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Fascination with Jewish culture distinct in new collection of short stories
By Maricar CP Hampton It’s not often that a Filipino author writes fiction featuring Jewish characters. In “Anna and the Exodus Moon… and other Stories,” Gene Del Carmen breaks ground through the narratives of Anna whose family languishes in a concentration camp, and the teacher Mr. Cohen whose happy-go-lucky son does not appreciate the value […]
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Taking control of my life (Part 2)
By Ana Bel Mayo Several factors were critical in my taking control of my life in Italy. Initially, I used sign language to communicate. Then, I started to learn Italian from television, cartoons, and magazine. I enrolled in Italian language classes. I also became a student at a European private academy and paid my tuition […]
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Five dollars in my pocket (Part 1)
By Ana Bel Mayo While I was in Iraq, an Iraqi woman read my future in my cup of coffee and told me that I would find my destiny in a country with many flowers. It was 1984. At the middle of the Iran-Iraq war that started in 1980. I worked at the Information Center […]
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A touch of dry humor in Gina Apostol’s latest novel ‘Insurrecto’
By Eileen R. Tabios Gina Apostol’s novel “Insurrecto” started receiving plaudits as soon as it was released, including citation in Publishers’ Weekly’s Best Books of 2018. Praise, the novel does deserve, for its masterful language as it presents a multi-layered and consistently energetic disquisition on a Samar Massacre during the Philippine-American War. From the 1901 […]
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Lying, passing, hiding: An undocumented immigrant’s life
By Cristina DC Pastor Pulitzer Award-winning journalist Jose Antonio Vargas remembers writing his first book –“not a memoir” – as he was kicked out of his ‘Frazier-style’ loft in downtown L.A. shortly after Donald Trump was elected president in 2016. The building manager warned him that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) might show up in […]
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Nicole Ponseca publishes a cookbook, her ‘manifesto of identity’
By Cristina DC Pastor “I Am a Filipino” is best remembered as Carlos P. Romulo’s patriotic anthem. Where I went to school back in the day, we were required to memorize it and declaim it in front of the class, complete with knowing when to pause and when to enunciate the dramatic phrases. More than […]
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Consulate’s night of poetry honors Jose Garcia Villa
“First, a poem must be magical, Then musical as a seagull. It must be a brightness moving And hold secret a bird’s flowering It must be slender as a bell, And it must hold fire as well.” — First, A Poem Must Be Magical And so it was that Consul General Claro Cristobal recited one […]
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Filipino Ka Ba?
“The entire course, and meaning, of my life changed with three words,” says Christopher Holl, author of ‘The Kano, The Teacher & The Lola: A Filipino-American Fable.’ “Filipino ka ba. Three words that completely changed the trajectory of my life were Tagalog.” Recently published, American-born and bred Holl describes the book as a celebration of […]
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A cookbook launches in D.C., a food app in California
Filipino Americans across the country have food in their hearts and on their minds: What we eat, how to cook them, and which restaurants to find the best Filipino dishes. In Washington D.C., a new book on Philippine cuisine, “The New Filipino Kitchen: Stories and Recipes from around the Globe,” made its debut on September […]