Dear Readers,

Scouring the diaspora for textual and visual work about the Filipino experience is a little like being a curator. The staff at Our Own Voice juggles combinations of poetry, fiction, essays and art in order to create an issue that vibrates with a sympathetic and thematic energy.

For this eleventh issue, we called for work that had been created in response to something else in the diaspora, whether on the internet or in real life. As we become more dependent on cyber-interaction these days, real life and online life often merge and intersect. We come to know other Filipinos and Filipino-descendants from correspondence and viewing their work.

This issue folds together responsive poetry by Mila Aguilar, Luisa Igloria, myself and a prose poem by another returning contributor, Jessie Badillo. Even the poems that are included as excerpts from the winning poetry book (Love Gathers All) in the Global Filipino Literary awards can be considered online responses because certainly that anthology could not have been pulled together without close online collaboration between Manila and Singapore. Lory Medina shares two paintings that were inspired by a simple bamboo container inscribed with the Mangyan alphabet. Susan Evangelista describes an online writing and support workshop in which a small group of participants respond weekly to different prompts. Karie Garnier's enthusiastic essay on the plight of the violated unknown island, Fuga, was triggered by Leny Strobel's piece (A Hundred Years of American Tutelage and We Are Still Uncivilized) in the last issue of Our Own Voice. Eileen Tabios shares a story instead of an essay this time, but in keeping with her style, the story is again a response to a combination of art influences, as she explains in her notes.

Of course, no art is created in a vacuum. Whether we recognize the seeds or not, our work springs from inspiration by others' work. In this issue, we just have the privilege of seeing more directly the relationship between the spark and the fire. We inhabit the diaspora and we make it our home by writing about it. Perhaps, ironically, being away from home is one of our greatest inspirations. This issue affirms that we are truly a responsive people.

Lurve from out here,
Nadine L. Sarreal

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THE STAFF

EDITOR
Remé-Antonia Grefalda

ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Nadine Sarreal

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR FOR THE ARTS
Eileen Tabios

EDITORIAL BOARD
Geejay Arriola
Seb Koh
Victoria Paz Cruz

GRAPHIC AND WEB DESIGNER
Geejay Arriola

COPYRIGHT
2003