Marin Magazine.

Clara Hsu’s ensemble Lunation combines poetry with musical instruments. She is the keeper of the Poetry Hotel and organizes free social activities for the San Francisco poet community.

Anh-Hoa Thi Nguyen holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Mills College and her work has been published in journals and anthologies. She has performed at numerous venues in the Bay Area including Kearny Street
Workshop’s APAture 8 & 9, San Francisco’s Litcrawl and Writers with Drinks.

Grace Tzeng was previously a preschool teacher, but now is re-pursuing a writing career. She has written for In the Classroom (educational topics) for AsianWeek and the former Millbrae/San Bruno Sun and San Mateo Weekly.

Maw Shein Win’s work has appeared in 2River, No Tell Motel, Big Bridge, Babel Fruit, Moria, and other journals. She was an Artist in Residence at Headlands Center for the Arts and has an upcoming residency at Can Serrat.

Nellie Wong is the author of three books of poetry. She’s in the film, “Mitsuye & Nellie Asian American Poets,” and has poems engraved on public sites.

Debbie Yee is a trusts and estates attorney and poet. A Kundiman fellow, Debbie’s poems have appeared in 32 Poems, Barn Owl Review and MiPOesias, among others.

Review of Eric Gamalinda's Amigo Warfare

Amigo Warfare (Cherry Grove Editions, 2007) by Eric Gamalinda
Reviewed by Scott Hightower

Songs of Fertility and Subversion

One hesitates to say that the poems in Eric Gamalinda’s most recent collection, Amigo Warfare, could be the poems of the love child of Emily Dickinson and César Vallejo...but there, it is said. There are moments in this spell of poems where one might have opted for Dickinson and Rumi—but Vallejo and Dickinson form a distinctively colonial American union.

Read the entire review here.

The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization by Rhacel Salazar Parrenas Reviewed

The Force of Domesticity: Filipina Migrants and Globalization (NYU Press)
by Rhacel Salazar Parrenas

Reviewed by Ruth Cameron at the Feminist Review blog. An excerpt:

The amount of academic focus on the issue of migrant domestic workers has increased over the last decade. Much of this work focuses on large, descriptive, empirical accounts of migrant workforces that highlight the push and pull factors affecting this group’s migration and labor rights. Other scholarly work has documented the relationship between women and their employers through exploratory studies of their lives.

While all of this research has made an important contribution to understanding the larger forces at play in the individual decision to work abroad, gaps remain in the literature on this group of marginalized workers. Rhacel Salazar Parrenas, the author of The Force of Domesticity, specifically points to the need for a much broader analysis.

Read the entire review here.

E. San Juan, Jr.: VILLA CENTENNIAL LECTURE: In Search of a Salvaged Poet

VILLA CENTENNIAL LECTURE: In Search of a Salvaged Poet
(Preliminary Observations presented on 7 Jan 2009, at Ateneo University, Loyola Heights, Quezon City, Philippines)

An excerpt:

by E. SAN JUAN, Jr.
Fellow, W.E. B. Du Bois Institute, Harvard University

1. The publication of Jose Garcia Villa’s Doveglion: Collected Poems by Penguin Books in 2008, edited by his literary executor and introduced by a devotee, may be said to mark not “a growing revival of interest” in Villa’s work—as Luis Francia claims—but rather the final nail on his coffin. It may, however, arouse antiquarian interest and nostalgia for the posthumous return of the repressed. Villa died in Feb. 1997, literally unknown. His last volume, Selected Poems and New, was published in 1958, in which he preserved (as though he were a museum curator) those poems he wrote in the twenty years (1937-1957) that saw his maturation in New York City. No resurgence of interest greeted that last collection. Its centerpiece was “The Anchored Angel,” selected by feudal-vintage impresarios Osbert and Edith Sitwell for inclusion in a 1954 issue of the London-based The Times Literary Supplement.

From then on Villa ceased to be a publicly acknowledged creative writer. In fact, even when he was actively publishing, his recognition was quite limited and confined to a narrow circle of friends and patrons. Except for Conrad Aiken’s 1944 anthology of Twentieth-Century American Poetry, no anthology of significance—not even of minority or ethnic writers—has included Villa’s poems. In effect, Villa remains an unknown writer for most Americans, let alone readers of American or English literature around the world. In the country of his birth, today, only a few aficionados and college-trained professionals are acquainted with Villa’s writings.

2. Where is the Villa file in the Western archive? Francia celebrates Villa’s arrival to the New York literary scene dominated by white writers with the famous 1948 Life magazine photograph. The photo is a palimpsest or tell-tale rebus in itself. Aside from patricians Osbert and Edith Sitwell, whom Villa courted slavishly, we see left-wing or Marxist-inspired poets such as Delmore Schwartz, Horace Gregory, W.H. Auden, Stephen Spender, Marya Zaturenska, Randall Jarrell, and certainly non-conformist writers like Tennesse Williams, William Rose Benet, Richard Eberhart, Marianne Moore, and Gore Vidal–Vidal would eventually prove to be the most anti-imperialist maverick of them all. There are no African Americans or other person of color except Villa. E.e. cummings, Villa’s model and idol, is remarkably missing.

In the photo, one may discern some allegorical innuendo which may be happenstance: Villa is sandwiched between the young Vidal and the mature Auden, whose anti-fascist sympathies explicit in his eloquent attacks against Franco, Hitler and Mussolini were quoted and broadcast around the world. In short, the major American and British writers in the photo were mostly veterans of the global campaign against fascism in Europe and also against Japanese militarist aggression one of whose main victims were millions of Filipinos in the only U.S. colony in Asia, the Philippine Commonwealth. Villa was and remained a Filipino citizen throughout his life, and was the only colonial, subaltern subject in the photo.

The Penguin Classic biographical note on Villa cites Villa’s employment as a cultural attaché to the Philippine mission to the UN from 1952 to 1963, at the height of the Cold War, and his position, from 1968 on, as adviser on cultural affairs to the dictator Ferdinand Marcos. Indeed, Villa was made a National Artist for Literature in 1973, the year after Marcos imposed martial law and began 14 years of bloody and ruthless rampage. This may be merely a trivial footnote to worshippers of Villa’s aura. But it is cynical not to document this connection of the National Artist to the neocolonial state and its oligarchic retainers/clients for the U.S. imperial power.

The Gotham Book reception for the Sitwells, however, already took place in the second year of the Cold War, which Churchill and Truman inaugurated in 1947 with their shrewd incarceration of the Soviet Union in a fabled “Iron Curtain.” The Philippines counted itself America’s most trusted ally in the “Free World” crusade against world communism. The next year, 1949, witnessed the victory of Mao Tsetung against Chiang Kai-shek in China, the outbreak of the Korean War, and the ferocious repression of the Huks in the Philippines led by Col. Edward Lansdale of the CIA, adviser to then President Ramon Magsaysay. Lansdale used the Philippines as an experimental laboratory for the systematic “Phoenix” assassination of communists in Vietnam in the sixties and seventies.

3. None of these historical contexts is mentioned by Francia. Villa’s itinerary of success, traced by Francia from the beginning of the poet’s migration to the US in 1930 up to his death in 1997, follows an evolutionary and teleological scheme. There seems to be no real break or interruption in the route to fame. Villa ends in fact “belonging to the pantheon of Asian American literature,” despite minor violations of Eurocentric norms and even though excluded by the gatekeepers of the Asian American canon. Villa received prestige-granting awards from Establishment sources: Guggenheim, Bollingen, Rockefeller, etc. But such prizes did not result in the class-defined distinction only reserved for EuroAmericans for the greater part of the twentieth century.

Now monumentalized, however, Villa—Francia continues his accolade—was “a creature of his age.” In other words, he conformed to the conventional, standard pattern—Villa’s models were all European, traditional, and respectable. In what way then did he demonstrate his originality, his bold deviation from the norms, so as to earn or deserve admission to the mausoleum of modernism? Aside from his technical innovations, not always appreciated or accepted by the arbiters of the Anglo-American mainstream canon, in what way was Villa a rebel, a dissident writer, who challenged the standards of his day and initiated a new, radically innovative aesthetics and world-view?

Entire entry is at the Philippine Matrix Project blog here.

Estella Habal: 01/29/2009 @ Modern Times Bookstore SF

San Francisco's International Hotel: Mobilizing the Filipino American Community in the Anti-Eviction Movement: Dr. Estella Habal

Thursday, January 29
7:30 PM

Part history, part memoir, San Francisco's International Hotel presents the struggle to save the International Hotel in Manilatown, San Francisco. This battle culminated in the 1977 mass eviction of elderly tenant activists. In telling this compelling story, Estella Habal features her own memories of the anti-eviction movement, focusing on the roles of Filipino Americans and their participation in both the anti-eviction protests and the nascent Asian American movement of the time. (Temple University Press)

Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-282-9246
www.moderntimesbookstore.com

Collectively Owned and Operated Since 1971

Filipinos in the East Bay at the Oakland Library

Hi all, a quick post to let you know that this evening's Filipinos in the East Bay book event at the Oakland Public Library is being rescheduled.

The library is closing at 4:30 this afternoon due to the scheduled protests in Downtown Oakland.

Once this event is rescheduled, I will post that info here.

New Book: Benito M. Vergara's Pinoy Capital

Pinoy Capital
The Filipino Nation in Daly City
Benito M. Vergara, Jr.

Home to 33,000 Filipino American residents, Daly City, California, located just outside of San Francisco, has been dubbed “the Pinoy Capital of the United States.” In this fascinating ethnographic study of the lives of Daly City residents, Benito Vergara shows how Daly City has become a magnet for the growing Filipino American community.

Vergara challenges rooted notions of colonialism here, addressing the immigrants’ identities, connections and loyalties. Using the lens of transnationalism, he looks at the “double lives” of both recent and established Filipino Americans. Vergara explores how first-generation Pinoys experience homesickness precisely because Daly City is filled with reminders of their homeland’s culture, like newspapers, shops and festivals. Vergara probes into the complicated, ambivalent feelings these immigrants have—toward the Philippines and the United States—and the conflicting obligations they have presented by belonging to a thriving community and yet possessing nostalgia for the homeland and people they left behind.

Reviews

“Pinoy Capital is a colorful and nuanced ethnographic foray into the social institutions and quotidian lives of Filipino Americans living in Daly City. Vergara is a gifted writer and his work delves closely on the affective and reciprocal relationships and practices of Filipino Americans as immigrants. This is a welcome and important study, and Vergara puts forward important and innovative assertions and arguments that will have repercussions on debates about Filipinos in the United States.”
—Martin Manalansan, University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and editor of Cultural Compass: Ethnographic Explorations of Asian America

“Pinoy Capital is a landmark text—an exciting, refreshing, and critical ethnography that continues, but revitalizes, ongoing conversations regarding Filipino immigrant/transnational life in the United States. There have been very few ethnographies of this group, and I think this one not only offers a much-needed and provocative study, it complicates arguments and discussions about the specificities of Filipino immigration to the U.S. Vergara provides solid and rigorous engagement with his objects of study, and he is especially attuned to the clarities and complexities of everyday life in a particular site that is touted as a quintessential one for Filipino American settlement.”
—Rick Bonus, Associate Professor, Department of American Ethnic Studies, University of Washington

About the Author

Benito M. Vergara, Jr. is the author of Displaying Filipinos: Photography and Colonialism in Early 20th-Century Philippines. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

232 pp
6×9
3 tables 2 map(s)

paper: $25.95, Jan 09
EAN: 978-1-59213-665-0
ISBN: 1-59213-665-6

cloth: $74.50, Jan 09
EAN: 978-1-59213-664-3
ISBN: 1-59213-664-8

B. Vergara reviews Brilliante Mendoza's Tirador (2007)

I guess I can’t say I was terribly thriled with Brillante Mendoza’s acclaimed Tirador (Slingshot), the winner of the Best Director and Best Picture awards at the Gawad Urian and the Singapore Film Festival, the recipient of the Caligari award at the Berlin International Film Festival, and a Special Jury award at the Marrakech International Film Festival. A movie about the ordinary misfortunes of the residents of a Quiapo slum, Tirador is a well-executed, prolonged snort of rotting garbage.

Read the rest here.

Also, Mauro Tumbucon on Tirador, in Philippine News:

A Filipino movie fan, an acquaintance of mine from way back now based in Toronto, had complained to me last year about the type of movies from the Philippines that get shown in foreign film festivals. He was referring particularly to the film, “Tirador,” which he just saw at the Toronto International Film Festival.

How come that most, if not all, of these movies always have to deal with poverty, he wrote me in an email. He added, not all Filipinos are poor! Truthfully, I had no ready answer. On one hand, because Filipinos living in other countries have to contend with the perception by others borne out of images, in this case, of destitution and hopelessness – and words through news reports – obtaining in popular culture, they become sensitive and weary of any reinforcement of that image accessed through media like the movies, in particular those shown in festivals that usually earn some media time.

Entire review here.

Review of Dean Francis Alfar's THE KITE OF STARS

The Kite of Stars by Dean Francis Alfar

I enjoyed this book much, mainly for fusing together some things I love in literature: the fantastic with Philippine mythologies and history. Then again, the stories in The Kite of Stars aren't so much "fantastic," as much as they simply ask, "What if," or, the stories test or play with our conventions such that we have to change the way we read, as in the story, "The Maiden and the Crocodile," in which he inverts the narrative's chronology. That is, he tells the ending first and we read towards the beginning, which leads us to read the story as if we were assembling a puzzle. Or he experiments with the footnote, as in "Princes of the Sultanate," and it is in these footnotes which really do comprise the meat of the text, that he expands and embellishes upon (or speculates) their lives, dramas, betrayals, beyond the straight forward listings of names and dates.

Dean Francis Alfar is credited in a back cover blurb from Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo (my former professor) as possibly being the writer who introduced the term, "speculative fiction" to the Filipinos. I think, in terms of fusing "speculative fiction" with forays into alternate historical pasts and reinterpretations of our mythologies, this is not a far stretch. Certainly, in our becoming reacquainted with our mythologies, we learn that our pre-hispanic world views were imbued with magic, and our landscapes populated by spirits.

The stories which spoke to me the strongest were those which took place in Alfar's land called Hinirang (you know, "Lupang Hinirang") which is an alternate Philippine past not too much different from what we think we know from history. In the land of Hinirang, the Ispancialo conquerors view the indigenous Katao or the Indios as lazy and inferior. The Ispancialo friars preach the word of their deities, the Tres Hermanas (why not Hermanos, I wonder) to the Indios and the Tsinos, as in "Saturdays with Fray Villalobos." There is one "fantastic" element in this story, and that is the power of the tattooed Indio priest to command the thunder, the heavens, the insects.

I don't want to drop any spoilers, so I will end by saying that my favorite story is "Six From Downtown," which I think is a good example of how he tweaks what we understand is "real," such that it is just a little askew from our reality. You can read this story in the online Philippine Speculative Fiction Sampler here.

review of "Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang" by ALLEN GABORRO

PUBLISHED IN FILAM STAR (January 1-15, 2009 issue)

I have to confess something. I had never been a big fan of the Philippine cinema. Why? The things that always stuck in my mind about the Filipino cinema was how ridiculously silly its comedies were or how overly-emotional its dramas could be. It seemed to me that whenever a Tagalog movie was showing on TV or on DVD, it always involved either someone cracking some hilarious joke or another character screaming or crying their eyes out.

Now I have to say that I am a cinema buff. I love all sorts of movies whether they be action, drama, comedy, science fiction, etc. In addition to American ones, I also enjoy movies from Europe, South America, Africa, the Middle East, and Asia. But Filipino movies were just never my thing. That is, until my wife told me to watch the late Lino Brocka’s “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang” (“You Were Judged and Found Wanting”).

Produced in 1974, “Tinimbang” was the winner of six FAMAS (Filipino Academy of Movie Arts and Sciences) awards including that of Best Picture and Best Director. Filipino movie critic Noel Vera listed it as fourth among the top thirteen most important Filipino films ever made. “Tinimbang” is also one of those few films that was able to combine true cinematic artistry with box-office appeal. The movie’s success gave Lino Brocka a permanent name in Philippine cinema.

“Tinimbang” stars two actors who would become legends in the Filipino movie industry, Christopher de Leon and Eddie Garcia. In the movie, we see a very young, mustache-less Christopher de Leon—he was around nineteen or twenty years old at the time of filming—and a still dark-haired Eddie Garcia who plays his father, Cesar Blanco. Cesar is the wealthiest person in the small town they live in.

Cesar is also a hopeless womanizer which is established early on in the opening scenes of “Tinimbang.” In these scenes, Cesar witnesses the horror of an abortion gone terribly wrong. It involves his unborn child with Kuala, played by actress Lolita Rodriguez. Kuala is just another one of Cesar's many female conquests. But her agonizing abortion turns her into a madwoman whose presence and memory continues to haunt Cesar throughout the film.

A central character in “Tinimbang” is Junior as he is portrayed by Christopher de Leon. Although handsome, good-hearted, and well-liked by most everyone in the town, Junior has lot to learn about life. And he doesn’t learn the easy way. First, Junior finds out that his father is a macho, shameless skirt-chaser. Then his girlfriend, the attractive Evangeline, who is performed by an equally-young Hilda Koronel, eventually dumps him for another boy. To top it off, Junior gives into his desires one drunken night by having sexual intercourse with the mayor’s born out-of-wedlock daughter (the role of Laurice Guillen).

This is where the lonely leper Berto (Mario O’Hara) comes in. Like Kuala, Berto is treated like an exile by the town’s population because of his deformed leprosy-ridden face. But Berto has a heart of gold. He brings the demented Kuala into his ramshackle home so that they can live as a couple. Junior, offended by the way Berto and Kuala have been treated, and by the hypocrisy and small-mindedness of the people in town, becomes close friends with them until the film’s dramatic ending.

“Tinimbang” goes against the grain of other Tagalog movies in that it avoids the trap of being too melodramatic in style and too simple in plot. Lino Brocka had that great talent for framing together the right amount of emotion with strong themes, unpredictable plots, and incredible characters in his movies. In “Tinimbang Ka Ngunit Kulang,” these all come together to create a powerful film that may have been produced more than thirty years ago, but has as much meaning today for viewers as it did when it was first released.

ALLEN GABORRO

Review of Grace Nono's The Shared Voice

Grace Nono, with Mendung Sabal, Henio Estakio, Baryus Gawid, Salvador Placido, Sarah Mandegan, Gadu Ugal, Florencia Havana, Sindao Banisil and Elena-Rivera-Mirano. 2008. The shared voice: Chanted and spoken narratives from the Philippines. Ed. Carolina Malay. Pasig City: Anvil Publishing and Fundacion Santiago. 248 pages.

“My name is Grace Nono. I am a singer and a creator of songs.” That is how the author of this magical book introduces herself. That is also how she immediately connects her identity with the rest of the million “singing Filipinos” whose voices she celebrates in print. By voice Grace Nono means much more than a physiological function. “It is the summation of spiritual and sociocultural experience, of vision, and of creative imagination.” In the first few chapters, Nono locates this research on the voice of the Filipino oralists within the literature of oral literacy studies and ethnomusicology, taking off from the scanty Philippine references and going into the wider accounts of African and European experiences. In the process, she also locates herself as “secondary oralist” (using Walter J. Ong’s terminology), being different from those who live purely with the spoken word, and not with written text. The research process is then revealed as a participation in the search for a shared identity and collective energy, in the drinking from one’s well, and kissing “the ground from which voice springs.”

The rest of the book is an unfolding of this insight, through her series of accounts of nine other “oralists” that she personally visited in their homelands. Mendung Sabal is the famous Tboli chanter from Lake Sebu in South Cotabato. With pride, she says “I am poor, very poor, but my song is my protection.” Sixty-year-old Henio Estakio is an Ibaloi mambunong from Benguet. He chants during healing rituals, as well as in death rites, while listening to the whispers of Kabunyan. From Mindoro, Baryus Gawid is a master of Mangyan ambahan and urukay musical genres. Salvador Placido is a baylan (tribal priest) from Agusan del Sur. He is a barangay policeman, but he is also known as benuduman, the one who sings the tod-om and the uyaging. In Datu Piang, Maguindanao, Sarah Mandegan expresses preference for the oral dayunday, rather than the more traditional bayok. The latter may be more poetic, but the former can more easily connect with the young. Gadu Ugal is another Tboli singer. His singing is part of the whole struggle for cultural regeneration. He believes that when he sings, his people’s “memories return to them.” Florencia Havana became a Methodist when she was young, and returned to Bukidnon to teach. But it was precisely in translating the Bible into Manobo language that she discovered her Manobo songs “have always been inside me, embedded in my mind.” With the help of manod-amay, she began to sing Manobo songs again. Elena Rivera-Mirano was born in the United States. A daughter of a modernist pianist in the 1950s, she grew up with a healthy exposure to diverse musical styles. But her introduction to kudyapi and kulintang music at University of the Philippines opened up for her a spiritual career in Christian – and very much Filipino – chants. Sindao Banisil belongs to a family steeped in traditional Maranao arts and music. She laments, though, that only Christian researchers are interested in their Maranao art. She says she owes her artistic development to Dean Lucrecia Kasilag - to think that her father who was a philosopher-poet or kataro sa lalag and a chanter was the mentor to two national artists, Lucrecia Kasilag (music) and Lucrecia Urtula (dance)!

The book is not complete without the section on Grace Nono, the researcher-researched. Although she classifies herself as “secondary oralist,” this soulful singer from Agusan truly belongs to the community of chanters that she has studied. Perhaps we need say more about the author.

Grace Nono is an award-winning Philippine music artist-producer, a cultural worker, and a teacher. She is known for her contemporary interpretations of Philippine traditional music, and for singing about “living identity,” women’s issues, environmentalism, and interfaith spirituality. She has released five acclaimed solo recordings, and has represented the Philippines in world music festivals, performances and conferences in the United Kingdom, Germany, France, United States, India, China, Japan, Korea, Hong Kong, Singapore, Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and Vietnam. I could imagine her enjoying the international community of NYU!

To date, Grace Nono has won forty awards, including the prestigious Ten Outstanding Young Men (TOYM), The Outstanding Women in Nation’s Service (TOWNS), numerous Catholic Mass Media Awards, Katha, Awit, National Press Club, and other awards for her artistic and cultural contributions.

Grace Nono currently teaches Philippine Traditional Arts at the University of the Philippines, where she previously earned her bachelor’s degree in Humanities and master’s in Philippine Studies. Her thick dissertation on Filipino oralists is now this wonderful book – thanks, of course, to her many academic and artistic companions, and to her expert editor, Carolina Malay.

And speaking about her friends, The shared voice actually reveals many of these companions in her artistic and spiritual journey. Jordan Mang-osan’s thirty expressive rubber cuts sprawl all over the book, providing earthy-colored dividers. Gigi Escalante’s eight batik arts are almost as musical as the chants themselves. Anna Fer’s paintings visualize ecological and political undertones of the study. The overall design and layout achieves the color and glitter of coffee table book but without diminishing the scholarly nature of the volume.

Indeed, the book is a scholarly contribution to the (slowly) growing ethnomusicological literature and multimedia production. Grace Nono allots several chapters theorizing on “oralist” tradition and definition as well as “orality and literacy” debate. More interesting is how she reflects on the whole process of recognizing the voices and translating them into text. Another extremely important contribution is her account of the reflexive moments and movement of the author as singer and singer-turned-author. Less impressive, for this reviewer, however, is the section discussing the distinction between the dualistic and nondualistic aesthetics. I believe this “mental habit” perpetuates the dichotomizing tendency – prevalent in many places and for so many decades – and could be hiding just another version of dualism. In contrast, Datu Migketay, the Talaandig leader from Mount Kitanglad, Bukidnon, would rather highlight, in his foreword, the “link between traditions and modernity” which both the book and its subjects have actually achieved and celebrated.

The book, by the way, has an add-on: a CD of original chants and music treated in the text.

Congratulations to Anvil Publishing and Fundacion Santiago for their daring to produce such a precious – and must be expensive – book. Fundacion Santiago, in particular, deserves mention because it is one such institution that has a vision that connects identity and energy of being Filipino. It aims at contributing to “a strong grasp of the national identity by promoting and sustaining historical awareness among Filipinos,” and the Foundation believes that this “sense of self and of shared purpose” could be used as “foundations of national development.” We hope more institutions would share the same passion and commit the corresponding resources for producing more books like Grace Nono’s The shared voice.

Over all, The shared voice is a strong piece of poetic scholarship. It brings me deep into the springs of a culturally-rooted and musically-embodied kind of worship. I personally admire Grace Nono for undertaking such a daunting research on the haunting chants of Filipino oralists like Mendung Sabal of the Tboli and Henio Estakio of the Ibaloi, among others. And the way she records their dreams with reverence, the way she weaves their songs and stories into her text, and the way she draws insights from her very own experience of communing with our heroes and mystics through music – all this reveals that Grace is definitely one of them. The bonus is that we, like her, in this day and age, can also drink from the same source of indigenous energies that continue, despite the odds, to nourish our collective will to live with dignity. The shared voice sings the divine in us as a people; it is a rare book that is meant to be shared.


Albert E. Alejo, SJ, PhD

Oakland History Room Presents "Filipinos in the East Bay", a Talk by Authors of Arcadia Press Publication

(Oakland, CA)—The Oakland History Room of the Oakland Public Library welcomes the public to an illustrated lecture presented by Evangeline Canonizado Buell, Evelyn Luluquisen, and Eleanor Luis, authors of Filipinos in the East Bay. Please join us in a celebration of the East Bay's rich and diverse history on Wednesday, January 14, 2009, from 6:30 to 7:45 p.m., in the West Auditorium at the Main Library, 125 14th St.

Filipinos in the East Bay is a recent addition to the "Images of America" series, published by Arcadia Press. As members of the Filipino American National Historical Society of the East Bay, the authors have recorded a community history of Filipinos who have made the East Bay their home. Buell, Luluquisen, and Luis were joined by families, community leaders, and organizations who volunteered their time to scour archives and personal collections for photos long forgotten. Through the gathering and synthesizing of individual photographs, the story of a shared journey is told.

Please contact the Oakland History Room at 510-238-3222 for more information, or see the Oakland Public Library's Web site: www.oaklandlibrary.org. Please refrain from wearing scented products to library events. To request sign interpretation or other accommodation, please call the number above or (510) 834-7446 (TTY) at least five working days prior to the event. The Oakland Public Library is a department of the City of Oakland

Meritage Press: EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST

From Eileen Tabios:

Dear Filipino Poets Worldwide:

You are invited to submit to a fun poetry contest. No submission fees. E-mail submissions. Details below:

EIGHTH ANNUAL (BELATED) HOLIDAY POETRY CONTEST
Sponsor: Meritage Press
Judge: Bino A. Realuyo
Deadline: February 15, 2009

Contest details below are also available, along with prior contest winners, at http://www.meritagepress.com/babaylan/


ABOUT THE JUDGE:
Bino A. Realuyo is the author of the poetry collection, THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR, the Agha Shahid Ali Prize for poetry 2005 (University of Utah Press 2006 and Anvil Press, Philippines 2008). Prior to publication, his poetry appeared in The Kenyon Review, The Literary Review, Puerto del Sol, New Letters, Manoa, and The Nation. He received Poetry Society of America's Lucille Medwick Memorial Award and a Van Lier Fellowship in poetry. He is working on a second poetry collection titled, ON WHICH THE SUMMER LEANS, about the experiences of his father as a survivor of the Death March and a Japanese Concentration camp during World War 2 in the Philippines. He is currently pursuing graduate studies in education and technology and is a fellow in social entrepreneurship at Harvard University. He is also an accidental fictionist and suffers from a multiple literary personality/genre syndrome. He loves facebook.


ABOUT THE CONTEST:
All poets are encouraged to submit by e-mailing 1 or 2 poems to MeritagePress@aol.com. (Send no more than 2 poems). Please present poems within the body of the email as we do not open attachments.) Please include your full name along with your e-mail address. However, the poems will be sent without your names to judge Bino A. Realuyo, thereby allowing the poems to be read on their own merit. All poets are welcome to submit - it doesn't matter whether you're established or emerging as the work is read on its own merit.

There are no limitations to poetry styles or content. All types of poems are welcome. We are now taking submissions up to the deadline of Feb. 15, 2009.

Only previously unpublished poems are eligible (you may, however, submit poems that you have featured on your own web sites or or blogs, or that have been published in limited edition chapbooks of no more than 250 copies).


PRIZES:
Meritage Press has asked Bino A. Realuyo to choose one winner. However, Bino may choose other finalist-winners, depending on the quality of the submissions. The winner(s) will have their poems published in the March 2009 edition of "Babaylan Speaks" at http://meritagepress.com/babaylan/

The FIRST PLACE WINNER also will receive SELECTED FILIPINO TITLES:

THE GODS WE WORSHIP LIVE NEXT DOOR by Bino A. Realuyo; for more information about the book, go to http://www.uofupress.com/store/product31.html

PRAU by Jean Vengua; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/prau.htm

MUSEUM OF ABSENCES by Luis H. Francia; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/museum.htm

KALI'S BLADE by Michelle Bautista; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/kalis.htm

THE HAY(NA)KU ANTHOLOGY, VOL. II co-edited by Jean Vengua and Mark Young; for more information about the book, go to http://www.meritagepress.com/haynaku2.htm

PINOY POETICS; A Collection of Autobiographical and Critical Essays on Filipino and Filipino American Poetics, edited by Nick Carbo; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/pinoypoetics.htm

BABAYLAN: AN ANTHOLOGY OF FILIPINA AND FILIPINA AMERICAN WRITERS, co-edited by Nick Carbo and Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.auntlute.com/babylan.htm

NOT EVEN DOGS, the inaugural hay(na)ku poetry collection by Ernesto Priego; for more information about the book, go to http://meritagepress.com/notevendogs.htm

THE BLIND CHATELAINE'S KEYS by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.blazevox.org/bk-et.htm

THE LIGHT SANG AS IT LEFT YOUR EYES by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios3.htm

I TAKE THEE, ENGLISH, FOR MY BELOVED by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://marshhawkpress.org/tabios2.htm

MENAGE A TROIS WITH THE 21st CENTURY by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.ourownvoice.com/books/2004xpress.shtml

REPRODUCTIONS OF THE EMPTY FLAGPOLE by Eileen Tabios; for more information about the book, go to http://www.marshhawkpress.org/backlist.htm

BRIDGEABLE SHORES by Luis Cabalquinto; for more information about the book, go to http://www.artbook.com/1885030347.html


FINALISTS:
Other finalist-winners besides the winner, if any, will receive two of the above-listed books (the choice of books are up to Meritage Press).


PREVIOUS WINNERS:
2007: Naya S. Valdellon & Marcel L. MiIliam (Judge: Eric Gamalinda)
2006: Joel M. Toledo (Judge: Michelle Bautista)
2005: Arkaye Velasquez Kierulf (Judge: Jean Vengua)
2004: Joel H. Vega (Judge: Sarah Gambito)
2003: Luisa A. Igloria (Judge: Patrick Rosal)
2002: Naya S. Valdellon & Michella Rivera-Gravage (Judge: Oliver de la Paz)
2001: Carlomar Arcangel Daoana (Judge: Nick Carbo)


For questions or more information, you can email MeritagePress@aol.com

FAL Children’s Reading Events in San Fernando Valley (January 24) & Historic Filipinotown (January 31)

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
January 5, 2009

CONTACT:
Jonathan Lorenzo
Filipino American Library (FAL)
Tel: 213-382-0488
Email: filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net


THE FILIPINO AMERICAN LIBRARY OUTREACHES TO SAN FERNANDO VALLEY

LOS ANGELES (January 2009) – The first and largest Filipino library in the country continues to share Filipino children’s books to families around Greater Los Angeles. Through its Children’s Reading Program, the Filipino American Library (FAL) will have events on Saturday, January 24 at 2:00-3:30pm at the Panorama City Branch Library ( 14345 Roscoe Blvd. , Panorama City 91402 ) and Saturday, January 31 at 2:00-3:30pm at the Filipino American Library ( 135 N. Park View St. , Los Angeles 90026 ). Please RSVP to these free events by contacting filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or 213-382-0488.

On January 24, the children will be introduced to the work of illustrator Hermes Alegre. The featured books are The Mats by Francisco Arcellana and Bahay Kubo. They will participate in an art project to create a foam placemat. This first part of the event, 2:00-2:45pm , is recommended for children ages 6-10. After refreshments, the children will learn some traditional Filipino nursery rhymes. This second part of the event, 3:00-3:30pm , is recommended for children ages 3-7. The event is co-sponsored by the Los Angeles Public Library.

On January 31, the event will highlight folktales about food, specifically rice and mango. The children will also learn how to make halo-halo, the popular Filipino dessert. It is recommended for children ages 6-10, but everyone is welcome. Featured stories are “The Three Crystal Boxes” and “The Chieftain’s Golden Heart” from Kneeling Carabao & Dancing Giants: Celebrating Filipino Festivals by Rena Krasno and illustrated by Ileana C. Lee. The event is co-sponsored by the Filipino American Service Group, Inc.

The FAL Children’s Reading Program promotes the love of reading and cultural diversity among children and their families through books and activities that feature different cultures and peoples. Admission is free and donations to FAL are accepted. Snacks and drinks are provided. It is coordinated by Celeste B. Diaz, the FAL Children’s Librarian. Ms. Diaz has 10 years experience working as an elementary school teacher and school librarian. The program is funded by grants from Walmart and Citigroup Foundation.

Founded on October 13, 1985 by “Auntie Helen” Agcaoili Summers Brown, FAL is the first and largest Filipino library in the country with a collection of more than 6,000 titles. Its mission is to actively promote the history, culture, and professional achievements of Filipinos and Filipino Americans through the book collection, leadership development, and cultural programming, thereby contributing to the achievement of a culturally dynamic, multiethnic America .

Given that FAL primarily survives on individual donations and one major annual fundraiser, it relies on its many supporters to continue its programs and services throughout the year. If anyone would like to give a donation online, please feel free to visit www.filipinoamericanlibrary.org. Checks may also be mailed to 135 N. Park View St. , Los Angeles , CA 90026 and made payable to “Filipino American Library”. All donations are 100% tax-deductible.

FAL is a division of the Filipino American Heritage Institute (Nonprofit Tax ID Number 95-4282571). It is open Mondays-Fridays 1:00-5:00pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or 213-382-0488.

(For pictures to include for publication, please contact Jonathan Lorenzo as indicated above.)


JONATHAN LORENZO
Administrator
Filipino American Library (FAL)
135 N. Park View St.
Historic Filipinotown
Los Angeles, CA 90026-5215
Tel: 213-382-0488
Fax: 213-382-0478
Email: filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net
Donate Online: www.filipinoamericanlibrary.org
- Visit us MON-FRI 1-5pm & by appt. -

SFGate article on Bren Bataclan: Boston artist leaves paintings in S.F. for free

An excerpt of the SFGate article:

Bren Bataclan's cheerful cartoon creatures have been exhibited in some high places: at the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, in Logan International Airport and even on a Girl Scout patch.

But lately he's been leaving his artwork outside unemployment offices and closed-down retail stores across the country bearing the note: "Everything is Going to Be Alright - This Painting is Yours to Take."

Entire article is here.

Cecilia Brainard on Yu on When the Rainbow Goddess Wept

Hi there, Barbara Jane here.

Happy New Year all, and thank you for continuing to visit this blog! We'll continue posting reviews and events in 2009, as well as YouTubes and photos from literary events.

This morning, I've come across Cecilia Brainiard's blog, in which she engages with criticism about her work as "racist and fetishistic."

Excerpt from the Hope Saban-pan Yu essay, "Representation in Philippine American Women Writers: Between Authenticity and Orientalism," in question:

Can an American know the heart of a Filipino? Can a writer speak on behalf of her people? For whom does she speak? This question of representation besets immigrant writers the world over. Whenever they write, they are believed to be representing someone. Toni Morrison in “Paradise Found” [sic] for instance, talks of having to answer sociological and political questions during book reading, instead of queries that address literary concerns (Gray 65). What should the roles of writers be given their positions of power and responsibility?

Brainard's post is here. For another viewpoint, she also includes the essay, "Song of Yvonne (or When the Rainbow Goddess Wept): Possibilities of Humaneness in an Age of Slaughter," by Leonard Casper here.

I'd love to hear from you folks out there. I am interested in our ability as authors to engage and/or refute academic criticism and reviews of our work, or whether e-world is what has empowered us to do so.