Tough and tender Fil-Am stories
(for Feb. 16, 2004)

Rodney Dakita Garcia moved to the U.S.A. in 1971, when he was 16. The bio note in his recently released first book, a collection of stories, says he “played guitar in a pub to help pay his way through school.” He became a lawyer, while also earning his spurs as a musician, poet and writer. His two-act musical “Hacienda” has been staged in the Washington D.C. area. He lives in Maryland with his family.

Rodney came home for a brief visit last Christmas. It was unfortunate that we didn’t get to meet. I knew him to have composed the songs featured in my own three-act play, “Luto, Linis, Laba,” which had a couple of
reportedly successful runs last year in the same tri-state area. Our former PETA colleague, the playwright-director Reme Grefalda, mounted the production by whipping up a cast of Fil-Am amateurs, while also drawing Rodney in for the songs.

Grefalda also published an online version of one of Garcia’s short stories, “Swimsuit Edition,” in the Spring 2003 issue of Our Own Voice, the literary e-zine which she helps edit. That story is joined by six others in Garcia’s first book, The Right Place and Other Stories (PublishAmerica / Baltmore, 2003). Also last December, Ed Maranan from London e-mailed an alert over the glowing if mostly word-of-mouth reviews being earned by Garcia’s book.

“Herminia Smith of the Philippine Arts and Letters Media hails the book as ‘a luminous literary achievement.’ She goes on to laud Garcia as ‘a gifted and a masterful storyteller with a remarkable range of style. Whether he is narrating in a macho-like voice… the story of a Manila Mafia, or being campy, contemporary… or being pensive, poetic, philosophical and stoic in a love story that does not quite end happily ever after, Garcia's writing has a gracefully natural cadence and recognizable realism, with startling revelations. Not only Filipino Americans would enjoy this book… (Readers) of any nationality will find a connection and commonality in the stories that touch on timeless and universal themes.’”

The Philippine Embassy in Washington D.C. hosted the book's launch on Oct. 30, 2003, with readings by NBC-4 news anchor Mil Arcega and Thompson Publishing Group editor Joe Lustig, as well as a story dramatization by the theater group QBD, Ink headed by Grefalda. “I had no agent for this book, but it was accepted by the first and only publisher I sent it to,” recounts Garcia. “I'm trying to finish a new manuscript for the Maui Writers Conference next August because Tess Holthe (the celebrated Fil-Am author of When The Elephants Dance) suggested that would be the best way to meet agents and publishers.”

Last month Rodney made good on his e-mailed promise to send over a copy. And not because I owe him one for that, nor for his musical collaboration in my play, now that I’ve gone through it I will have to agree with the early raves, that this first book makes for quite a delightful read. He’s a natural storyteller all right, making great capital of his homeland recollections, mostly urban, while succeeding in juxtaposing these with the transplant’s “Americanizing” travails. The tough guy in the Philippines tries to turn a new leaf, but soon learns to get even tougher in his new arena, where racist cops, young Pinoy hoods, blue-eyed blondes and suicidal bombers pose a bewildering, but also exhilarating, variety of challenges. The first story had me eating out of the author’s craft-wise, tough-tender hand. A quirky father-son relationship is essayed in an appropriately contrapuntal manner, edging sideways and back between exposition and effective dialogue, while serving up lyrical accents by way of the father’s central consciousness. Devotion to his teen-aged son couldn’t stop “Pasig Boy,” a town toughie of ill temper and rough ways, from serving him up with an eye patch after a beating “back home.” Now he makes up for it with equal parts diligence and over-protectiveness, even as he tries to make good in South San Francisco, while yet “unsure, troubled by talk of earthquakes, of gangs, of dense shoreline fog, and of failure.” Now aging, the father who doesn’t want to be called Pops but Papa does double shifts in a burger place, where he eventually finds himself confronting his old demons. “Joseph grips the iron skillet, ambles around the counter, not feeling his knee anymore. He approaches the gang and realizes how small he is compared to them. He smiles at the huge boys. Then he feels like there is a doorway opening and a moment stands right there in front of him, in his face, sneering and fleering, inches away. He is ready to bust that moment open, and scatter its guts onto the food on the table, never to be stitched back.”

The ending is riveting and memorable, an escalation of tough-tender, heart-pounding but vaporous images limning dazed resolve, which in turn defines a father’s faith in beating the odds even when all the imagined fears have apparently joined together. Without doubt, it is the most literarily accomplished of the seven stories in the collection. In a few there may be an over-reliance on dialogue, so that it becomes too serviceable in filling up the backdrop or even advancing the exposition. But they are all good and fast reads, because Garcia’s prose rhythm and cadence serve notice too of realism that is not stark but well-nigh authentic.

All of the stories end with gentle surprises. Or even when it’s expected, the closure still manages to take an offbeat turn. The title story is particularly haunting for its climax, which pulls out a TNT from his safe haven of a church and sends him inexorably in pursuit of a woman he just met, into a mythic river, right in the foreign city he wants to save because he is a good man who “fixes things.” The ephemeral but condensed love angle may be said to be rather contrived, however.

A glossary of terms and places is found at the end of the collection, explaining Pinoyese from balisong to pasyal, masarap to adobo frog legs… (“Daly City, south of San Francisco, has been called ‘Adobo City’ because it is said that in the evening, one can smell the aroma of the dish even driving through Highway 280.”) One wonders why the body text has to have Philippine place names in italics, however, while “barong” avoids being part of that leaning gauntlet. And an assiduous Pinoy editor could have prevented such misspellings as “Kainta,” “jurementado” and “minah” (Cainta, juramentado, mynah). Still and all, this is a fine literary debut for Rodney Dakita Garcia.

The Right Place and Other Stories certainly bolsters the notion that the future of Philippine literature in English may depend in large part on the produce of our Fil-Am siblings. Especially for first-generation immigrants, their wrenching, toughening and eventually enlightening experience of growing up in an adopted country often translates into excellent material for literature. Essential too are the quality of articulation and the astute choice of “literary attack” to transform that material into fine reading. Rodney
Dakita Garcia has it in him. I wish him luck and more power in his future fiction. All too obviously, he has the voice and the memory to gratify us all. The book is available at Amazon.com and Barnes & Noble stores in the USA. Or you can visit www.rodshacienda.com to read more about this auspicious
first effort.

In the company of broad shoulders

In this column, Alfred ("Krip") Yuson describes the week of the big writer's conference in Chicago. I didn't get a chance to fly-in until Saturday after my reading at the Library of Congress in DC. That weekend in Chicago, I did a reading at Rhythms - an all drums/poetry pub in the heart of the city. Krip's next column -which I'll forward shortly -- relates the weekend event.
Happy Easter!
Rod

(Part 1)
(for STAR April 5, 2004)

(Chicago)(Chicago) Imagine a score-strong company of Filipino poets and writers conjoining together, or dispersing among hundreds of American writers and academics of all stripes, shapes, and sizes. Place them in a grand venue such as the Palmer House Hilton in downtown Chicago, where the annual AWP
conference finds the participants crisscrossing the magnificent lobby at all hours, only occasionally noticing the altitudinous ceiling gilded with awesome frescoes. Have them take turns at manning a stall in the bookfair, and signing copies of their assorted titles crowding the table.

From March 24 to 27, these were the scenes that engaged this visitor and walk-in participant at AWP 2004 – formally spelled out as American Writers and Writing Programs Conference. I knew only a few, on the personal level, of the Filipino-American contingent (make that Fil-foreign, as three of our women of letters came all the way from Europe). A good number I had reviewed the books of, including some I would be meeting face to face for the first time. Everyone had a familiar name or byline by way of e-group communication.

At some point in that hectic, virtual orgy of simultaneous, multi-themed panel discussions, book launchings, readings, and constant networking, the Pinoy participation was as strong as anything I would have wished for.

It included prizewinning poet, Palanca Hall of Famer and transplanted academic Luisa Igloria of Old Dominion University in Virginia, the fictionist and editor M. Evelina Galang and the poet-editor Nick Carbo from University of Miami, the young and already accomplished poets Aimee Nezhukumatahil from Fredonia, NY and Patrick Rosal from New Jersey, the exemplary fiction writer Reine Arcache Melvin who flew in from Paris, creative non-fiction writers Edna Weisser from Germany and Ella Sanchez Wagemakers from Holland, and the outstanding poets Oliver de la Paz and Eugene Gloria. Among the late arrivals were poets Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes from San Francisco, Sarah Gambito, Joseph Legaspi and Jon Pineda (all familiar names as colleagues in the flips e-group), as well as
fiction writers Brian Ascalon Roley, Rick Barot, and Rodney Garcia, the lawyer, playwright and musical composer who flew in from Washington just to catch the last day of the gathering.

It marked the first time that AWP had invited such a formidable contingent of expatriate Filipino writers, and included several events to highlight Filipino American literature, and then some. Making it a double-first was the allotment of a stall in the bookfair for Philippine Expressions Bookshop, which Linda Nietes runs as a mail-order concern based in Palos Verdes, California.

Linda brought close to twenty titles to the exhibit-sale, and organized the book signing sessions as well as a special program outside the conference that catered to a predominantly Filipino American audience.
Helping her with the book selling was Estrella Ravelo Alamar, Founding President of the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, and who herself has written and edited the memorabilia book Pinoys in Chicago.

I came in on the second day, lugging my hefty bags directly to the hotel from a dawn arrival at O’Hare. Managing to convince the guard at the book exhibit area that I could go in an hour before it opened at 8:30 a.m., I found Linda’s stall right across one marked Poetry Flash (a quarterly poetry review newspaper), and parked all three pieces of back-breaking luggage under the Philippine literature table.

Bonnie Melvin was the first dearly familiar face I bussed. She had arrived late the previous night from Boston where she checked up on daughter Kassia, an Ivy League freshman. She came down from her room after breakfast, intent on reporting for book-signing duty. But the bookfair crowd was still thin, with most of the stalls still unmanned, including our table, where the books were sheathed under an Ilocano-weave blanket. So I wound up accompanying Bonnie to check out the roundtable discussion
on “The Future of Lo-Res MFA Programs” – and listening in briefly to how “low-residency writing programs are being viewed in the literary world, the academic world, and the larger world.” Hmm. A rather auspicious start for any delegate, that tentative glimpse at all those ho-hum worlds.

Hurrying back to the bookfair, I met Estrella and had the honor of helping her unveil the stall for the day. Furtively pushing aside the twin piles of Luisa Igloria’s recently launched anthology Not Home But Here, I made space for seven of my own authored and/or edited titles that would now lend a direct-from-Manila flavor to the groaning table. Anvil Publishing, Inc. and the UP Press would thus be more than ably represented for the next three days.

Eugene Gloria showed up and was surprised to see me behind the table. We hadn’t seen one another for decades, not since he logged in a year or two for a creative writing course in UP Diliman in the mid-’80s. But we had occasionally kept in touch. Eugene has won prestigious poetry prizes, and
I had raved in this space over his first collection, Drivers at the Short-Time Motel. Now he handed me a copy of a literary journal, the Spring 2004 issue of Prairie Schooner, which had three of his latest
poems. He was scheduled to lend his presence at a panel discussion the next day, billed as “Step-Mother Muse: Multilingual Poets Discuss Their Writing Processes,” together with Marilyn Chin whom I had met in Iowa in 1978 and who had wanted to visit Manila a couple of years ago. I made a
mental note to make time for that program event. It was great to see Eugene again.

Next came Nick Carbo, whom I had met only briefly at Tribeca’s trendy Nobu resto in 1997, when he was in the company of Luis Francia and Eric Gamalinda, two of Nobu investor Robert de Niro’s closest Manhattanite friends. Nick’s second poetry book, Secret Asian Man, I had also lauded sometime back in this space, and turned into regular teaching material cum inspiration for my poetry class in Ateneo. Nick’s latest project is the voluminous “Pinoy Poetics” he’s been collaborating on with Eileen Tabios,
to which I had contributed an essay late last year.

Luisa Igloria showed up soon enough, too, in time to meet cara a cara for the first time with Bonnie who had finished up on that Lo-Res eclat. The company was like that, familiar with one another’s works, having been regular e-mail correspondents on this or that communal book project. Later in the day, when we all met up at that grand lobby, with this keening observer documenting the greeting rituals on video, Edna Weisser and Bonnie Melvin would also exclaim mutually jubilant recognition; so with
Holland-based Ella Sanchez Wagemakers and M. Evelina Galang, a former Chicagoan and Fulbright grantee for a Manila project on comfort lolas a few years ago.

Like Luisa, who had also “done time” in the “city of big shoulders” (per mighty poet Carl Sandburg), Evelina was one of the moving spirits behind the strong Pinoy participation at AWP 2004. Luisa would launch the anthology Not Home But Here which she edited; Evelina would do the same with Screaming Monkeys, an anthology of multi-ethnic works anent which a program discussion would take place on the fourth day, intriguingly billed as “Monkey See, Monkey Do, Monkey Write: Word and Image as Social Change.” Evelina would lead that panel, helped along by contributors Oliver de la Paz, author of Names Above Houses (a poetry collection I’ve been dying to read and review), and Ricco Villanueva Siasoco, formerly of Boston, who had contributed to the anthology FIL-AM: The Filipino American Experience,
which was edited by ahem truly and launched in Chicago in 1999. For her part, Luisa would lead the panel discussion billed as “At Home in the World: Writing from the Filipino Diaspora,” together with Bonnie, Edna, Elsa, Barbara and Jon Pineda, who could only show up for the last day.

Unfortunately, both panel discussions were scheduled for the exact same hour and day, so that the Pinoy barangay would be divided. But it was that kind of program fecundity and diversity that was at vigorous play in the three days of the conference proper, with participants scurrying to and fro to sneak in at one event after another, or shuttle back and forth to catch parts of whatever caught one’s fancy.

I myself had underscored the titles of several discussions I wanted to drop in on, such as “Roundtable: Poetic Influences” which would feature big-ticket poets Maxine Kumin and Marvin Bell among the panelists; “Generation: A Poetry Reading by Two Generations of Asian American Poets” with Marilyn Chin, Kimiko Hahn and Meena Alexander, among others; “The World Comes to Iowa” with the new International Writing Program Director Christopher Merrill leading the panel; “Ourselves, Our Betters: Teaching Difference in the Creative Writing Workshop” with Eugene Gloria and Oliver de la Paz as panelists; “Sarabande Tenth Anniversary Celebration” with Rick Barot; “Tia Chucha Press Reading” with Nick Carbo; “The Tyranny of Niceness: Tales from the ‘It’s All Good’ Workshop” (“… what happens when sugar cannot cure a manuscript in need of honest criticism?”); “A Staged Reading: Houdini, A Musical by Muriel Rukeyser” (this lady was an early favorite of mine among contemporary American poets); “Poetry and Research” (“Robert Frost wrote that scholars get their learning in a linear,
logical method, while knowledge clings to poets randomly, like burrs. But what happens to this distinction when the poet is writing poems based on historical, biographical, geographical, or scientific information?”); “Losing the Hyphen: Hyphenated Writers Discuss Whether It Could and Should Ever Go Away” with Rick Barot among the multilingual writer-panelists (“At what point do you simply become an American writer?”); “The End of Philosophy, the Beginning of Poetry”; and the one I most wanted to get into, “Perfect in Their Art: Poems on Boxing from Homer to Ali,” after a recent anthology
of the same title, edited by Robert Hedin and Michael Waters for Southern Illinois University Press.

But alas, no cloning machine was evident anywhere at the hotel, and far be it for me to display bi-location powers while still wrestling with jetlag. When I tried to peek in on the global Iowa influence, much to my dismay, I found the door locked. But I was only 10 minutes late. Hmm. It could have
been an indication of how Mr. Merrill now runs the IWP, with an iron fist and a stickler-for-clockwork manner. How can the world come to Iowa when the door is closed?

What I did manage to take in together with Luisa and Bonnie, with much delight, was the module on “I for an Eye: Women Poets, Confessions” which featured panelists Denise Duhamel (Nick Carbo’s not-so-secret half), Aimee Nezhukumatathil, Kim Addonizio and Susan Browne. The come-on description
read thus: “Female poets have often been denigrated for choosing personal subject matter or focusing on the self. What are the opportunities, strategies, and limitations of such writing?”)

Had a field day video-shooting both Denise and Aimee. Readers of this column will recall a recent rave review of Aimee’s Miracle Fruit, her stunning first collection of poetry. Proving to be just as engaging as a speaker, with sparkling eyes growing even wilder and larger as she launched into mock-girlish expostulations, she regaled the audience of some five hundred who gathered in one of the larger halls.

I hadn’t realized that I had reviewed, positively for the most part, the works of nearly half of the Pinoy attendees, until I saw a full dozen of these young, dynamic writers arrayed behind a long table at a theater in De Paul University on Friday evening, March 26. From left to right, there were Joseph Legaspi, Sarah Gambito, Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes, Oliver de la Paz, Aimee, Evelina, Nick, Luisa, Patrick, Ella Wagemakers, Bonnie and Edna Weisser.

Legaspi’s and Gambito’s works I have yet to acquaint myself with, albeit I’ve heard nothing but good word about them both. Barbara’s first poetry book has long been promised, but has yet to find itself in my hands. Oliver’s recent title, as I’ve mentioned, I’ve also been hankering for. Ella’s work I’m unfamiliar with, but I’m looking forward to seeing her again in Rotterdam in June for the 35th International Poetry Festival. Same with Edna; the essay excerpt she read at De Paul, on the travails of
cooking bagoong in Germany, promises great good humor.

Besides Aimee’s Miracle Fruit and Nick’s Secret Asian Man, reviewed in this space have been Evelina’s short story collection Her Wild American Self, Patrick’s Uprock Headspin Scramble & Dive, Luisa’s Not Home But Here, and Bonnie’s A Normal Life & Other Stories. All of these books were
also made available, thanks to Linda and Estrella, outside the university theater for the “celebration of Filipino and Filipino American writing with a panel discussion on ‘Filipinos in the Diaspora: Beyond Identity and Nostalgia.’”

Co-sponsored by the University of the Philippines Club of America and Philippine Expressions Bookshop in cooperation with the Philippine Consulate General of Chicago, De Paul University’s Office of Academic Affairs and Asian Cultural Exchange, the event saw the largest gathering of the Pinoy writers present in Chicago for the AWP. Count in Wilfredo Pascua Sanchez, too, whose New and Later Poems has also been reviewed in this column. Our good old buddy Willybog stayed on the audience side, right behind the guest of honor, Consul General Blesila C. Cabrera.

Then too there were several unpublished writers among the audience, who introduced themselves and their own creative efforts. To my mind, however, it was the sight of the full dozen of dynamic young poets and writers seated before the panel table that represented the tremendous future of
Filipino expatriate writing, indeed of Philippine writing in English.

Here were the voices that bespoke promise and fulfillment, from Aimee again regaling one and all with a comic account of her mixed parentage, with an Indian father (“Of the dot kind, not the feathers…” while pointing to her forehead) and a Filipina mother from whom she learned curses in Tagalog, which led to a reading of her “Diablo” poem – to Patrick with an effective rap-style reading of his “orange” poem. The rest were no less riveting, and it became clear toward the middle of the extended program that a magical night was unfolding.

Each one spoke eloquently of what it meant and felt to be a hyphenated writer, or read with memorable efficacy as a universal one. Each one had broad shoulders bearing the great burden of further challenge, even as ironically they all looked crunched up on the narrow dais, pressed into their seats close to one another. The metaphor of a tight if generous fellowship came to mind. This company of broad shoulders signified a strong circle, from which the future of our literature would radiate, and it would start in our kind of town, that ever movable feast that is OUR town, here, there, everywhere.

(Part 2)
(for STAR April 12, 2004)

(Chicago) Such regret: the Associated Writers and Writing Programs conference or AWP 2004 held in this fine city from March 24 to 27 proved too busy, too brimming of a program sked, that I failed to catch for posterity some direct soundbites from the score of expatriate Filipino writers assembled. There I was with a trusty videocam, with the intention of documenting the special gathering of Pinoy poets and writers, and I blew much of the signal opportunity.

Blame it on living in a suitcase, or in this instance, three large bags filled with books and appurtenances apart from clothes to last a fortnight, and of course the usual assortment of token pasalubong -- from hefty cans of Purefoods corned beef to a strung-up bundle of Chocnuts. The latter would eventually be divvied up between old buddy Luisa Igloria, who had invited me to attend the annual event, and the mother-in-law of my kid bro Alan, who has made Chicago his home over the past ten years. He and his wife Filma – she it was who took the trouble to pick me up at O’Hare at six in the morning – would receive in turn the Antonio Pueo chocolate tablets and the taba ng talangka in cans, among others.

Much of the weight in my luggage was momentarily owed to varying numbers of book copies that Linda Nietes urged me to bring to add to her Philippine Expressions Bookshop table at the AWP bookfair....

On the last day of the writers’ conference, on March 27, the illustrious Pinoy assembly had to divide itself between simultaneous events featuring a discussion on Filipino diasporic literature, with a panel composed of Igloria, Melvin, Weisser, Sanchez-Wagemakers, Reyes and Pineda, and another on the controversial developments that eventually motivated M. Evelina Galang to put together Screaming Monkeys. These involved what was initially seen as an unfortunate slur committed by a Milwaukee Magazine feature writer, who upon reviewing a modest Filipino resto, had referred to the Pinay owner’s hyperactive tyke as a “rambunctious monkey.” Other Asian-American writers joined the Fil-Ams in coming up with a strong literary anthology as a result of the incident.

At that point I had managed to interview, on videocam, only Bonnie Melvin and Linda Nietes, but felt sure that I would have crack at the rest of the Pinoy writers, in particular Nick, Jon, Pat, Oliver, Evelina, Edna, Ella, Barbara Jane and Aimee. I was under the impression that everyone who had participated at the De Paul event would also be attending the last scheduled informal gig, a reading at Rhythms bar on Randolph St. that would be hosted by the Pintig theater group. It turned out however that most everyone else decided to run off to other farewell-night engagements.

Luisa showed up, to claim her Chocnuts. She was promptly backed up against the brick wall outside Rhythms for an impromptu assessment of what had transpired for four days in Chicago to further the cause of Philippine literature abroad.

Washington, D.C.-based Rodney Garcia, whose first book, The Right Place & Other Stories (reviewed in this space on Feb. 16), flew in just for the reading, which went so well in between djembe drumming sessions that involved the Pinoy community’s children aged 4 to 20, and who composed Pintig’s spin-off group Circa.

Djembe drumming was of West African provenance, explained the affable Ging Mascarenas who had helped form Pintig and Circa, and whose extended family, nay, clan, was thoroughly represented in both groups. The kids had the whole of spring and summer to bond together while undergoing creative workshops in theater and all sorts of performance. A djembe expert guided the bar crowd, seated on tiers in an amphitheater-type setting, through the vigorous palm-pounding exercises on various kinds of congas – “thum, thum, tastes like chicken…” It was the sort of audience engagement that I thought our own Pinikpikan Band back home would do well to conduct, given a similarly splendid venue.

In between the bookending sessions, Luisa and I read our poems, and Rodney brought up the rear with excerpts from his stories that quoted poetry. A fun night it was to conclude our participation in the Chicago get-together, with a lot of our books sold too at Rhythms, before a signing session wound it all up.