Book: Philippine World War II Stories for Children

Philippine World War II Stories for Children
In bilingual text: English and Pilipino
by Corban K. Alabado and Ceres S.C. Alabado
Illustrated by Maria Luisa Peñaranda

Ceres Santos Cuyugan Alabado is a wife, mother, grandmother, teacher, and author of books for children, teenagers, and adults. She writes poetry, fiction, and non-fiction in English and Pilipino, published in the Philippines, Canada, and the United States.

Her audience is vast—some of her works have inspired stage plays and movies/videos. The California Department of Education approved her book, Beautiful Dreamer, for 8th grade use because of its social content.

In addition to her literary and teaching career, Ceres has founded and been involved with various civic and advocacy organizations.

Born in the Philippines, Maria Luisa Peñaranda lives in San Leandro and currently teaches Filipino language at CSU East Bay and Ohlone College. She has an M.A. in education and her drawings have appeared in many FA published books in the Bay Area.

A desk copy is free for adopting instructors.

Email us at sales@universityreaders.com to request a FREE digital review copy.

Paperback, 64 pages
ISBN: 978-1-934269-48-0; ©2009
$18.26 $15.22

Oliver de la Paz

You can find him in two different e-places today: Line Break and the Hayden's Ferry Review blog:

When I write, I listen to music. This is, from what I understand, a not-so-common practice. I’ve always been able to write to some kind of music, whether it’s in the background, or whether I’m consciously putting a set of headphones on my head and cranking the juice on the stereo.

From what I understand, a lot of people hear the music competing with their own poetic composition. I treat the music, in some way, as a guiding principle for the syntax of my poems. Mind you, I do go back later to my poems and “repair” them, but for the initial generative moments, I listen to music with my headphones on. I’d otherwise be distracted into doing some other task . . . like vacuuming. Believe me, it’s true. I’d clean my whole damn house just to keep away from the writing desk. I suppose the practice of listening to music at the writing desk was employed specifically because I needed a distraction that would keep me with my head down typing away. When, exactly, I started listening to music while writing poems I don’t know.

Rachelle Cruz: Feature Poetry Online

Poet Rachelle Cruz will be the feature poet on the Moe Green Poetry Hour radio show, hosted by Rafael F. J. Alvarado. You can stream online at 10 AM PST this Wednesday, 4/29.

Link is here: http://www.blogtalkradio.com/onword/2009/04/29/The-Moe-Green-Poetry-Discussion-Hosted-By-Rafael-FJ-Alvarado-

Publication: The Undeniables, { who the hell do we think we are }

Featuring:
Allan G. Aquino
Elaine Dolalas
Tony Francesconi
Narinda Heng
Tani Ikeda
Helen Kim
Vicky Luu
Erik Matsunaga
Edren T. Sumagaysay
Grace Young

Copyright: © 2009

ISBN: 978-0-578-01165-3

www.theundeniables.org

An original collection of work from The Undeniables. We write. Everyday. We craft our work to become undeniable. Those qualified Undeniable, via harsh critique sessions, are published. This is the cumulative result of seven sessions: the best selections of one year of writing, everyday. Ten authors, ranging from university professor to world traveler to factory worker, to, to, to. All searching for the capital A (Art) of literature.

San Francisco Filipino Women Rise Up Through Art

From http://babaesf.blogspot.com:

For Immediate Release

April 21, 2009

Contact: Marisa Mariano, Chair, Babae-GABRIELA USA, 415-333-6267, info@babaesf.org

San Francisco Filipino Women Rise Up Through Art

San Francisco, CA—As the weekend of International Worker’s Day, or Mayo Uno, approaches, the women of Babae-GABRIELA USA, League of Filipino Students, and Diwata Young Women’s Group prepare to not only celebrate the contributions of the working class worldwide, but to also celebrate the experiences and contributions of one of San Francisco’s distinct immigrant working populations, Filipino women. On Sunday, May 3, 2009, Babae, LFS, and Diwata hosts the 7th Annual Filipina Women’s Showcase, Diwang Pinay.

Diwang Pinay (Spirit of the Filipina) is an annual performance and silent art auction by Filipina/Filipina-American performers, writers, and artists. “With a 40,000 Filipino population in San Francisco, and more than half of whom are women, it is only appropriate to give light and praise to the different ways Pinays are living, resisting, and surviving today in the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond,” states Marisa Mariano, chairperson of Babae.

This year’s celebration is themed “Still We Rise,” highlighting the Filipina’s fighting spirit to rise above adversity. With a global economic crisis impacting our communities, especially immigrant working families, and a system that continues to see women as second class citizens, Filipinas wage a battle every day to provide for their families and live with dignity. Transcending beyond their everyday struggles, Filipino women build resistance with a fervor that can be traced back to the legacy of historic women like Gabriela Silang and Tandang Sora. The evening is also in dedication to the 25th Anniversary of GABRIELA Philippines, a grassroots alliance of over 200 women’s organizations in the Philippines that has been at the forefront of fighting for women’s rights since its conception.

Diwang Pinay hosts a range of performances from talented pinays from San Francisco and the greater Bay Area such as singing, dancing, guerilla theatre, poetry and film. On display will also be an art gallery showcasing artworks of different mediums by artists such as Jessica Antonio, Heather Boyer, Catherine Lagman, Bean Rabino, Dezi Suarez, Elaine Villasper, and Jenifer Wofford.

Join us on May 3, 2009 from 4:30-7:00 pm at the Bayanihan Community Center located in the South of Market District at 1010 Mission Street San Francisco, CA 94103. The suggested donation will be a sliding scale of $7-10, $5 for students age 10-17 with a valid ID, and free for children under 10 years of age. For more information, visit Diwang Pinay’s official website at http://sites.google.com/site/sfdiwangpinay.

San Francisco: Bindlestiff offers new Playwriting seminar

STORIES HIGH 11 PLAYWRITING WORKSHOPS

May 5 thru June 23 (every Tuesday 7 - 10pm)

It's that time of year again when new writers are discovered and their stories come to life. The eleventh installment of the popular Bindlestiff Studio series, STORIES HIGH will be taking place in September 2009. We begin by offering the first of three upcoming workshops, Playwriting.

Whether you are a beginning or experienced writer looking to improve your skills, our Playwrighting workshop will introduce you to the principles of storytelling for the stage - from exposition & plot structures to character development.

The Playwrighting classes will be facilitated by veteran writers Yato Yoshida & Ed Mabasa.

Stories High hopes to discover, cultivate, and nurture new emerging artists. Acting and Directing Workshops will open soon. If you're interested in enrollment or more information, please contact Aureen Almario at aureen@bindlestiffstudio.org

Stories High Playwriting Workshop
May 5 thru June 23 Tuesday evenings 7 - 10pm)

at the SOMCAN Office
1070 Howard St. between 6th & 7th, SOMA San Francisco

Tuition: $75 - $100 Sliding Scale

SF: Queer Open Mic - Apr 24 featuring Regie Cabico

Queer Open Mic - Apr 24

Featured poet Regie Cabico

Regie Cabico is a pioneer of the spoken word movement having won the Nuyorican Poets Cafe Grand Slam and is the first openly queer and Asian American poet to take top prizes in the National Poetry Slam. His work appears in over 30 anthologies including The Outlaw Bible of American Poetry, Spoken Word Revolution and Aloud: Voices from the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

Friday, April 24
7pm sign-ups, show at 7:30Pm
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia Street (at 20th) in San Francisco
www.queeropenmic.com

Book Event: Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement

The Filipino American Center of the San Francisco Public Library presents

Book launch!!!

Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement

A book launch and author reading of “Filipino American Faith in Action: Immigration, Religion, and Civic Engagement,” written by Joaquin L. Gonzalez III, Professor of Politics and Director of the Yuchengco Philippine Studies Program at the University of San Francisco.

Saturday, May 9th, 2009 from 3:30-5:30pm
San Francisco Public Library (Main branch) Latino rooms A and B
100 Larkin St.
San Francisco, Ca 94102.

All programs and exhibits at the Library are FREE!

For more information please call 415-557-4277

or visit us on the web at www.sfpl.org and click the “Events” link

Luisa Igloria: Poet adds Filipino culture to work

Article at DENNews.com by Melissa Sturtevant/Staff Reporter:

Luisa Igloria read her poem "On the Difficulty of Vigilance" honoring the reporter and human rights activist who disappeared last November.

Igloria read poetry to students and staff members Monday in Doudna Fine Arts Center Lecture Hall.

That poem was one of many Igloria read that explained what goes on in the Philippines. She read from her poetry books "Trill and Mordent" and "Juan Luna's Revolver."

Igloria said her adopted mother and biological mother were her first poetry teachers.

She said her mothers used to make her peel lima beans one by one, and then one day she realized that was not necessary in order to eat them. However, she connected peeling the beans to poetry - attention to detail is necessary.

Read more...

Interview with Vince Gotera: Poet, Editor, Professor, Blogger

In addition to his editorial duties at the North American Review, which was founded in 1815, Vince Gotera also serves as professor in the Department of English Language and Literature at the University of Northern Iowa.

Vince’s poems have appeared in numerous literary journals. He has published three books of poetry, Fighting Kite, Ghost Wars, Dragonfly, and a book of criticism, Radical Visions: Poetry by Vietnam Veterans. He blogs at The Man with the Blue Guitar.

Read interview here.

A New Cadence Poetry Series: Jean Vengua and Dion Farquhar 04/24/2009

From Jean Vengua:

A New Cadence Poetry Series

Presents:

Jean Vengua

and

Dion Farquhar

reading from their poetry

Friday, April 24th

@

Felix Kulpa Gallery

107 Elm Street

Santa Cruz, CA 95060

(Behind Streetlight Records)

7:30pm

Admission is free

Dion Farquhar lives in Santa Cruz, California. Recent poems appear in Right Hand Pointing, Shifter, Opium, New Verse News, Epiphany, Otoliths, etc. Her poetry chapbook Cleaving won first prize at Poet’s Corner Press in 2007. Her first book, Feet First, is a finalist for the Sinclair Prize at Evening Street Press and will be published in early 2010.

Jean Vengua is the author of Prau, published by Meritage Press. Her poetry has been published in various anthologies and journals, including Babaylan, Otoliths, Sidereality, Moria, X-Stream, Returning a Borrowed Tongue, Going Home to a Landscape, Bay Poetics, Interlope, and Fugacity. Her chapbook, The Aching Vicinities, was published in 2006 by Otoliths, and is available at Lulu.com. With Mark Young, she is co-editor of the First Hay(na)ku Anthology, and the Hay(na)ku Anthology, Vol. II.

Contact Jim Maughn at jamaughn@cabrillo.edu for more information.

Randall Mann at the National Book Critics Circle Blog

Rigoberto González interviews Randall Mann at the National Book Critics Circle blog:

Breakfast with Thom Gunn, University of Chicago Press, 2009.

Randall Mann is a writer and editor living in San Francisco. He is also the author of Complaint in the Garden, winner of the Kenyon Review Prize in Poetry; and co-author of the textbook Writing Poems.

An excerpt:

A poem that stands out is “Little Colonial Song” with its suggestive and racialized language/ context: “When night is falling on the state/ we’ll eat our fish and loaves/ of Wonder Bread before we head/ toward dark sequestered groves.” This is one of the few moments you not only talk about the erotic but also the exotic, and the complicated politics of the (dark) Other as object of desire. Previously in the collection, “Fetish” also spoke to the way people (usually “straights and amateurs”) misinterpret queer space as a “free-for-all” space that sanctions any behavior. If a gay man has to confront the fetishized gay body, does a gay man of color have to navigate the fetishized gay and dark body? Is there room in gay space to address race or is that conversation erased the current struggle for gay rights?

“Little Colonial Song” came out of my re-reading of William Bartram’s Travels, its lush descriptions of eighteenth-century Florida; but there’s no getting around his exoticization of the place and its native people. And yes, you’re quite right that, in “Fetish,” the “straights and amateurs” are like latter-day colonizers of a gay ghetto, those who ape our contained, false freedom yet get to take a late-night taxi back to their straight lives, take off their fuck-me pumps, and ease into their marital sheets. I am queer; I am multiracial (I am, in spite of my German name, more Latino than anything, and also Filipino)—so my very existence, and by extension my art, is the negotiation of gay and dark, there’s no avoiding it. And when I write, at the end of “Fetish,” “I am a fetish. I am canonical,” it’s a self-aware, wry acknowledgment not only of the parameters of longing (in this poem, the paraphernalia of desire), but of the longing for acceptance and love. There is room for race and queerness in the conversation. And there is always room for fetish.

Read the entire interview...

From Jose Rizal to Jose Villa: An Introduction to Philippine Literary Greats (NY 04/27/2009)

Asian American Writers Workshop presents

From Jose Rizal to Jose Villa
An Introduction to Philippine Literary Greats

Monday, April 27, 2009
7:00 PM to 9:00 PM

The Workshop
16 W 32nd St
New York, NY 10001
btwn Broadway and 5th Ave, 10th Floor

Join us for a special reception in celebration of two heroes of Philippine literature and of the Philippine-American heritage and experience, and for a lively discussion and refreshment. Noli Me Tangere is the great Philippine novel by Jose Rizal (1861-1896), a love story set during the Spanish occupation, and the story of a young gentleman who returns to the Philippines from Europe after his fathers death. This powerful, moving novel and its sequel, El Filibusterismo were banned by Spanish authorities. Rizal was subsequently executed for sedition and is the best-known Philippine national hero.

Harold Augenbraum discusses Rizals life and reads from his translation of the Noli, published by Penguin Classics, and then from his translation-in-progress of the Fili. Augenbraum is Executive Director of the National Book Foundation and a well known translator and critic.

***
Known as the Pope of Greenwich Village, Jose Villa (1908-1997) was arguably the most important Asian American writer of the mid-twentieth century, as well as a colleague of modern literary giants such as W.H. Auden and Tennessee Williams. Edith Sitwell called him "a poet with a great, even an astounding, and perfectly original gift. . . . The best of his poems are among the most beautifully written in our time."

Luis Francia, a well known writer and poet, discusses Villa and reads from his poetry, and will also read from his own book Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago. Eye of the Fish, Francia's semiautobiographical account of life straddling American and Philippine culture, won the Pen Center Beyond the Margin Award and The Asian American Writers' Workshop Literary Award in 2002.

An informal discussion will be encouraged after the presentations.
Wine and meryenda hors d'oeuvres will be served.

The Joy Luck Hub: Call for Submissions

From Claire Light at the Hyphen magazine blog:

Help us honor and argue with The Joy Luck Club on the 20th Anniversary of its publication AND celebrate API Heritage Month in May! Send us your immigrant story in 300 words or less!

This year is the 20th Anniversary of the publication of The Joy Luck Club, the book that, for better or for worse, defined Asian America to a generation of readers, and opened up mainstream American fiction to Asian immigrant stories. (I celebrated its 15th in an essay in Issue 4.) I say "for better or for worse" because, although it was wonderful for people of my generation -- who were reaching adulthood just as Joy Luck was hitting the bookstores -- to finally see Asian immigrant families in fiction, the book also limited a generation of writers to a particular narrative.

We don't all suffer an immigrant generation gap with our parents; many of us are 1.5s, and many of us are third generation or deeper; many of our parents are culturally competent in the US; most of us didn't grow up in Chinatowns. Half of us aren't women; we aren't all Chinese ... or Japanese, or Korean; our cultures of origin don't always center around cooking rice, or mahjong games in the kitchen, or the insulting mistakes our white boyfriends make at the dinner table; the racism we experience isn't always the blatant kind.

Read more ....

Eth-Noh-Tec: Salon You're On 04/25/2009

Click on image to enlarge:

WHERE? Eth-Noh-Tec Studio
977 South Van Ness
San Francisco, CA 94110
between 2st & 20th Streets
close to 24th Street BART

WHEN? Saturday, Apr. 25 - 7pm Show
Admission: $5-$15 (sliding scale)
Reserve Now! 415-282-8705

WHO? WOW!

Eth-Noh-Tec: Kinetic Story Theater: Asian American Storytelling - moving myths with modern messages.

Na Leo Nahenahe: Hawaiian Acapella Choir, with sweet island sounds to soothe the soul and remember the Aina, spirit of the Land. A joyful noise for week of Earth Day!

Barbara Jane Reyes & Oscar Bermeo- Poetic Pair: The City Is More Than Text- exploring San Francisco and New York City through interpoetic dialogue.

Pearl Ubungen: Urban Dancer: Filipina American Contemporary dance performance

Leon Sun: Author/painter/ poet offers little snippets of insight and wisdom that grow out of day-to-day life with “Nikki” his Siberian husky.

David Yun: Film Maker has shown his works internationally in festivals from New York to Madrid, Sydney top Seoul.

COME TO THE SALON! SONGWRITING - POETRY - STORYTELLERS - FILM & PHOTOGRAPHY - MUSIC - DANCE - AND MORE! There’s no other Arts event like this in town: performances, discussions afterwards, communities of creativity in conversation… this is cultural activism.

MORE INFO: www.ethnohtec.org

Oakland: Aimee Suzara teaching INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF POETRY

From Aimee Suzara:

What do Tupac Shakur, Sylvia Plath, Genny Lim, Langston Hughes, Joy Harjo and Dead Prez all have in common?

They are all POETS.
Learn more when you sign up for
ENGLISH 43/243
Laney College FALL 2009
Tuesdays 6-8:50pm
CRN 40551 and 40584
AA/AS area 3, 4d; CSU area C2; IGETC area 3B

INTRODUCTION TO THE STUDY OF POETRY
with poet Aimee Suzara

WHAT WILL WE DO?
Using “From Totems to Hip-Hop,” (ed. Ishmael Reed), we’ll discuss basic elements of poetry.

TECHNIQUE: imagery, sound, tone, diction
FORM: what are the shapes and formulas of poetry?
CONTENT: What are the impulses from which poetry arises?
How has poetry named and changed culture in the United States?


Speak truth to the people
Talk sense to the people
Free them with reason
Free them with honesty…

- Mari Evans

POETRY IS NOT A LUXURY. It is a vital necessity of our existence. It forms the quality of the light within which we predicate our hopes and dreams toward survival and change.

– Audre Lorde

About the Instructor: Along with teaching English, Aimee Suzara performs and conducts creative writing workshops locally and nationally. She wrote/produced and performed in the multidisciplinary play, Pagbabalik (Return) in 2007, selected for APAture and the Emerging Performance Festival. Her poetry chapbook, the space between. was published by Finishing Line Press (2008) and appears in Check the Rhyme: Anthology of Female Poets and Emcees (Lit Noire 2007) and the upcoming Walang Hiya/No Shame (Arkipelago 2009). Currently she is a collaborating artist with Deep Waters Dance Theater.

Los Angeles: Invitation - Authors Night, Friday, April 24, 2009

From Linda Nietes of Philippine Expressions:


INVITATION

To celebrate the Printed and Spoken Words and
the publication of New Books

AUTHORS NIGHT
Friday, April 24, 2009
5:30pm - 9:00pm

Philippine Consulate General
Rizal Hall, 2600 Wilshire Boulevard,
Suite 500 Los Angeles, CA 90010

Free admission. Limited seating. RSVP required.
Tel (310) 514-9139
or email <linda_nietes@sbcglobal.net>

***

Los Angeles's Historic Filipinotown
By Carina Monica Montoya

A Lovely Little War: Life in a Japanese Prison Camp
through the Eyes of a Child. By Angus Lorenzen

Portents and Promises: Echoes of Politics, People
and Places. Poems by Estrella Besinga Sybinsky

The Philippiine Jeepney: A Filipino Family Metaphor.
By Penelope V. Flores and Araceli N. Resus

Cora Cooks Pancit, a children's book.
By Dorina K. Lazo Gilmore

***

MEET THE AUTHORS

Carina Monica Montoya, is also known as Carina Forsythe. She is the author of "Filipinos in Hollywood" which was released last year. A native of Los Angeles, she collected the vintage images for her latest book, LOS ANGELES'S HISTORIC FILIPINOTOWN from LA historical organizations and Filipino families who settled in and around the Temple- Beverly Corridor in the early years. This area was officially designated by LA City Council District 13 as one of the city's historic geographic areas on August 2, 2002.

Angus Lorenzen, at age 7, fled Japanese-occupied North China with his sister and mother, just days before the attack on Pearl Harbor, only to be captured in Manila and held in Santo Tomas Internment Camp (UST) for more than three years. A LOVELY LITTLE WAR is his memoir. Active in ex-prisoner of war activities, he was elected in 2008 as Commander of the southern California civilian chapter of the national organization that serves American Ex-POWs. He resides in Rancho Palos Verdes.

Estrella Besinga Sybinsky is the author of PORTENTS AND PROMISES which is a collection of free verse that encourages reflection and thought. In her words, "After the devastating attack on the US on Sept 11, 2001, the magnitude of suffering compels humanity to address deeper issues about the human condition. The book is about people and places, about ideas and political themes." She has been noted for her excellence in teaching at the University of Hawaii, Windward campus, where she taught for twenty years and cited in 1978 as one of the Outstanding Young Women of America from Hawaii. Sybinsky has two children's books waiting to be published. Grew up in Cebu City but her parents'ancestral home is Guindulman, Bohol. She came to the US for graduate studies at the East West Center in Honolulu, Hawaii, where she has lived for 26 years with her husband and two grown daughters. They now reside in Ellicott City, Maryland.

Penelope V. Flores, co-author of THE PHILIPPINE JEEPNEY: A Metaphor for Understanding the Filipino American Family has a Ph.D. in Comparative and International Education (University of Chicago); teaches at the San Francisco State University. As an author, editor, and co-author, her books include "Whisper of the Bamboo: An Anthology of Phil Am Writers and Artists", and "Goodbye, Vientiane: Untold Stories of Filipinos in Operation Brotherhood in Laos, 1954-1975." A humanities scholar, she writes essays and articles on Philippine culture, and was on the Board of the California Council for the Humanities, and of the Illinois Humanities Council. An international consultant on the areas of Education, Curriculum, Research and Teacher Education with UNESCO, US AID, and the American Education Development, she was in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia for an assignment; in 2005, she was Primary School Advisor to Indonesia to train replacement teachers due to the 2004 tsunami.

Dorina Lazo Gilmore, author of CORA COOKS PANCIT, a children's book, grew up in a Filipino-Italian family kitchen where she creates healthy recipes and share stories with her mama, aunties and grandmas. She has a BA in English and Journalism and is completing an M.F.A. degree in Children's Literature at Hollins University. She is also the author of two other children's books, "Children of the San Joaquin Valley" and "Stone Soup: A Hmong Girl's Journey to the United States". Dorina is originally from Chicago and lives with her husband and two daughters in Fresno, CA.

BTW, if you will be unable to join us for Authors Night, we accept orders for autographed copies of the book. Just call (310) 514-9139 or email <linda_nietes@sbcglobal.net>

MEET THE HOST : Philippine Expressions Bookshop

Philippine Expressions is a mail order bookshop dedicated to Filipino Americans in search of their roots. The business started in 1984 when owner Linda Nietes moved to the US from Manila. She felt that Philippine writings needed a home in the US in the same manner that she provided a home for Philippine writings in the Philippines when she opened Casalinda Bookshop in Forbes Park, Makati, Metro Manila in 1972. Philippine Expressions is the first specialty bookshop on the Philippines to be established in the US. This year marks 25 years of service to the Fil Am community and 37 years of trail-blazing and cultural activism on the part of Linda. She is inspired by a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson: "Do not go where the path may lead, go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."

Linda Faigao-Hall, GOD, SEX & BLUE WATER

GOD, SEX & BLUE WATER

a new play by LINDA FAIGAO-HALL

directed by NELSON T. EUSEBIO III

A Test of Faith

An Act of Love

A Choice.

It is Pasyon. It is a world away from the Philipine Islands to Hoboken, New Jersey for a girl with a secret gift. As her Uncle Max sings Karaoke and her Mother prepares for the Filipino Lenten ritual of self crucifixion, Clarita faces the greatest unknown- love.

Only maybe New Jersey is not the right place for any of this. This innovative, shocking and startlingly comic play brings fresh insight into the ways we deal with family, faith and fundamentalism.

Starring

Leanne Cabrera* Andrew Eisenman*

Lydia Gaston* Ryan McCarthy*

“...fresh, rarely dramatized material...Faigao-Hall's writing is sharp, clever and intense, executed wonderfully!” -New Theater Corp

PLAYING

APRIL 18th - May 9, 2009
Previews:
April 18th & 21st @ 8pm, April 19th @ 3pm

Performances:
Tuesdays, Thursdays & Saturdays @ 8pm,
Sunday Matinees @ 3pm
(April 23rd & 25th @ 8pm, 26th @ 3pm,
April 28th, 30th, May 2nd @ 8pm, 3rd @ 3pm, 5th,
7th & 9th @ 8pm)

PRODUCTION STAFF

Set Michael Locher

Lights Catherine Tate

Sound Geoffrey Roecker

Costumes Christina Bullard

Production Stage Managers Stefania Schramm Karen Peck

Assistant Stage Managers Emily Gasser Julio Perez

Technical Director Neal Zupancic

Producers Peter Marsh Mia Vaculik

Joe Bataan & Seattle Experience Music Project

From Hip-Hop Lives:

Jeff Chang interviews Joe Bataan (click on image):

Soundtrack for this post is Joe Bataan's "Rap-O-Clap-O."

SF Filipino American Jazz Festival

April is Pinay Jazz Month in Oakland! Join us as we celebrate Jazz Appreciation Month at these two upcoming events. On Monday April 13th, Lily Alunan, featured performer at the 1st Annual San Francisco Filipino American Jazz Festival last August, will make her debut at Yoshi's Oakland. On Thursday April 16th, a Pinay Jazz Concert to benefit Filipinos for Affirmative Action will be held at the Asian Cultural Center in Oakland. Performers include Jo Canion and Prelude, Anne Marie Santos, Angel Ventura, and Raquel. The Art Khu Trio, showcased at the 2008 SF Filipino American Jazz Festival, will provide musical accompaniment. Jo Canion and Prelude and Anne Marie Santos also performed at last year's Festival.

On April 21st, the San Francisco Giants in partnership with ABS-CBN Global, Club Works, Inc., Top Rank Boxing, the Filipino American Arts Exposition, and Manilatown Heritage Foundation will present "Filipino Heritage Night 3" with special guest, boxing champ and national hero, Manny Pacquaio. Be sure to catch the pre-game entertainment!

Thank you for your interest in the history and legacy of Pinoy jazz in the SF Bay Area, for believing in the SF Pinoy Jazz Festival, and for your ongoing support of local Pinoy and Pinay jazz artists.

Mabuhay ang Pinoy Jazz

Carlos Zialcita
Executive Director, SF Filipino American Jazz Festival
carlos@sfpinoyjazzfest.com www.sfpinoyjazzfest.com

* * *

Lily Alunan Lily Alunan and After Dark
Lily Alunan
Yoshi's Oakland
510 Embarcadero Oakland
Monday April 13 8pm
www.myspace.com/lilyalunan
www.yoshis.com/oakland

Pinay Jazz Concert
Benefit for
Filipinos for Affirmative Action
Asian Cultural Center
388 Ninth Street Oakland
Thursday April 16 6pm
Tickets: 510-465-9876
www.filipinos4action.org/PinayJazz

Jo Canion & Prelude - Raquel
Anne Marie Santos - Angel Ventura
Music by the Art Khu Trio

Honoring Tessie Guillermo
CEO of Zero Divide

MC - Henni Espinosa
ABS-CBN Global, Balitang America

Bindlestiff Studio: CALL FOR AUDITIONS

From Angelica Cabande:

CALL FOR AUDITIONS

Bindlestiff Studio, one of the oldest Filipino American performing arts organizations in the Bay Area will be conducting general auditions for it's upcoming Summer and Fall 2009 productions. Also attending will be representatives from the Asian American Theater Company as well as playwright Jeannie Barroga who will be conducting separate auditions for her upcoming production of BANYAN (see below)

WHEN: Saturday, April 25 - 10am to 1pm & Saturday, May 2 - 230pm to 530pm

WHERE: The Thick House, 1695 18th St. near Arkansas St. in San Francisco's Potrero Hill district

Please prepare one comedic (1 to 3 min) & one dramatic (1 to 3 min) monologues.
Please bring a couple copies of your headshot & resume.

For more information or to make an appointment, please contact:

Allan Manalo
allan@bindlestiffstudio.org
or call 415.255.0440 (from 12pm to 5pm)



ALSO - Auditions for Jeannie Barroga's BANYAN:

CALL FOR AUDITIONS
Audition Dates: April 25* (Vallejo) & 26** (Oakland) from 10am -- 4pm;
Callbacks: April 27* (Vallejo) at 7pm

BANYAN
By Jeannie Barroga -- Director: Norman Gee
Six Performances opening June 19, 2009
Production Dates: June 19, 20, 21; 26, 27 & 28
Produced by The MIRA THEATRE GUILD
*51 Daniels Avenue, Vallejo, CA

Check for Details: director@sfstage.com
http://www.miratheatreguild.org/ 707-649-1053
CALL BY APRIL 10, 2009 -- REHEARSALS START MID-MAY

** Noodle Factory, 1255 26th St.
@Union/Mandela Pkwy, W. Oakland, 510-548-7878x370

Sides from the play will also be available at SF locations TO BE ANNOUNCED
Please prepare a ONE-MINUTE monolog, serio-comic or your choice and/or read scenes from sides/full script; Preferred: bring a HEADSHOT (email acceptable)

CHARACTERS -- 3 FEMALES, 5 MALES (non-paid)
"ONA: 20-30s something; Fil-Am `Dorothy' post 9-1-1; a dreamer, Ian's sister
"ASWANG"/CEO (double-cast) - Fil-Am/Asian-Am, 30s, very physical role for `Aswang'
"ELLA" -- 20-30s something; Fil-Am, maintenance superintendent; a leader
"IAN" -- Fil-Am, 30s something; Ona's brother, travel companion
"CABING"/Rebel (double-cast) -- Fil-Am, maintenance worker, serio-comic; Ona's jungle crush
"CESAR"/Operative (double-cast) -- any (or Fil-Am/Asian-Am) 20s, 30s
"DOUGLAS" - any, 30s something, serio-comic; Ona's co-worker crush
"DIRK" -- any, 30s something, serio-comic, corporate

FINALIST, Seattle Repertory Theatre/Hedgebrook Women's Playwrights Festival 2003,
and the Taper Too Asian American Workshop 2003

"In this lovingly crafted world premiere, Barroga uses influences from Filipino folklore and The Wizard of Oz to etch a modern homecoming-- confronting a few lions and tigers and bears, oh my." Amber Adrian, TBA, November 2005

Reading: Pilipino Kahit Saan, Kahit Kailan (4/23/09); Kuhio Hotel, Waikiki

From Theo Gonzalves:

A Literary Reading

Pilipino Kahit Saan, Kahit Kailan
(Filipino regardless of time, regardless of place)
Reimagining Filipino Identity in Literature by Women

How is Filipino identity redefined today?
How can writing help connect one to identity?
What is unique to each writer and what is part of being Filipino?

THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2009
Free and open to the public
7:00 pm Reception - Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio Hotel, 2500 Kuhio Avenue, Honolulu
7:30 pm Reading - Moloka‘i Room
Q & A to Follow

MICHELLE CRUZ SKINNER, originally from the Philippines, has published two short story collections, Balikbayan and Mango Seasons (nominated for the 1996 Philippine National Book Award). “Faith Healer,” from Balikbayan, was selected for the PEN Syndicated Fiction Project. Michelle has read her stories at the Filipino American Literature Forum, UCLA, Society for the Study of Multi-Ethnic Literature of the United States Conference, Ateneo de Manila University, the University of the Philippines, and the University of Hawai‘i. She currently teaches English at Punahou School in Honolulu. She will read from her forthcoming story collection, The Company of Strangers (Bamboo Ridge Press, 2009).

AMALIA BUENO is a researcher and publicist who was born in the Philippines and raised in Hawai‘i. Her short stories and poems have been published in Bamboo Ridge, Our Own Voice, University of Hawaii Katipunan Journal, Honolulu Stories, Women.Period. and is forthcoming in Growing Up Filipino II (Anvil Press) and Walang Hiya (Arkipelago Books). Amalia’s award-winning short story, “The Chicharon Widows”, most recently appeared in We Go Eat: A Mixed Plate from Hawaii’s Food Culture. She will read her poetry and prose that address family, community and culture.

NANCY BULALACAO studied performance poetry with Kurt Lamkin and Pablo Medina at The New School in NYC. She has performed her work at Nuyorican Poet’s Café, American Craft Museum, University of Pennsylvania, Penn State, and Cornell University. She was co-founder and executive director of Poet’s Theater in Manhattan—an organization dedicated to developing new work and exhibitions by poets such as Mei Mei Berssenbrugge and CD Wright. Her short plays have been presented by Asian American Arts Alliance, Asian American Writers’ Workshop, and Ma-yi Theater’s Writers Lab. She will be performing a selection of poems.

FLOYD CHEUNG is Associate Professor of English and American Studies at Smith College. Born in Hong Kong and raised in Las Vegas, he has published articles in numerous academic journals, worked to recover early Asian American texts, and co-edited Recovered Legacies: Authority and Identity in Early Asian American Literature (Temple University Press, 2005). In addition to teaching and writing, he also composes poetry. Floyd will read from and examine Jessica Hagedorn’s poetry and Marissa Roth’s photos in Burning Heart: A Portrait of the Philippines.

This event is sponsored by the 2009 National Conference of the Association for Asian American Studies and is supported by Bamboo Ridge Press.

For more information, contact Michelle Cruz Skinner: mmcskinner@gmail.com

Kularts: It's that time, again! Get your tickets to POMO 2009!

We just don't stop, can't stop, won't stop here at Kularts. After wrapping up an amazing run of The Passion of El Hulk Hogancito with Jason Magabo Perez, Allan Manalo, and Dennis Rodis, we're diving head-first into our annual flagship production - The Post-Modern American Pilipino Performance Project, what we all lovingly know as POMO!

POMO 2009 features TWO weekends (4/17-4/26) of hypnotic, tantalizing, heart-stopping, off-center performances in Queer Theater, Music, Poetics, and Contemporary Circus featuring an incredible selection of cutting edge Pin@y artists from the Bay to LA at the Zeum Theater and Bayanihan Community Center!

Like always, we'll be lighting the stage on FIRE! So grab your seats now!

TICKETS: brownpapertickets.com/event/56341
Get $2 off when you enter discount code, "kul friend"!

Want to Volunteer? Contact Dianne at program@kularts.org
(Volunteers watch shows for FREE!)

POMO 2009

Admission: $15 Advance, $14 Student/Senior, $20 General
Tickets: brownpapertickets.com/event/56341

Want to watch more than one show?
Get your DISCOUNTED POMO 2009 Multi-Show Pass at
www.brownpapertickets.com/event/63259
2 shows for $25 ($5 Savings)!
3 shows for $35 ($10 Savings)!
Offer Valid for ONLINE advance purchases only!

Fri, April 17, 8pm Zeum Theater 221 Fourth Street @ Howard St San Francisco CA 94103 Featuring: Dwayne Calizo Kennedy Kabasares Giovanni Ortega

Sat, Apr 18, 8pm Sun, Apr 19, 6pm Bayanihan Community Center 1010 Mission St. @ 6th St. SF CA 94103 Featuring: Dwayne Calizo Giovanni Ortega Jen & Dan Soriano

Sat, Apr 25, 8pm Sun, Apr 26, 6pm Bayanihan Community Center 1010 Mission St. @ 6th St. SF CA 94103 Featuring: Dwayne Calizo Giovanni Ortega Diskarte Namin

Queer Performance Vocalist, Dwayne Calizo presents The Toxic Cock-tale: Hold the Retro Virus Please!! Calizo glows, bristles, erupts and caresses in gender-bending vocals to tell the intense intricacies of a man living with HIV. The show takes place in real time during the last hour, last act, and closing night of The World Famous Back Alley Sally's Catch a Rising Star No Talent-Talent Show. The final performance is ready to begin so get ready for a ride that will bring you to your knees begging for mercy and wanting more, more, more.

Aerialist Kennedy Kabasares in PULL, combines theater, static trapeze, movement and monologue with writer/performer Traci Kato-Kiriyama to explore ideas of regret, dreams, sounds, silence, stillness, and the precariousness of being on the edge.

Los Angeles-based actor, Giovanni Ortega presents Kalayaan (Freedom), a poignantly hilarious inter-disciplinary show that fearlessly embraces while courageously reveals one man's identity as a queer Muslim Pilipino in America. Infusing Modern and Mindanao Folk Dance, he reflects on his past and acceptance of Islam.

Jen & Dan Soriano present Viajeras: A Song Cycle in Tribute to Filipino Overseas Musicians a journey through seven decades of musical migration. Since the late 1800's, Filipinos have made a living from their musical abilities by performing at hotels and clubs around the world. Today, musicians and other performing artists are the Philippines' second largest export after domestic workers; more than one million Filipinos work overseas as musicians, composers, and dancers. Viajeras traces the journeys of these Filipino workers, from the jazz age of the 1920s to the pop age of the 1980s.With a combination of jazz standards, pop covers, and original songs, Viajeras is a tribute to the these musicians past and present, including Jen's grandfather, Restituto Soriano, a musician who played on cruise ships and with Xavier Cugat's orchestra in the 1930s! 40s. Viajeras celebrates the heroism of these musicians who have survived in a market of western mimicry, while envisioning a future that values original Filipino creation. Featuring Juan Calaf (drums) and Ron Quesada (bass guitar).

Straight from the underground arises Diskarte Namin ("our strategy" in Tagalog) - kultural guerillas using music as a weapon to reclaim Filipino pride, and to declare that even after 400 years of colonization - we are still here. San Francisco born but bred on resistance music from all over the world, Diskarte mixes rock guitar with latin and hip hop beats, reggae and funk basslines, folk and soul vocals, and indigenous influences from the Philippines. Since 2000, Diskarte Namin has rocked shows from the Bay to LA to Seattle to the mountains of the Northern Philippines, devoting most of their performances to community events, social justice fundraisers, and political rallies.

Diskarte Namin is: Jen Soriano on vocals, Paul Bolick-Mausisa on bass and guitar, Jasen Ildefonzo on vocals and rhythm guitar, Tony Daquipa on percussion, Juan Calaf on lead guitar, Dakota Witka on percussion, and Mike Cual as emcee.

Tagalog Classes - Bay Area

Tagalog classes for beginner-intermediate levels, adults and children, in San Francisco and the East Bay: www.tagalogclasses.com

Patrick Rosal: Mission College, Santa Clara 04/15/2009

Click on image to enlarge:

http://www.missioncollege.org/news/whatsnew.html

Oliver de la Paz: How a Poem Happens

Do you believe in inspiration? How much of this poem was “received” and how much was the result of sweat and tears?

As I mentioned, the poem was certainly “received.” I’m a big believer in the mantra that books beget other books. I’m not a writer who’ll sit at a desk, stare at a blank screen, and painfully bang away a few words, sentences, or lines that I ultimately regret. When I’m ready to write, I go to the word processor. Such was the case for “Holiness.” I had been living with Robert Hayden for such a long time, I needed to find a way to pay him homage.

Read more...

Call for Submissions: KAPWA Conference 2009

From Anthem Salgado:

KAPWA CONFERENCE 09 CALL OUT
The organizers of Kapwa Conference 09, Pin@y Educational Partnerships and Fulbright-Hays Philippines Study Tour 2008, are now accepting submissions to present lectures, panels, roundtables, tutorials and workshops.

WHAT IS KAPWA?
Kapwa is a Filipin@ word that describes oneness, interconnectedness, holism, and symbiosis among living beings and the broader environment.

Kapwa Conference 09 will focus on the work of educators to better serve the diverse nature of today’s student population – Filipin@ youth, people of color, and similarly marginalized persons to transcend the effects of colonization and go beyond the basics of identity politics, to develop survival strategies, foster healing, and to build bridges and nurture community.

Through lectures, panels, roundtables, symposia, workshops, exhibits and performances, we will specifically explore roles and perspectives at the intersections of the Global, Local, and Personal levels.

CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS
Prospective presenters can address topics relating to (and certainly not limited to) critical pedagogy, curriculum and concepts, media and technology, arts integration, creativity, history, cultural production, and activism. We are also looking for speakers to address issues and intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, social justice and equity in education. Panels, round tables, and workshops will be 60-80 minutes at the discretion of the Kapwa Conference 09 organizers.

IMPORTANT DATES
Submissions Deadline: Submissions are due no later than 11:59 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, Sunday, April 26, 2009.

Notifications: Kapwa Conference 09 organizers will notify applicants within the first two weeks of May.

Conference: Kapwa Conference 09 will take place onsite at San Francisco State University on Saturday, June 27, 2009.

CONTACT:
Abstracts may be submitted to KapwaSubmissions09@gmail.com.

Attached is this call for submissions as well as an official submissions form.


PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR NETWORKS!
http://kapwacon2009.wordpress.com/downloads/

New Art In Site Magazine

ART IN SITE MAGAZINE (www.artinsitemagazine.com)

We provide what is missing: a space for all Filipino Artists to come together.

With coverage of and insightful treatment of Filipino Artists, in the Philippines and abroad. An intelligent, collaborative perspective on our own history, zeitgeist and distinct culture.

We don't tell you, you tell us. Throughout the year, and in each issue, we will have guest curators and collaborative projects to give you, the artists' community, the power to create the magazine that you have been looking for.

We cover and collaborate with artists: writers, filmmakers, sculptors, painters, digital artists, photographers, jeepney painters, poets, essayists, choreographers, directors, playwrights, set designers, dancers, graffiti artists. novelists, composers, anyone and everyone with a Filipino artistic soul.

Contact Info
Website: http://www.artinsitemagazine.com

UCSD: Pinay Speak 04/25/2009

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Kamalayan Kollective presents

PINAYSPEAK: DIALOGUES FOR ACTION AND HEALING

SAN DIEGO, California – March 9, 2009 – Kamalayan Kollective presents PINAYspeak: Dialogues for Action and Healing, a one-day community-building intensive for self-identified Pinays and their allies. PINAYspeak will be hosted at the University of California, San Diego Cross-Cultural Center on Saturday, April 25, 2009.

Named after our Pinay-created space for dialogue, personal growth and empowerment, PINAYspeak will include workshop sessions, speakers and focused conversations in a community-centered effort to explore and narrate the stories and experiences of Pinays. Topics will include but are not limited to: the intersections of Pinay identity; Pinay motherhood and sistahood; Pinays combating oppression and exploitation; and Pinays in higher education. Through various ways of knowing and sharing, participants will create space and engage in the artistic, the spiritual and the material as ways to share voices, speak back to power, and cultivate radical personal & societal transformation.

PINAYspeak: DIALOGUES FOR ACTION AND HEALING

Date and Time: Saturday, April 25, 2009; 9:30AM – 4:30PM

Location: University of California, San Diego Cross-Cultural Center, Price Center East 2nd Floor

Fees: Free Admission and Free Parking

Celine Parreñas Shimizu: The Hypersexuality of Race

From the Hyphen blog:

Tuesday April 14th -- NYC

The Hypersexuality of Race: Performing Asian/Asian American Women on Screen and Scene

Join author and UC Santa Barbara Associate Professor Celine Parreñas Shimizu as she discusses the depictions of Asian/Asian American women in film, video and theatre. Shimuzu argues for a more nuanced approach to race and sexuality, to move beyond the denunciation of sexualized representations as necessarily demeaning or negative.

6 to 8 pm
A/P/A Institute
41-51 East 11th Street, 7th Floor, New York
FREE
RSVP by Friday April 10 to apa(dot)rsvp(at)nyu(dot)edu

Two new websites of interest

(1) Mary Ann Ubaldo: Philippine Tribal Tattoo Art.

(2) Perla Daly and Leny Strobel: Center for Babaylan Studies.

movie review of "Chopsuey" BY ALLEN GABORRO

FILAM STAR (April 1-15, 2009 issue)

(I avoided writing anything in my review that would spoil the movie for viewers. AG)

Filipino movie superstar Piolo Pascual, who is known all over the Philippines as a a full-fledged screen idol, may have given his best acting performance yet as a quiet, depressed, and demoralized young man in Catherine O. Camarillo’s intense and reflective film “Chopsuey.”

Pascual’s fans are not likely to recognize him in this movie. Jimmy, which is his character’s name, is trapped in a mental prison of dark moods, muted meditations, and self-willed isolation from the world. Jimmy’s behavior is more reminiscent of Shakespeare’s melancholic Hamlet than what Pascual’s fans are accustomed to seeing him as on the big screen.

Pascual’s name headlines “Chopsuey” but his austere yet compelling performance sets the stage for the three actresses who play his sisters. Jimmy’s oldest sister is Annette (Andrea del Rosario). Annette is presented up front as an impassive, all-business character. Below the hard exterior however, is a lonely woman bounding with human emotions and desires.

Actress Dimples Romana is Claire, the second sister. Her insufferable husband treats her like a subservient housewife, a role which she resigns herself to for about three-quarters of the movie. Claire’s plight is arguably the most trying of all three sisters. She endures her domestic martyrdom apparently for the sake of her very young daughter and out of respect for her husband’s adherence to Chinese tradition. The misfortune of Claire’s life is that she could have previously married the right man for herself had it not been for the obligations of tradition.

The youngest of the three sisters is Leslie (Krista Ranillo). She is sort of the black sheep of the family. Compared to Annette and Claire, Leslie sees less value in adhering to her family’s traditions. She smokes, drinks, comes home late some nights, and is flirtatious around men her age. In other words, the total antithesis of her sisters. Leslie represents the rebellious spirit of the Filipino-Chinese household as she serves as a reminder to Annette and Claire that their lives do not have to be as staid and as button-down as they are.

The family’s Chinese background helps inform the plot and characters of “Chopsuey.” Accordingly, Camarillo provides specific cultural cues that are identified as belonging to Chinese cultural traditions. But in her movie, that tradition is cast in conflict with the modern reality that the family inhabits. Something has to give and in the end, it is tradition that bows to that reality.

Actually, Camarillo provides the audience with what are only traces of Chinese culture and tradition. It seems that in an overall sense, she relegates the Chinese cultural theme to a secondary place and instead focuses more on the emotions and psychology of her four main characters.

Piolo Pascual’s Jimmy is a haunting presence throughout the film. His person has been left in the lurch by a girlfriend he was engaged to. Hence, his understated but severe discontentedness with the external world. Camarillo’s ironic genius in creating Jimmy as a psychologically-damaged individual is that by reserving a minimum of dialogue and physical movement for him, she succeeds in conveying to her audiences the depth of Jimmy’s pain and disillusionment. Camarillo’s treatment of Jimmy’s character proves the adage that sometimes less is really more.

Another notable aspect of “Chopsuey” is its accompanying musical score. The score, performed by Filipina pianist Isha, goes a long way towards enhancing the film’s dramatic effect and pathos. Lovers of piano instrumentals are sure to derive great pleasure from “Chopsuey’s” poignant and affecting score.

Catherine Camarillo’s movie is part of that growing list of Filipino independent films that are reinvigorating the Philippine film industry which has trended towards the predictable and formulaic. Moreover, movies like “Chopsuey” are articulating the Filipino identity in new ways, ways that are transforming how that identity is being understood by non-Filipinos and Filipinos alike.

ALLEN GABORRO

Scenes from Benito M. Vergara, Jr.'s reading at Eastwind Books of Berkeley

Pinoy Capital:The Filipino Nation in Daly City
Author event with Benito M. Vergara, Jr. at Eastwind Books of Berkeley.

Home to 33,000 Filipino American residents, Daly City, California, has been dubbed “the Pinoy Capital of the United States.” In this fascinating ethnographic study of the lives of Daly City residents, Benito Vergara Jr. shows how Daly City has become a magnet for the growing Filipino American community. In Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City, Vergara challenges the rooted notions of colonialism. Using the lens of transnationalism, he looks at the “double lives” of both recent and established Filipino Americans. 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.

About the author: Benito M. Vergara, Jr. is also the author of Displaying Filipinos: Photography and Colonialism in Early 20th-Century Philippines. Vergara was also an assistant professor in Asian American Studies department at San Francisco State University. He lives and works in the San Francisco Bay Area.

YouTube videos from Vergara's reading at Eastwind Books are here.


Flickr photos from Vergara's reading at Easwind Books are here.

A Review of Maria C. Zamora’s Nation, Race & History in Asian American Literature: Re-Membering the Body

From Stephen Hong Sohn at asianamlitfans:

A Review of Maria C. Zamora’s Nation, Race & History in Asian American Literature: Re-Membering the Body (Peter Lang Publishing, 2008).

Maria C. Zamora’s Nation, Race & History in Asian American Literature: Re-Membering the Body “considers the symbolic economy of the body in three selected literary texts. The project is, in the end, based on a recognition of the overriding tension between the power of literature and art to transcend race/gender/sex/history, and the deconstruction of such presumptions by showing how strongly those differential forces impinge upon any notion of universality” (31). The slim monograph employs three extensive and elegant close readings of oft-cited Asian American literary texts: David Henry Hwang’s M. Butterfly, Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, and Lois-Ann Yamanaka’s Blu’s Hanging. The question of the “body” is central to Zamora’s work in that she seeks to explore how fictional representation yet negotiates a very material problematic, wherein characters must negotiate the relationship they maintain to their bodies, precisely because the body is the site that can be regulated by transnational forces, nation-state apparatuses, cultural mores, and various social rubrics. Earlier, I reviewed Klara Szmanko’s monograph on invisibility in Asian American and African American literatures and I noted that one of the major strengths of that work exists in relation to the careful, but nevertheless exceeding readable critical prose. Zamora’s Nation, Race & History in Asian American literature functions with similar analytical grace and fluidity.

Read more...

SAT, APR 18 – A Community Garage Sale to benefit the Filipino American Library’s Collection & Programs

The Filipino American Library (FAL) presents…

A Community Garage Sale

To Benefit FAL’s Collection & Programs

Saturday, April 18
8:00am – 4:00pm
Sanborn House
1005 1/2 Sanborn Ave.
Los Angeles 90029

We are accepting donations of items that are in good or working condition for sale at this event. Please bring your donations to the FAL office during the hours of 1-5p.m., from April 12 – 16, 2009.

--- Cash donations to FAL are also welcome. ---

--- Please contact filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or 213-382-0488. ---

--- FAL is located at 135 N. Park View St., Los Angeles 90026. ---

Founded on October 13, 1985 by “Auntie Helen” Agcaoili Summers Brown, FAL is the earliest and largest Filipino library in the country with a collection of more than 6,000 titles. Along with books, the collection consists of magazines, student papers, posters, DVDs, and CDs. The various sections include children’s literature, the history of Filipinos in Los Angeles, and Jose Rizal. FAL also features a permanent exhibition on its founder Auntie Helen, a variety of paintings by renowned artist Eliseo Art Silva, and Filipino books available for sale. Whether to browse or conduct research, FAL’s visitors include students, teachers, writers, families, and tourists.

FAL also advances its mission with its many programs. The Children’s Reading Program promotes the value of diversity to families in Greater Los Angeles through the reading of Filipino children’s books. In Bus Tours of Historic Filipinotown, a guide narrates the significance of sites, events, and individuals in and around the area to present an historical overview of Filipinos in Los Angeles. Authors also introduce their Filipino works of literature with residents of Greater Los Angeles through Book Launches. Finally, FAL has a benefit gala every October to commemorate its anniversary and Filipino American History Month.

If anyone would like to give a donation online, please feel free to visit www.filipinoamericanlibrary.org. FAL is located at 135 N. Park View St., Historic Filipinotown, Los Angeles, CA 90026-5215. It is open Mondays-Fridays 1:00-5:00pm and by appointment. For more information, please contact filamlibrary@sbcglobal.net or 213-382-0488.

Filipino American Library (FAL)

Our mission is to provide access to information and knowledge through the collection, preservation, and dissemination of a unique collection of Filipino American and Filipino reading material to those that seek knowledge. Through this collection and its community involvement, FAL seeks to provide access to cultural information and enrich America’s diverse cultural tapestry.

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. -

Poem: Sasha Pimentel Chacón, "Blood Sister"

Sasha Pimentel Chacón was born in Manila, Philippines. Her first book of poems, Insides She Swallowed, is forthcoming from West End Press (September 2009). She is the editor of BorderSenses. She teaches creative writing at the University of Texas El Paso, and lives in the border community of El Paso-Ciudad Juárez with her husband, author Daniel Chacón.

Read Sasha's poem, "Blood Sister," at the American Poetry Review here.

Pre-Order: Kristin Naca's Bird Eating Bird

Bird Eating Bird is a new collection of poems from Kristin Naca, winner of the 2008 National Poetry Series mtvU prize as chosen by Pulitzer Prize winner Yusef Komunyakaa.

“Kristin Naca’s Bird Eating Bird is skillful, intriguingly singular, and terrific. This first collection of poems zings and sings in multiple languages and registers. The mysterious title sets the book’s edgy tone. Here’s a voice perfectly tooled for the 21st century—witty, funny, and serious. Each poem sparkles with a charged energy, gauging some necessary truths that are personal and universal. Kristin is a technician of convergences; her varied landscapes insist that we see into the future by engaging glimpses of the past and present. With both feet squarely on the ground, this young poet isn’t afraid to meditate on some out-there scenarios in Bird Eating Bird.”

- Yusef Komunyakaa, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Warhorses

Kristin Naca is a poet and CFD Fellow. She teaches courses in poetics, Asian American and Latino poetry, and creative writing. She received her Ph.D. in English from University of Nebraska (2008), M.F.A. in poetry from University of Pittsburgh (2003), and M.A. in English Linguistics from University of Cincinnati (2000). Her poems have appeared recently in Harpur Palate and the Indiana Review, and are forthcoming in Bloom and Rio Grande Review. She lives in Saint Paul, Minnesota.

Bird Eating Bird is now available for pre-order on Amazon and on the Harper Collins website.

Author Quotes

No quotes were found...

It's National Poetry Month and napowrimo*

And so here are some poems, some old, some new:

Niki Escobar: The Man You Love Cuts Mangoes for You.

Adrien Salazar: night. words.

Vince Gotera: Alan Valeriano Sees a Lynch Mob, and Vietnam Era Vet.

Eric Gamalinda: poem written at 6 AM Pacific Time.

Ivy Alvarez: Everyday English Dictionary: H.


*napowrimo: National Poetry Writing Month.

Jason Magabo Perez: The Passion of El Hulk Hogancito

ONLY 2 SHOWS LEFT!

THE PASSION OF EL HULK HOGANCITO
a multimedia performance reading by Jason Magabo Perez.

Saturday, April 4 at 8:00PM
Sunday, April 5 at 5:00PM

BAYANIHAN COMMUNITY CENTER
1010 Mission Street (at 6th)
San Francisco, CA 94103

Please support by performing the following:

1. Read preview in SF Weekly.
2. Watch an excerpt/clip from The Passion.
3. Find details about the show here.
4. Purchase tickets here.
5. Listen to a radio interview with Jason Magabo Perez on 94.1 KPFA'S Apex Express on Thursday, April 2 at 7PM.
6. Tell friends and family. Forward this message.
7. Attend.
8. Exclaim!

Stephanie Syjuco: Upcoming

From the Hyphen magazine blog:

Bay Area Fil Am artist Stephanie Syjuco will be presenting two exhibits this week in Seattle and San Jose:

The Village (Small Encampments) solo exhibition is constructed of small cut-out dioramas taken from tourists' pictures of the Philippines, and later photographed in the artist's living space as a personal travelogue. Exhibit runs April 2 -- May 2.

Thursday April 2nd, Opening reception
5 to 7 pm
James Harris Gallery
312 2nd Ave South, Seattle

It's Not Us, It's You is a group exhibition exploring the inevitability of rejection in our lives, and includes paintings, sculpture, video, and multi-media work. Exhibit runs April 3 -- June 20.

Friday April 3rd, Opening reception
6 to 8 pm
The San Jose Institute for Contemporary Art
560 South First Street, San Jose

Additional upcoming event:

Tech Tools of the Trade: Contemporary New Media Art, de Saisset Museum, Santa Clara University, Santa Clara, CA, 4/09. Panel discussion included.

new SJSU literary journal

ASIAN AMERICAN LITERATURE: READING, PEDAGOGY, PRACTICE

Editor:
Noelle Brada-Williams, San José State University

Editorial Board:
Karen Chow, De Anza College
Wei Ming Dariotis, San Francisco State University
Eileen Fung, University of San Francisco
Rowena Tomaneng, De Anza College

Mission:

The production, collection, and distribution of accessible high quality research on Asian American Literature for students, teachers, and the general public is our goal. We seek contributions that, while informed by the theoretical concerns of specialists in the field, are composed in order to be understood by non-specialists, including students and non-specialist teachers at the high school and college levels. It is our goal to use the internet to grant access to research in multiple ways: one, by going directly to the internet where many students and even faculty now begin their research rather than through a publisher and then via a proprietary database; and two, by emphasizing clear and jargon-free prose so that the complexity of research findings in the field can be accessed by readers with a variety of objectives, including the general reader seeking more information on this complex and sometimes misrepresented field. An online journal also gives us the opportunity to continually update and add information. Thus, we hope to offer information in the style, say, of Sau-ling Wong and Stephen Sumida's A Resource Guide to Asian American Literature, but hope that the ongoing nature of a journal will allow us to continue to add to the information available as new books are published and new authors make their mark on the field.

Submission Guidelines

We are now accepting submissions for this newly founded online journal.

We welcome submissions on any Asian American author. In addition to traditional analytical interpretations of texts and contexts, we are interested in essays on the pedagogy of Asian American literature, overviews of the historical and cultural context of key texts, and also bibliographic overviews of relevant criticism. All submissions need to be in MLA format and under 10,000 words. We actually prefer pieces of around 2,000 to 7,000 words. Submissions should be submitted electronically to awilli@email.sjsu.edu. The author's name should not appear on the manuscript itself and all references to previously published research should be described in the third person.

http://www.sjsu.edu/faculty/awilliams/AALRPP.html

Poetry Reading: Luisa Igloria at Eastern Illinois University

Poetry Reading: Luisa Igloria

An emerging poet of astounding energy and talent, Luisa Igloria is already an 11-time recipient of the Carlos Palanca Memorial Award for Literature (the Philippines’ highest such honor). She is winner of the 2009 Ernest Sandeen Poetry Prize for her most recent book, 'Juan Luna's Revolver' (University of Notre Dame Press), and the 2006 winner of the Stephen Dunn Award for Poetry. Her other books include 'Trill and Mordent,' 'Cordillera Tales' and 'Encanto.' Igloria is currently associate professor in creative writing at Old Dominion University.

Sponsors: Doudna Fine Arts Center New and Emerging Artists Series, EIU English Department.
April 06, 2009
Starts at 07:00 PM

Doudna Fine Arts Center
600 Lincoln Ave.
Charleston, IL USA 61920
Email: doudna@eiu.edu

Cost: Free

Michelle Bautista: Kali's Blade now on Kindle

From Michelle Bautista:

Always interested in how technology shapes language and poetry, Kali's Blade has been converted into a Kindle Book! It's available for download for the recession positive price of $0.99.

Yup, you heard it! It's only $0.99!

http://www.amazon.com/dp/B0022NGSSG

But you don't need a Kindle to read it, you can download the Kindle iPhone app and read it from your iPhone or iPod Touch.

For people who like the tactile feel of paper you can always buy the paper edition here:
http://www.lulu.com/content/paperback-book/kalis-blade/505648