REVIEW GROWING UP FILIPINO:
PHILIPPINE LITERATURE
“DIYANDI” Freeman Magazine, for July 2003
"A Book-Launching
in UCLA"
by Linda Kintanar-Alburo
Before returning
to
Baby Manguerra-Brainard had just finished editing a pioneering
collection called Growing Up Filipino:
Stories for Young Adults and it was for its launching last May that
I went to UCLA. The book has twenty-nine short stories, some
partly autobiographical, taking up from 3 to 13 pages each. Although all of
the twenty-nine writers focused on a
significant adolescent experience
in a bildungsroman
form of narrative, they are of three
sorts: the Filipinos in the Philippines (including well-known names like Jimmy
Abad, Krip Yuson, Jing Hidalgo, Tony Tan, and Gilda Fernando), Philippine-born
emigres (again including the well-known like Linda
Casper, Bert Florentino, Marianne Villanueva, Oscar
Penaranda, and Mar Puatu), and Fil-Ams (familiar like
Vince Gotera, Evelina
Santos, Connie Maraan who's at DLSU; and new ones
like Veronica Santos, Edgar Poma, and Brian Roley).
Among the contributors are three Cebuanos:
Baby Brainard herself, co-WILA Ruby Enario-Carlino
and
Despite its title, the book is also for adults. Its five sections on
Family, Angst, Friendship, Love and Home carry us through the different ways
that a young Filipino (or Filipino-American) negotiates life. Understandably, many of the stories by the emigres look backward nostalgically, like Paula Angeles' "Lola
Sim's Handkerchief" which tells us of a young girl's recollection
of going to the market with her lola back home and
cooking sinigang
for the family (I asked her if they cooked sinigang with carrots like she describes
in the story and she said yes, or perhaps she forgot?).
Personally, I find the book an enjoyable read not only for the stories
with their gamut of emotions accompanying "first" experiences (love
and kissing, physical violence, deceit, encounter with the NPA, gay club,
seeing agta and santilmo, camp life, tuli, losing a favorite
toy, etc.). The brief notes before each story that inform the unfamiliar reader
(apparently for an American audience) are gems. Take the note to
Paula Angeles' story on "Lively Philippine Markets", which
ends: "For safekeeping, old-fashioned Filipinas will tie their money
in a handkerchief and pin this small bundle inside their blouses next to their
bosoms."
But interesting
to us would be those notes by the Fil-Ams: For example,
Veronica Montes writes, to introduce the
story "Lolo's Bride," of the Filipino American family:
"At my Lolo and Lola's small home in Daly City, California, certain
things could be counted on: an abundance of food (naturally), a visitor or
two from the Philippines, the fact that you would be forced against your will
to sing in front of everyone, and---best of all---an ongoing undercurrent
of drama provided by the strong, sometimes overwhelming personalities of certain
women in my family." There's also "Filipinos in
As to the
Cebuano pieces, Baby's uses the patintero game as metaphor (as in a poem by Cora Almerino's)
for the love pursuit. Ruby's is more painful because of treachery on the part
of a man who takes advantage of the loneliness of the narrator's Aunt Julia,
who is dying. Alex' "The Spirits of Kanlanti"
says farewell to the foreigner parish priest, an important personage in a
small town in
When it gets
here, do grab a copy!
***
Writer’s Bio:
Linda Kintanar-Alburo is Director,
E-mail questions/comments to
cbrainard@aol.com
Copyright © 2003 Cecilia
Manguerra Brainard