The Fil-Am literary scene

We must congratulate our expatriate brothers and sisters, this time specifically our men and women of letters in the United States, for quite a coup they’re pulling off this weekend.

"Moving Archipelago: A Century of Writing Filipino America," a literary event consisting of a conference and readings, will be conducted this weekend, Nov. 10 and 11, at NYU’s SCPS Conference Center at the historic Woolworth Bldg. in New York City.

The two-day program kicks off with a Friday reception in celebration of 100 years of Filipino immigration to the US. The Centennial Planning Committee, composed of poet-writers Luis H. Francia, Bino A. Realuyo, and Joseph O. Legaspi, has collaborated with Kundiman and the A/P/A Institute to mount the reception which will feature readings.

Apart from the committee members, other readers will be the novelists Peter Bacho, Brian Ascalon Roley and Sabina Murray, fiction writer Lara Stapleton, poet-scholars Nerissa S. Balce and Fidelito Cortes, Rick Barot, R.A. Villanueva, Luisa A. Igloria and Eugene Gloria. The last two have won prestigious poetry prizes in literary competitions.

The series of panel discussions on Saturday will allow these major Filipino writers across the US, from California to New York City, "to exchange stories, discuss ideas, and explore the varied meanings of literary texts. Just as importantly, the distinguished gathering will celebrate what has preceded (their generation) and the rich but ambivalent promise of what lies ahead."

The first panel discussion, on the topic "Where Have We Been?" will be moderated by Francia and have Bacho, Balce, Igloria and Stapleton as discussants.

The second panel, moderated by Realuyo, the best-selling author of the debut novel The Umbrella Country, will discuss "From Manong to Hip-Hop: Immigrant Stories," with Sarah Gambito, Leslie Ann Hobayan, Oscar Peñaranda, and Roley as panelists.

Panel 3: "Rendering the Invisible Visible," will have Legaspi as moderator, with Barot, Gloria, Elda Rotor, and Eileen R. Tabios.

Panel 4: "Where Are We Going?" will have Allan Isaac as moderator, and Nick Carbo, Andrew Hsiao, Murray and Villanueva as speakers.

Following the whole-day discussions will be the wind-up socials and closing readings, featuring Gloria, Murray, Realuyo, Peñaranda, Tabios, and Ninotchka Rosca. Our good friends Peñaranda and Tabios are flying in from San Francisco. And we’re glad to hear that "La Niña" or Notch has deigned to share of her time, which seems mostly given over to advocacy work against the trafficking of women, to commune with her fellow Pinoy literati abroad.

Of this hearty crew that represents the most dynamic Filipino voices vying in the large and highly competitive literary arena in the States, the only ones we have yet to meet personally are Peter Bacho, Bryan Ascalon Roley, Leslie Ann Hobayan, Sabina Murray, A. R. Villanueva, Edna Rotor and Allan Isaac. The rest we’ve either known for a long time or met a couple of years ago at the AWP (American Writers & Publishers) conference held in Chicago.

Some of the books authored by a good number of these poets and writers we’ve already reviewed in this space, namely those by Peñaranda, Rosca, Francia, Igloria, Carbo, Realuyo, Stapleton, Tabios, Roley, and Murray.

The cited readers and panelists make up a strong contingent, but many more writers of Pinoy stock, for some reason or other, will be missed during this red-letter event. Maybe Luis Cabalquinto, Jessica Hagedorn, Linda Faigao-Hall, Eric Gamalinda and Paolo Javier, all also based in Manhattan, are too busy producing new work. The excellent poets Patrick Rosal and Aimee Nezhukumatathil are absent from the list for reasons we know and will disclose below.

Other outstanding poets, fictionists and dramatists who are doing very well in the US are Noel Alumit, Gina Apostol, Jeannie Barroga, Michelle Bautista, Marivi Soliven Blanco, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, Reggie Cabico, E.R. Escober, Rodney Garcia, Theodore S. Gonzalves, Vince Gotera, Reme Grefalda, Tess Uriza Holthe, Fatima Lim-Wilson, R. Zamora Linmark, Mike Maniquiz, Han Ong, Oliver de la Paz, Jon Pineda, Vicente L. Rafael, Barbara Jane Reyes, Jose Edmundo Ocampo Reyes, Marisa de los Santos, Marcelline Santos-Taylor, Michelle Cruz Skinner, Irene Suico Soriano, Sofia M. Starnes, Janet Stickmon, Leny M. Strobel, Joel Barraquiel Tan, Angela Narciso Torres, Rowena Tiempo Torrevillas, Linda Ty-Casper, Jean Vengua, and Marianne Villanueva.

Now that’s quite a number, and we’ve even missed out on so many more. But these names/bylines, and most of the rest, we’re including in more extensive form in an academic essay titled "Filipino Diasporic Literature," written for a book on Asian Englishes that will see publication in Hong Kong by next year. In this extended essay, our US-based writers are joined by Filipinos in other lands who also provide a literary cast to our diaspora.

By the by, the Filipino-American literature conference in New York is co-sponsored by The Reginald F. Lewis Foundation, the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program, and the NYU History Department, with support from the Asian American Writers’ Workshop, Asia Society, and the NYU International Filipino Association.

We mentioned earlier how Patrick Rosal, author of the stunning poetry collection Uprock Headspin Scramble and Dive, and Aimee Nezhukumatathil, author of the prize-winning Miracle Fruit, won’t be making it to the conference. Credit that to yearend travel plans.

Patrick is currently in Baguio City, on a long-planned balikbayan trip. Later this month he will spend a few days in Manila, and aficionados of good poetry, especially performance poetry, would do well to catch his reading at Mag:net Katips on Nov. 21. Previous readings conducted by Fil-Am balikbayans at the same venue featured Rodney Garcia last year and Anthem Salgado several weeks ago.

On the last week of January, it’ll be Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s turn to delight us with a reading there, and maybe at others hosted by the AdMU English Department and Likhaan: UP Institute of Creative Writing.

Aimee, who was born in Chicago to a Filipina mother and an East Indian father, will be visiting for the Christmas season with her husband, whom she’s introducing to her folks up north. An assistant professor of English at State University of New York-Fredonia, Aimee has gained numerous awards for her poetry. Miracle Fruit won the Tupelo Press First Book Prize, Foreword Magazine’s Poetry Book of the Year Award, and the Global Filipino Literary Award, among others.

In my Poetry classes in the Ateneo, I make sure to hold up the works of both Rosal and Nezhukumatathil as excellent examples of the literature we’re producing overseas, to much acclaim.