"A country that knows no borders; it’s a country of the heart,” said revolutionary poet Tony Robles, about his beautiful short story, In My Country; which was published in Mythium Magazine (www.mythiumlitmag.com) and nominated by Mythium editor Crystal Wilkinson (www.crystalwilkinson.com) for the esteemed literary honor known as the Pushcart Prize.
The Pushcart Prize is an American literary prize by Pushcart Press that honors the best “poetry, short fiction, essays or literary whatnot” published in the small presses. Magazine and small book press editors are invited to nominate up to 6 works they have feature and anthologies of the selected works have been published since 1976.
This is a well-deserved honor for Tony, who is a deeply rooted community storyteller and poet of the people, who follows in the footsteps of his uncle, the late Manilatown poet and historian, Al Robles.
“In My Country was inspired by poverty and migrant scholar Jose Sermeno of the Apollo Hotel located in San Francisco’s Mission District,” Tony said as he described his connection to the protagonist from In My Country. Tony went on to point out that Jose was a tenant representative and worked with other migrants in poverty like himself who were working as day laborers.
Tony’s dedication to the community, ethics and resistance began as a young child with the teaching he received from his family of brilliant, conscious artists and organic revolutionaries who, like Tony, supported their families with work in the janitorial or service industry. Throughout his life of work and in the last two years, Tony has worked as a security guard. Through his own lens this “revolutionary worker scholar,” as is the title of his POOR Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork column, has penned a series of brilliant narrative essays and short stories about workers, workplace injustices and peoples struggling with poverty, homelessnes and racism in the US.
From being a tenant organizer for elders in poverty in the Tenderloin, Mission and Manilatown districts of San Francisco to being the co-editor and contributor of one of the most revolutionary media organizations in the nation, POOR Magazine/Prensa POBRE, Tony has never compromised his values, his community or the voices of his multi-racial family of Filipino- and African-descended resistance fighters based in the increasingly gentrified San Francisco Bay Area.
In addition to working as a tenant advocate and community journalist, Tony authored two bilingual (English and Tagalog) children’s books, published on Children’s Book Press, Lakas and The Manilatown Fish and Lakas and The Makibaka Hotel.
Tony is also a teacher and playwright who authored a play, Hotel Voices, which he co-produced with his wife, Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, co-founder and co-editor of POOR Magazine. Hotel Voices is an innovative theatre production which took place in the Single Room Occupancy Hotels of San Francisco and included a 20 week scriptwriting and performance workshop and was performed to sold-out audiences across the Bay Area in 2009.
The phrase “In my country,” according to Tony, means in my heart, and with his heart, the protagonist of the story, like Tony himself, brings his country, his heart and his humanity into the struggle for place, home, memory and justice into the increasingly cold and bereft land where all of us poor workers, migrants, elders and families struggle to dwell. The Pushcart Prize winners are to be announced in May 2011. (AJPress)
*Many thanks to USAsian Wire and Lisa “Tiny” Gray-Garcia, co-founder and co-editor of POOR Magazine (www.poormagazine.org).
(www.asianjournal.com)
(SF Jan 14-20, 2011) SomethingFilipino pg.2)
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