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Book gives voice to the ‘silent generation’ of Filipino Americans
‘Vanishing Filipino Americans: The Bridge Generation’ By Peter Jamero University Press of America May 2011 By Lorenzo Paran III Any Filipino American worth his salt can tell you about the ‘manong’ generation, the group of mostly single Filipino males that in the 1920s and 30s began the great wave of Filipino immigration into the U.S. […]
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Feel-good book launch goes from classy to campy
How is it that people who attended the May 30 launch of Ruben Nepales’ “My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood” went from being moved to tears to foot-tapping to the beat of “Ocho Ocho?” Because Broadway actress Ali Ewoldt was there, and her soul-stirring rendition of West Side Story’s “Somewhere” gave the crowd goose […]
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An ‘evocative’ collection of diaspora stories
By Maria Batayola “Hanggang sa Muli: Homecoming Stories for the Filipino Soul” Compiled and edited by Reni Roxas Tahanan Books May 2012 Reni Roxas, publisher of Tahanan Books, hits a home run with her new book, “Hanggang Sa Muli: Homecoming Stories for the Filipino Soul.” It is wonderful chicken soup for the soul for Filipinos, […]
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Journalist mines Hollywood for Filipino A-listers, artists
Once you get hold of the book, “My Filipino Connection: The Philippines in Hollywood,” it’s easy to understand why Ruben Nepales is not your run-of-the mill entertainment journalist. He asks questions many celebrities dread most: the difficult ones. And asks them without trepidation and with great fondness for his sources. To Michael Caine, he asked […]
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Martial law literature and memory politics
Retrospective memoirs on Philippine martial law in the ‘70s are hitting the bookshelves. “Subversive Lives” is a family’s memoir about the Marcos years written by siblings Nathan Gilbert and Susan Quimpo. In a YouTube interview, Nathan Gilbert provided a snapshot through a revolutionary thread running through the Quimpo siblings’ lives. Of the 10 Quimpo brothers […]
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The ’emotional journey’ through Harvard and beyond
By Cristina DC Pastor ‘Lonely at the Top’ By Christina Lewis Halpern Kindle Single, Amazon Digital Services January 2012 Christina Lewis Halpern wrote an e-memoir that ranks among Amazon’s Top 10 in the categories of Business and Biography & History not far from the latest Steve Jobs bio. In “Lonely at the Top,” the journalist […]
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Gitmo meets Fashion Week post-9/11
From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant By Alex Gilvarry Penguin Group Out by January 9, 2012 Manhattan and Guantanamo blend nicely, and humorously, in this debut novel by Staten Island-born FilAm writer Alex Gilvarry. “From the Memoirs of a Non-Enemy Combatant” fuses the themes of fashion and terrorism through the eyes of Filipino designer […]
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Career vs family, according to the Hukbalahap Amazons
Amazons of the Huk Rebellion: Gender, Sex and Revolution in the Philippines By Vina A. Lanzona University of Wisconsin Press 2009 By Lorial Crowder It began as a dare and led to an impromptu meeting two weeks later with Professor Vina A. Lanzona of the University of Hawaii Manoa, the author of “Amazons of the […]
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Read a good book lately? We try
By Cristina DC Pastor I’ve been reading “A Year by the Sea” for almost two years now. The book by Joan Anderson about a journalist who takes a sabbatical from marriage has been sitting in a little corner of my bedroom along with other books on food, true crime, politics and the Taliban. It’s a […]