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Cecilia Manguerra Brainard

author and editor

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Good night, Gilda Cordero Fernando

August 28, 2020 by admin Leave a Comment

Stand­ing: Cecil­ia Brainard, Mar­i­ly Orosa, Felice Sta. Maria; seat­ed Gil­da Cordero Fernando
I must con­fess that I hard­ly slept last night, and it had to do with the pass­ing of Gil­da Cordero Fer­nan­do. That with the stress­es of Covid and pol­i­tics kept me awake until around 4 am. 
 
Gil­da grad­u­at­ed from St. There­sa’s Col­lege, which I also attend­ed, and so even when I was in high school, I had already heard of Gil­da. She was very tal­ent­ed; she was one of those peo­ple who could do any­thing she want­ed to do. She was a writer, pub­lish­er, artist, fash­ion design­er, and lat­er in life, she became a painter.
 
I used to vis­it her now and then to buy copies of her hand­some cof­fee table Fil­ip­ini­ana books. She and Frankie Jose gave me the idea that writ­ers don’t have to sit around wait­ing for a pub­lish­er to pub­lish your work but that you can actu­al­ly do some­thing about it. 
 
The book sell­ing petered off and I did­n’t see her for years, but we shared some pages, in Cristi­na Pan­to­ja Hidal­go­’s book Fil­ipino Woman Writ­ing, and I includ­ed her in the pop­u­lar col­lec­tion, Grow­ing Up Fil­ipino: Sto­ries for Young Adults. She attend­ed the book launch but I heard round­about that she was sur­prised (or miffed) that I had used her sto­ry with­out her per­mis­sion. In fact I had her writ­ten per­mis­sion, and that mat­ter quick­ly frit­tered away. 
 
In 2014 I saw her for the last time at the turnover of Frankie Jose’s books to the De La Salle Uni­ver­si­ty library. She was in a wheel­chair but still beau­ti­ful and very much engaged with Mani­la’s lit­er­ary community.
 
I think what kept me up all night was think­ing of the con­nec­tions of all Fil­ipino and Fil­ipino Amer­i­can writ­ers whether we are ful­ly aware of it. When one leaves, there is a feel­ing of loss. I felt this when Ben San­tos, N.V.M. Gon­za­lez, Mar Puatu, Sylvia Mayu­ga, many oth­ers passed. A deep sad­ness. A kind of reck­on­ing of who’s left to car­ry on. A real­iza­tion that we are all just pass­ing through. 
 

 

I found these pic­tures: one tak­en at the DLSU event and the cov­er of Jing Pan­to­ja Hidal­go­’s book that includes sketch­es of her women sub­jects: Car­oli­na Malay, Maria Luna Lopez, Estrel­la Alfon, Car­men Guer­rero-Nakpil, Ker­i­ma Polotan Tuvera, Bar­bara Gon­za­lez„ Cecil­ia Brainard, Sylvia Mayu­ga (Sylvia Morn­ingstar), Rosario Gar­cel­lano, and Gil­da Cordero-Fernando. 
Good night, Gil­da. Rest in Peace. (Gil­da Cordero-Fer­nan­do 1930–2020).
Read also Gil­da Cordero-Fer­nan­do’s short sto­ry, The Eye of the Nee­dle, here:
https://cbrainard.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-eye-of-needle-short-story-by-gilda.html
Tags: women, writ­ers, Philip­pines, Fil­ip­ina, Pinay

Filed Under: Nonfiction, Uncategorized Tagged With: Filipiina, Gilda Cordero Fernando, Philippines, Pinay, women, writers

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Welcome!

I am a daugh­ter of the Philip­pines and an adopt­ed daugh­ter of Amer­i­ca. I have also trav­eled to many places so I am also a daugh­ter of the Earth. My expe­ri­ences have found their way into my sto­ries, which try to depict char­ac­ters caught in impor­tant moments in their lives, sit­u­a­tions that force them to act, make deci­sions, change. I try to see the world from my own point of view, not the dom­i­nant West­ern one, thus my inter­est in his­to­ry, cul­ture, and set­ting. But my char­ac­ters car­ry my sto­ries; they are the most impor­tant in my sto­ry-telling. I have to dive deep into them to under­stand their human­i­ty – their good­ness as well as their bad­ness, their beau­ty as well as their ugli­ness. Just like us. Just like each of us. I need to know where they came from, where they are now, so I under­stand where they are going. Just like us.

Please read my full biog­ra­phy here

 

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