The great man(ong) who was a younger man among grand old men “sat down with every single [one of them] and watched as they weaved out dreams from fishnets beneath trees …1 He collected their stories, lovingly and carefully recorded them as he “[b]uilt tea houses and tea rooms.  Laid down rocks from the northern rivers as far as the Rogue River Wilderness.  Lived from tea house to tea house, writing poems with Konnyaku, a cat.”2

“And so the mystery and history, the struggle and promise of becoming a Pilipino in America can be found in the poetry of Al Robles – oral historian, artist and community poet,” observes Russell Leong, Editor of UCLA’s Amerasia Journal.

Manong Al read poetry the day I fell in love with my husband.  “The rain passed through the fishnet like endless tales of the past.  Then suddenly everything disappeared–the manong, the trees, the shack, the jar of bagoong, the fishnet, the sugarcane fields, the rains.  Then everything returned.  The manong was a manong again.  Everything was clear and everything returned to the way it was.  I could hear the rains.  Everything was different but the same.”3

What were you saying?  But if I don’t understand, why this fishnet pain, this tea house grief?  Because  whatever form and voice the stories take, they are inherently mine.  “ako ay pilipino – from across the 7000 islands and seas / i am the blood-earth patis flowing through the mountain / soil-veins of my people …” 4

There are Invisible Heritages all around us, Love, being the most powerful.  Welcome to our 29th issue where our Editor pays tribute to the late Philippine President Corazon Aquino, in Laptop.  In Essays, Frank Celada remembers a younger Al Robles stalwartly fighting to defend Filipino and Chinese tenants’ rights and preserve the I-Hotel and the Manilatown community; Floyd Cheung untangles Jessica Hagedorn and Marissa Roth’s “Burning Heart”; and Lani T. Montreal struggles against alienation and prejudice.  Along these threads, I am also running my piece in remembrance of my maternal grandmother and her golden-orange kalamunding.  In Fiction, Reme Grefalda is “Feeling Eleven.” In Poems, Yolanda Palis surprises us with "Abstract Painting" and poet Sid Hildawa misses a familiar sight in "Sick Leave"; Jessie Badillo navigates “Chambliss Drive to the Outer Banks,” while Rhodora Penaranda chews over the puckered “Chayote”.  Our Bookshelf features Michael Norman and Elizabeth M. Norman’s “Tears in the Darkness: The Story of the Bataan Death March and its Aftermath”; Rick Rocamora’s “Filipino World War II Soldiers: America’s Second Class Veterans”; and Jose A. Carillo’s “Give Your English the Winning Edge”.

Of all the world’s writers, Jose Rizal arguably paid the highest price when he wrote of “things as yet unwritten because untouchable.”5  We wear our heritage loosely.  (It is hard to see, at times, for love is not always tangible.)  I wear mine out and write of it–the mad, sad, glorious saga of being Pinay, born, raised and hyphenated.  This year, “the California State Senate has unanimously approved legislation to officially recognize the accomplishments of Filipino-Americans.  Senate Concurrent Resolution 48, authored by Senator Leland Yee, will declare October as Filipino-American History Month.”6 Our Pilipino history is in the stories of the manongs, the jars of bagoong, it is in the love of Al Robles, in the words of our poets.  As for me, there will be cookies to bake and poetry to write, and may the grandchildren remember the cookies.

1 Al Robles, Rappin’ with Ten Thousand Carabaos in the Dark: Poems (UCLA Press, 1996), 1.

2 Robles, 1.

3 Robles, 1.

4 Robles, 11.

5 James A. Michener, “Foreword”, in The Lost Eden by Jose Rizal (Indiana University Press, 1961).

6 Adam J. Keigwin, Email message to Filipino mailing lists, July 14, 2009.

Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto
San Francisco, August 2009

EDITOR
Remé-Antonia Grefalda

ASSOCIATE EDITOR
Aileen Ibardaloza-Cassinetto

ART DIRECTOR AND WEB DESIGNER
Geejay Arriola

MANAGING EDITOR
Victoria Paz Cruz

CONTRIBUTING EDITOR FOR THE ARTS
Eileen Tabios

copyright 2009