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Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults

Growing Up Filipino: Stories for Young Adults

Edit­ed by Cecil­ia Brainard
PALH, 2003, soft­cov­er, 316 pages, ISBN 9780971945807 — BOOK ORDER

PALH, 2021, hard­cov­er, 316 pages, ISBN 9781953716002 — BOOK ORDER 

EBOOK — Kin­dle, Barnes&Noble, Rakuten Kobo, Apple Books, Scribd, Toli­no, Over­Drive, Bib­lio­the­ca, Bak­er&Tay­lor, Vivlio, and Bor­row Box

 

Finalist National Book Awards Anthology Division in 2005

Dazzling and Impressive Collection

This col­lec­tion of 29 sto­ries, the first pub­li­ca­tion of PALH (Philip­pine Amer­i­can Lit­er­ary House) received crit­i­cal acclaim. Writ­ten by estab­lished and emerg­ing writ­ers, the book delves into uni­ver­sal but at the same time per­son­al themes of how it is to grow up Fil­ipino. It remains in print and is used by many edu­ca­tors in their classrooms.

Con­trib­u­tors are:  Paula Ange­les, Libay Can­tor, Veron­i­ca Montes, Mar­i­anne Vil­lanue­va, Lin­da Ty-Casper, Ric­co Siaso­co, Ruby Car­li­no, Gemi­no Abad, Krip Yuson, Vince Gotera, Oscar Penaran­da, Bri­an Roley, Alber­to Flo­renti­no, Joel Tan, Wang­go Gal­la­ga, Gil­da Cordero-Fer­nan­do, Cristi­na Pan­to­ja Hidal­go, Edgar Poma, Mar V. Puatu, M. Eveli­na Galang, Cecil­ia Brainard, Mar­i­ly Orosa, Antho­ny Tan, Ruth Sar­real, Roge­lio Cruz, Con­nie Maraan, Alex Dean Bru, M. S. Sia, Erwin Cabucos.

Reviews

Book­list

In this fine short-sto­ry col­lec­tion, 29 Fil­ipino Amer­i­can writ­ers explore the uni­ver­sal chal­lenges of ado­les­cence from the unique per­spec­tives of teens in the Philip­pines or in the U.S. Orga­nized into five sections–Family, Angst, Friend­ship, Love, and Home–all the sto­ries are about grow­ing up and what the intro­duc­tion calls “grow­ing into Fil­ipino-ness, grow­ing with Fil­ipinos, and grow­ing in or grow­ing away from the Philip­pines.” The sto­ries are intro­duced by the authors, who illus­trate the teenage expe­ri­ence as they remem­ber it or as they wish to explain it to the reader–whether the focus is the death of a grand­par­ent, bud­ding sex­u­al­i­ty, or going to the mall. The cul­tur­al fla­vor aspect nev­er over­whelms the sto­ries, and read­ers will be drawn to the par­tic­u­lars as well as the uni­ver­sal con­cerns of fam­i­ly, friends, love, and leav­ing home. While the sto­ries are fair­ly easy to read, teens might be intim­i­dat­ed by the dense book design and small type. Take the time to help them over­come this. The sto­ries are delightful!

***

School Library Journal

These 29 short sto­ries offer a high­ly tex­tured por­trait of Fil­ipino youth and an excel­lent sam­pling of cre­ative writ­ing. The­mat­i­cal­ly arranged, most of the pieces have been writ­ten since the turn of the 21st cen­tu­ry. Each sto­ry is intro­duced by a thumb­nail sketch of the author and a para­graph or two about some ele­ment of Fil­ipino cul­ture or his­to­ry that is rel­e­vant to the sto­ry. Authors include those born and con­tin­u­ing to live in the Philip­pines, emi­gres, and Amer­i­can-born Fil­ipinos. Tough but rel­e­vant top­ics addressed include a gay youth’s affec­tion for his sup­port­ive moth­er, the role of reli­gious didac­ti­cism in the for­ma­tion of a child­hood per­cep­tion, con­sumer cul­ture as it is expe­ri­enced by mod­ern teens in Mani­la, and cop­ing with bul­lies of all ages and sta­tions in life. While the intro­duc­tion seems more appro­pri­ate to grad­u­ate school than high school stu­dents, and the lay­out and book design are not attrac­tive, there is much here to mer­it con­sid­er­a­tion. There are more Fil­ipinos liv­ing in the U.S. than most peo­ple real­ize, but find­ing lit­er­a­ture reflec­tive of their expe­ri­ences is dif­fi­cult. The high cal­iber and broad but whol­ly acces­si­ble range of this col­lec­tion, how­ev­er, makes this title a sol­id pur­chase for mul­ti­ple reasons.

***

Book­bird Jour­nal Inter­na­tion­al. Chil­dren’s Lit­er­a­ture, IBBY
by Glen­na Sloan,

Emerg­ing and estab­lished award-win­ning writ­ers are the authors of this fine col­lec­tion of 29 sto­ries about what it means to be young and Fil­ipino in the Philip­pines and in the Unit­ed States. Fil­ipinos in Amer­i­ca are now the sec­ond largest in the umbrel­la group of Asian Amer­i­cans, yet there is a scarci­ty of books by and for Fil­ipinos. This impres­sive array cap­tures the com­plex­i­ties of both the Fil­ipino cul­ture and his­to­ry and the real­i­ties of the lives of young adults no mat­ter what their eth­nic affil­i­a­tion. Each sto­ry is assigned to one of five uni­ver­sal themes: fam­i­ly, angst, friend­ship, love, and home.
“Cecil­ia Manguer­ra Brainard has col­lect­ed a daz­zling and impres­sive array of 29 sto­ries about the saga of what it means to be young and Fil­ipino. The authors make the expe­ri­ences of ordi­nary young peo­ple come alive for us. The strength of the col­lab­o­ra­tive approach in this vol­ume lies in its indi­vid­ual exam­ples, for the best way to con­struct a pic­ture of grow­ing up Fil­ipino is by spe­cif­ic ref­er­ence to their lives. The struc­ture of the book is sim­ple enough. Each sto­ry is assigned to a theme and there are five of them: fam­i­ly, angst, friend­ship, love, and home.

***
Roger N. Buck­ley, Pro­fes­sor of His­to­ry and Direc­tor, Asian Amer­i­can Stud­ies Insti­tute, Uni­ver­si­ty of Connecticut
This vol­ume is indeed about mag­ic, mys­ter­ies, sad­ness, time, fam­i­ly, fear, and hap­pi­ness of young adult Fil­ipinos. But in explor­ing these are­nas the authors, each a born sto­ry­teller and philoso­pher, col­lec­tive­ly cap­ture the nat­ur­al and social tapes­try of the Philip­pines and Fil­ipino cul­ture and those forces that influ­ence it. Their use of the lan­guage with all its idioms, nar­ra­tive inter­vals and cadences leaves no doubt about the com­plex­i­ties of the his­tor­i­cal, social, cul­tur­al, gen­der and racial ter­rain of mod­ern Fil­ipino cul­ture. It is hard to resist one more com­ment. Despite the book’s sub-title, this is also a book for adults. They too will prof­it from what is a truth­ful, pas­sion­ate, hope­ful — and ulti­mate­ly — a very wise book. Kudos to Brainard and the oth­er writ­ers for this impor­tant con­tri­bu­tion to Fil­ipino/­Fil­ipino-Amer­i­can his­to­ry and cul­ture. This is a pow­er­ful­ly achieved and mem­o­rable book by authors who know their craft, and who also have a pro­found under­stand­ing and love for the Philip­pines and things Filipino.”

Excerpt

https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2018/08/fiction-cecilia-brainards-last-moon.html

Book Reviews

Book­list, April 15, 2003

MELUS, Spring 2004

Mul­ti­cul­tur­al Review, Sep­tem­ber 2003

Alfred Yuson Reviews for Philip­pine Star, April 28, 2003

Lin­da Kin­ta­nar Alburo Reviews for Free­man Mag­a­zine, July 2003

Fea­tured in Nation­al Geo­graph­ic’s 2020 Sum­mer Read­ing List

 


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Cecil­ia Brainard
c/o PALH
PO Box 5099
San­ta Mon­i­ca, CA 90409
USA

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