The Philippines may be the only country in the world whose war for independence began with a novel – and a first novel at that – Rizal’s Noli Me Tangere," said writer Gina Apostol on Friday, March 26, during a Publication Party held at the Asian Pacific American Legal Center (APALC) in downtown Los Angeles. Apostol was one of four Filipino-American writers whose books were launched in the annual event organized by mail order bookshop Philippine Expressions. The three other writers were Peter Bacho, Arturo P. Garcia, and Florante Peter Ibanez.
"Our notion of freedom began as fiction, and that explains why is remains an illusion," Apostol quipped. Her novel, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, is a historical novel set in 1898 when Filipinos revolted against the Spanish regime. "The novel I ended up writing is a comic historical novel, which began with the visit of Dr. Pio Valenzuela to the island of Dapitan (in Mindanao) where Dr. Jose Rizal was exiled," Apostol recalls. She found most of her materials from books about the Philippine revolution, which she researched for five years.
"I found in one of these books about a very interesting story about a blind man, Raymundo Mata, who was taken by Dr. Valenzuela to Dapitan as a decoy patient so that they could visit Rizal (a doctor). I found it interesting – and a little ridiculous – that they would take an actual blind man to be a decoy to visit Rizal. I looked for information on Mata, and there was absolutely nothing. He was mentioned by Valenzuela four times only as a blind man. It was a very rich place for a novelist because you could make everything up," Apostol explained.
"I needed some money, and I was kind of bored with my job writing editorials for a newspaper, so I started pounding out a couple of chapters. I hoped that would bring a couple of thousand bucks," reveals writer Peter Bacho, who penned Leaving Yesler, a novel about an adolescent Creole man who was adopted by a Filipino man in a town near Seattle, Washington. Yesler is a coming-of-age novel by multi-awarded Bacho, who was born in Seattle. It is a remarkable story filled with tension and magical realism.
It took Arturo P. Garcia nine years to finish writing the book Unrecognized American Veterans: Memory, History, Equity for Filipino World War II Veterans. he co-wrote the book with Peter Cuasay, Ph.D. "It took so long because we were in a lot of struggles, contradictions, and debates as for the title of the book," explained Garcia, who is the national coordinator of Justice for Filipino American Veterans (JFAV). "So finally we settled for the title Unrecognized American Veterans just to prove a point that despite a lot of brouhaha that said the Filipino veterans were finally recognized and given $15,000 each, if you read the fine print – just like in credit cards – the Filipino veterans only got recognized on that law," Garcia said. "The law that removed the benefits and recognition for Filipino veterans – the Rescission Act – is still in place."
Florante Peter Ibanez and his wife, Roselyn Estepa Ibanez, are the authors of Filipinos in Carson and the South Bay (Arcadia Publishing, SC). The Ibanezes sought out family albums, organizational records, and personal stories to present the evocative history of their community in their book. Filipinos is part of the series, Images of America, and it focuses on a very significant and diverse city of Carson that is home to many Filipino Americans. Four other writers of Filipino descent attended the book party, including Carlene Sobrino Bonnivier (Autobiography of a Stranger); Carina Monica Montoya (Filipinos in Hollywood, Los Angeles’s Historic Filipinotown, Let’s Cook Adobo!); Katrin de Guia, Ph.D (Kapwa: The Self in the Other, Worldviews, Lifestyles of Filipino Culture-Bearers); and Leny Mendoza Strobel, Ph.D (Coming Full Circle: The Process of Decolonization Among Post-1965 Filipino Americans, A Book of Her Own: Words and Images to Honor the Babaylan, and a soon to be published book, Babaylan: Filipinos and the Call of the Indigenous, which will be released on April 17, 2010).
Philippine Expressions annually celebrates Author’s Night on the eve of the Los Angeles Times Festival of Books, which will be held this year on Friday, April 23 until Sunday, April 25. Owner Linda Nietes founded Philippine Expressions Bookshop in 1984 to showcase Filipino American writings that needed a home in the United States. Please e-mail Linda at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it . n
( Published April 7, 2010 in MDWK Magazine p. 5 )
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