I’d be terribly remiss if I didn’t post a short blurb on Stories High, a series of short plays on its (unfortunately) last weekend at the fab Bindlestiff Studio. If the cast and crew could bottle the energy and enthusiasm in the tiny ‘stiff space (the first night) and sell it, they’d be raking it in (with Kanye West stealing Max Romeo for Jay-Z on the soundtrack).

At the core of these six fine plays are the middle three. (The first, alas, is exactly what you’d get if you threw a bunch of unbearable stoner spoken-word macktivists in a room, Abigail’s Party-style — or better, No Exit.) Play number 3 — the tense and well-acted “Borders,” written by Conrad Panganiban — nicely pulls the carpet from underneath the audience; the real trick here is not the dialogue, but the way the subdued emotional content of the acting suddenly makes a sharp, effective pivot into creepy territory. (It’s also preceded by a romantic comedy of errors, which lulls the viewers into foolish complacency.) “The Rub,” written by Ed Mabasa, while stretched out maybe a little too long, is pitch-perfect noir using the barest of essentials: gun molls, a McGuffin, a worn-out gumshoe, and best of all, dialogue that positively crackles with electricity.

Conceptually, the best of the lot was “Final Purification,” written by Anton Delfino, which — again, the sequencing is perfect, since it follows “The Rub” — begins with a familiar sight: a bare table, a handcuffed prisoner (in this case, my former student Lyle Prijoles), a lamp swinging overhead. But I won’t spoil the excellent Law and Order setup here; it’s enough to say that it’s devilish fun.

Stories High ends on a high farcical note with “Lucy’s Kitchen and Alex’s Garage,” which can’t exactly be described well, except that it involves The Honeymooners, eczema, two bobble-head figures (one is actually alive, but you’d have to watch it for yourself), Grease, a pair of Nikes, peppercorns in adobo, an unlikely suitor (in this case, my former student Paolo Silvestre, whose knack for singing and dancing I had no idea lurked within him), the sad lives of eBayers, and the Barrel Man. I can’t evaluate the dialogue that well, I’m afraid; I couldn’t hear all of it since the audience (and I) were breaking down in laughter.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Most Bay Area Filipinos would know exactly what Bienvenido Santos is crankily writing about here; I’d have to stress, however, that the newspaper in question has revamped itself and has, in the last few years, produced some of the most arresting, in-depth pieces of journalism on the Filipino American community. (Except for some of the stray issues from the late ’60s, and whatever else missing from the Berkeley archives, I think I’ve read almost every issue cover-to-cover, and still do.) The passages below, are from Santos’ wonderfully-titled 1987 novel What The Hell For You Left Your Heart In San Francisco, which would perfectly with Ver’s entry on great titles. (I still need to think of a snappy nickname for you, Ver).

What sort of material would they want the magazine to contain? Photos of beauty queens from the islands now in residence in this country, well groomed and heavily rouged and definitely past their prime if they had had any prime at all? Good looking tots of obvious Philippine descent in their Sunday best having a birthday party? A seemingly endless listing of names in bold type throwing parties of all sorts, anniversaries and bienvenidas not to mention despedidas? So and so has just arrived from the Philippines or leaving for the islands on a visit. This dull-faced youngster has just passed an exam where a thousand others have made it?

And more:

A cursory glance at a typical issue of two of the most widely circulated Philippine publications in this country showed practically everything my magazine should not contain.

Start with pictures: photos across an eight-column page of convention delegates…, Philippine-American community organization officers, their right hands raised in the act of being sworn into office, usually by a diminutive consul or ambassador of the Philippine embassy or consulate or someone pinch-hitting for them; men and women receiving plaques, trophies, ribbons, cups… usually surrounded by smiling relatives and well wishers…. Weddings where even the bridegroom smiles, lifting the bride’s veil for a not so chaste kiss, or the bride shovelling a piece of cake into the groom’s wide open mouth. A christening party where everybody’s name is printed, occupation, regional ancestry, from left to right.

Yes, they’re somewhat mean potshots, but it’s a sentiment that was shared by many of my Daly City interviewees as well. It’s also, unfortunately, accurate content analysis. So hey, I’ll quote myself here: “Despite its ambitions to a kind of transnationalism, the [name of newspaper omitted for now] also functions not unlike a small community newspaper, albeit one distributed nationwide. Nowhere else has the social life of the middle-class first-generation Filipino immigrant been so prominently on display.”

Okay, where was I? I bring all this up because Santos was a keen and generous observer of Filipino and Filipino American life, and something shifts in tone, it seems, after martial law. (I’m skimming through his 1992 memoir, Memory’s Fictions — which has now moved to the top of my must-read pile — and his San Francisco novel (which he started writing in 1973!) was the product of what he called “humiliating experiences.”)

But I bring it up also because the Poeta and I just saw “The Santos Trilogy,” which is still playing for another two nights at Bindlestiff (check ‘em out!). We’ve fallen into a fun rut, the Poeta and I: drinks (beer for me, single malt scotch for her), a quick bite to eat, a movie / play, drinks again, then a long-distance phone call somewhere in there. Oh, and she has a secret, and it’s not exactly a laughin matter. =)

Popularity: 2% [?]

SCHOLARS RELEASE REPORT ON U.S. FILIPINO DEPORTATION

San Jose, CA – The Critical Filipino and Filipina Studies Collective (CFFSC) releases Resisting Homeland Security: Organizing Against Unjust Removals of U.S. Filipinos, a report on the state of U.S. Filipino deportation.

Resisting Homeland Security makes visible what remains invisible to many: the detention and removal of U.S. Filipinos. The existing information on U.S. Filipino deportations following September 11, 2001 collapses U.S. Filipino deportations uniformly and arbitrarily across any and all racial-ethnic groups. Contrary to this popular misunderstanding, the report alternatively offers exacting research and analysis underscoring a more complex picture – that after September 11, there is a “systematic targeting of Filipinos for deportation” that is related to the legacies of U.S.-colonial rule, the current U.S.-led war on global terrorism avidly supported by the Philippine government, and the emergence of homeland security racism.

Included in Resisting Homeland Security is a section on “Community Organizing.” This section provides insights on how grassroots organizations fight against unjust removals and detentions. In particular, the section chronicles the Support Campaign to Prevent the Deportation of the Cuevas Family of Fremont, CA, assesses its efforts and strategies, and offers recommendations to build effective anti-removal campaigns.

Jay Mendoza, Executive Director of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns (NAFCON), notes: “Resisting Homeland Security is a significant document that all Filipinos and all peoples concerned with social justice should read and deeply understand. It is a reminder for all cultural diverse and multiracial peoples to work in alliance and coalition with each other, despite ethnicity, nationality, or race-towards the single objective of justice for our communities.”

For the CFFSC, Resisting Homeland Security is “a document of hope-to inspire all to participate in a global movement for justice and equality.” The report may be accessed at the Filipino Living Archive.

Founded 2002, CFFSC is a U.S.-based national network of community-engaged scholars, professors, and educators.

Popularity: 2% [?]

The cover of last month’s issue of Filipinas Magazine had the caption “Sex and the Single Manong, ca. 1940.” I was, perhaps irrationally, hoping for some hot man-on-man action, but I knew what to expect: the men-to-women ratio, the taxi dance halls, the riots, prostitutes following the migrants from camp to camp and harvest to harvest, that California businessman calling Filipinos “hot little rabbits,”* the fascination with white women, reading between the lines of America Is In The Heart about Bulosan’s blondes and wondering what the deal was with all these white women wandering in and out of the narrative.

It’s quite obvious and understandable how historiography regarding the manong generation proceeded this way: in a community full of fairly devout Catholics, and a nascent second/third-generation (het-male) Filipino American identity that was effectively emasculated in current American popular culture, it was no wonder that this — I’m thinking of a good word — rampant male heterosexuality became regnant in Filipino American Studies. There’s nothing like a threat to masculinity to get one’s, um, dander up — if “one” were a predominantly male and perhaps proudly heterosexual group of Filipino American scholars in the ’60s and ’70s. The party line, if one could call it that, was that the manongs were playas — the suits! the white women! the slicked-back hair! — supported very clearly by the very real white perception of Filipinos as sexual threats, with its violent consequences. It is perhaps easier to imagine them, amidst their lives of desperate I-Hotel loneliness, as eternally swinging, forever single, and straight bachelors.

Such heteronormativity (and a healthy dose of Catholic prudishness) would perhaps prevent any further inquiry into whether or not scenes of the love that dare not speak its name were ever enacted in those lonely and cramped migrant shacks.**

*The whole quote actually goes, “The Filipinos are hot little rabbits, and many of these white women like them for this reason.” At which point, I imagine, my straight male Filipino students say under their breath, “Cool.”

**I’m also thinking about this because of a discussion in class last week of Joel Tan’s story “Night Sweats,” in which the classroom — and at some point one student was fanning herself just talking about it — was treated to phrases like “ring muscle” and “purple knob.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

When I asked my Filipino lit students* how many people had seen Gene Cajayon’s The Debut, I was surprised to see that almost everyone, except the third of the class that was non-Filipino, raised their hands. The Debut was a genuine Filipino American phenomenon: an enthusiastic grassroots campaign, entire families and classrooms lining up in front of the theaters, in support of a truly well-made film. (I bet that some of you can read between the lines and pounce on “well-made” as if I were writing a lukewarm letter of recommendation.)

And because of this campaign alone — the film’s official website spends a good deal of emphasis on how the film was made and marketed — the sometimes clunky dialogue could be forgiven (I was probably the loudest groaner during the boy-meets-girl scenes), and Dante Basco, who is otherwise an appealing actor, isn’t given terribly complex material.** “Charm” isn’t necessarily the kind of word filmmakers like to hear, but The Debut at least has a lot of that, and I mean that in a sincerely complimentary way.

The Debut works somewhat schematically, but it still works. The main character, Ben, moves almost like the Campbellian hero of myth through clearly demarcated domains: from “American” to “Filipino” to “Filipino American” and back and forth. The soundtrack, while performed by all Filipino American musicians, marks each passage nicely, if telegraphically: folk music here, hiphop there, guitar-driven rock for Ben’s passages into whiteness. (There’s a nice scene when Ben is listening to some Slipknotty-stuff on his headphones, working in his room, when his dad bursts in to confront him — and the door opens, letting the banduria music from the outside fill the room as well.)

The writer drops the ball, unfortunately, in terms of character development. (The obligatory testosterone scene does have to do with balls — a basketball, in this case — and guys all dressed in wifebeaters.) This is something of a letdown, since the film makes a point of dropping crucial hints here and there about him wearing clothespins on his nose and so on. His “search for identity” turns out to be disappointingly trite, and in the end assumes the same tired trajectory as, say, Jade Snow Wong in Fifth Chinese Daughter. (But in contrast, Jade Snow learns the lesson that white women are infinitely generous and emotionally open; Ben learns that white women vomit on you and call you ”chink.”)

When I asked the students the significance of the title, my student Tahnee wisely replied that it was also Ben’s “debut” as a Filipino American. Or so it would seem: it still isn’t clear that any such realization or resolution takes place, despite the narrative gestures toward this conclusion. (If anything developed at all, it’s the father’s grudging admiration for his son’s art at the end.)

This is one reason why Jessica Hagedorn’s extravagantly messy The Gangster of Love works on an engaging level: it refuses to anchor the heroine’s narrative to anything remotely resembling something paradigmatic. Cajayon deliberately (or, I suspect, carelessly) ends the film in ambiguity, as if he loses his resolve midway to further politicize Ben’s muddle regarding his identity.

In comparison, Hagedorn makes this an intensely personal and therefore random and arbitrary quest for her character Rocky. (The truncated conclusion when she visits her estranged father in the Philippines — which my student Ron characterized as somewhat tacked on — is at first reading a concession to the demands of the “immigrant narrative,” i.e., a return “home,” but it seems to be yet another purposely loose thread in the Original Gangsta’s meandering, another doomed opportunity to connect.)

*My original plan was to show the class Sana Maulit Muli, Olive Lamasan’s at-times hysterical film about Filipinos in the Bay Area that was clearly made for consumption in the Philippines — alas, no subtitled versions in English were available — and my second choice, Rod Pulido’s fascinating if terribly simplistic The Flip Side wasn’t even available commercially.

And in case you’re wondering why an anthropologist is teaching a lit class — well, I’m not sure either.

**Though Eddie Garcia’s walk-on role — and it’s practically only a cameo, since it’s all saved up for the big blow-up at the end — deserves applause; Garcia has the best voice in the business, and he can dish out contempt (or lasciviousness) so effortlessly even the audience would wither in their seats.

Popularity: 2% [?]