NEW YORK (Dec. 2, 2011) — David Beckham tried his hand at sewing, took part in an art class and played a game of soccer with local students this week as the Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) visited the Philippines to spotlight the plight of young people in need.

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U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton waves after signing the Manila Declaration on board the USS Fitzgerald in Manila Bay, Manila, the Philippines, November 16, 2011. [State Department photo/ Public Domain

WASHINGTON (Nov. 16, 2011) — The Governments of the United States of America and the Republic of the Philippines, understanding that development cooperation represents a sound investment in broad-based economic growth, collective prosperity and security, and democracy and human rights.

The U.S. State Department reports that on board the USS Fitzgerald in Manila Bay, Manila, Philippines, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Philippine Secretary for Foreign Affairs Albert del Rosario signed the Manila Declaration.

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Charlyne Yi as Dr. Chi Park in the "Transplant" episode of HOUSE (FOX photo).

The Fox network television drama series, “House” started its eighth season two weeks ago and now features Charlyne Yi as its newest cast member Dr. Chi Park at the fictional Princeton Plainsboro Teaching Hospital in New Jersey.

Charlyne Amanda Yi, 25, is a multi-racial American actress including Filipina heritage and raised in Los Angeles. She began her career in stand-up comedy with unique routines that utilized her skills as a singer.

Yi is best know for her feature film, “Paper Heart”, in which she starred and was also screenwriter. The film was a hit on the art film circuit as part documentary and part love story and won the Waldo Salt Screenwriting Award at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

Yi joins House as a young, brilliant and slightly oppressed physician who was sent to assist Dr. Gregory House (Hugh Laurie), after punching her previous supervisor for grabbing her behind. The punishment turns into a successful abrasive partnership that the unconventional medical genius House who lost his team of a diagnosticians with his stint in prison from the end of the previous season.

The show features a team of physicians that specialize in solving the most difficult cases and many times in the most unorthodox methods. The mystery of the show is also in part to solve the mystery of House’s painful past and to guess what trouble his pain medication addiction as much his abrasive attitudes toward patients and fellow physicians.

House airs on Mondays at 8 p.m. CST on FOX.

Dr. Ligaya Carlos, president-elect of the Cultural Society of Filipino Americans (CSFA), spearheaded the move to have October 2011 proclaimed Filipino American History month. Although the proclamation is only for the month of October, the spirit of the event is celebrated throughout the year by the different Filipino community organizations and groups including CSFA.

This proclamation was signed by Minnesota Governor Mark Dayton last October 13, 2011 and was read by CSFA ex-officio Glen King to the public on October 15, 2011 during CSFA’s Induction of Officers Dinner and Dance at the Hilton Hotel MSP Airtport.   This event was attended by Philippine Consul General in Chicago Leo Herrera-Lim, who said that Minnesota is the third state in the Midwest to have October proclaimed Filipino American History Month.

The proclamation reads:

WHEREAS, Filipino Americans make up one of the largest Asian American ethnic groups in the United States today and over ten thousand Filipinos and Filipino Americans reside in the state of Minnesota;

WHEREAS, the earliest documented evidence of Filipinos in continental United States occurred in October 18, 1587, when mariners called “Luzones indios” under Spanish command landed in Morro Bay, California, as published by Lorraine Jacobs Crouchett in her book, Filipinos in California (1982), which annotated John Walton Caughey’s book, California (1953) and HR Wagner’s Unamuno’s Voyage to California in 1587 in the Quarterly of the California Historical Society (July 1923);

WHEREAS, the Filipino American National Historical Society established Filipino American History Month in 1988 and subsequently, every October, several communities throughout the United States and its territories, have celebrated this occasion, not only to commemorate the anniversary of the presence of the first Filipinos in US soil and to observe its heritage, but also to recognize the social, intellectual and economic contributions of Filipinos and Filipino Americans in this country;

WHEREAS, this is an appropriate time to promote and reflect on Philippine history and culture to provide all Americans with the opportunity to learn and appreciate more the Filipino Americans and their historic and social contribution to the USA;

WHEREAS, it is necessary to instill in our youth the importance of education, history and ethnicity in creating eminent role models, in establishing a proud cultural identity and producing exceptional citizens of this nation.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, Mark Dayton, Governor of the State of Minnesota, do hereby proclaim the month of October 2011 to be FILIPINO AMERICAN HISTORY MONTH in Minnesota State.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and have caused the Great Seal of the State of Minnesota to be affixed at the State Capitol this 13th day of October 2011.

Signed Mark Dayton

Governor

Signed Mark Ritchie

Secretary of State

Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Diwata (Photo by Oscar Bermeo).

By BRYAN THAO WORRA
AAP staff writer

Barbara Jane Reyes is the author of Diwata (BOA Editions, Ltd., 2010), recently noted as a finalist for the California Book Award. She was born in Manila, Philippines, raised in the San Francisco Bay Area, and is the author of two previous collections of poetry, Gravities of Center (Arkipelago Books, 2003) and Poeta en San Francisco (Tinfish Press, 2005), which received the James Laughlin Award of the Academy of American Poets.

She received her B.A. in Ethnic Studies at U.C. Berkeley and her M.F.A. at San Francisco State University. She has taught at Mills College, and at University of San Francisco’s Philippine Studies Program. She lives with her husband, poet Oscar Bermeo, in Oakland, where she is co-editor of Doveglion Press.

Her chapbooks include Easter Sunday (2008), Cherry (2008), and West Oakland Sutra for the AK-47 Shooter at 3:00 AM and other Oakland poems (2008).  Her poems, essays, and reviews have appeared or are forthcoming in Arroyo Literary Review, Asian Pacific American Journal, Chain, Filipinas Magazine, Hambone, Hyphen, Interlope, Kartika Review, Lantern Review, Latino Poetry Review, New American Writing, North American Review, Notre Dame Review, XCP: Cross Cultural Poetics, among others. Asian American Press had an opportunity to catch up with her recently.

Asian American Press: We often talk about how writers got started, but what keeps you going as an artist?

Barbara Jane Reyes: Deadlines, ambition.

Seriously, I wonder sometimes whether I’ve got another book in me. But as I gain more experience teaching poetry and literature, and mentoring emerging writers, I find that young folks’ wonder and enthusiasm for ideas and literature to which they’ve not previously been exposed can be contagious. A new set of eyes on ideas I thought I’ve exhausted can be so refreshing. So emerging writers keep me going.

My fellow artists also motivate me. It’s wonderful to be privy to their creative and intellectual processes, to see what informs and influences their work. It’s also inspiring to be a part of a prolific community of authors. My reading list has grown exponentially as a result of exposure to the poems, essays, and stories of their literary idols and forbears, as well as their newly published work.

AAP: Tell us a little about Diwata. What can we expect that’s different from your previous works? Where do you feel you are you really trying to push yourself?

BJR: Well, I think of Diwata as much more gentle than my previous book, Poeta en San Francisco, which I have been told is unflinchingly in your face. I’ve taken my poetic speakers into the realm of myth, mythic and historical time, which isn’t radically different from my previous work. There have always been glimmers of Philippine mythology in my poetry, and a sirena/mermaid persona who insists upon speaking. Diwata is where I expanded upon those mythical voices, and where there were gaps in my knowledge of my family’s and community’s narratives, I gave myself the permission to fabricate and speculate.

In Diwata, I’ve pushed myself into personae who speak in voices different enough than my own, inhabiting worlds unfamiliar to me. I’ve had to learn to be a better listener to others’ stories, folks from different generations and geographies, literally speaking different languages in which I am not fluent and barely proficient. So then, listening has become something other than spoken narrative.

I’ve also had to consider what I’ll call here a more indigenous world view which is truly not my own, and write from there while doing my best not to fetishize it.

From Diwata, I want to explore more deeply a world view and practice that is collective, in which that poetic “I,” is de-centered and really a poetic “we.” I’m challenged in figuring my way into this. While a fully collaborative and collective first person is appealing in the abstract, and as “tribe,” I’m also quite fearful of it because I really value my autonomy!

AAP: Do you have any big projects coming up?

BJR: None that I can talk about openly! Seriously, things are in the works.

What I can talk about is my ongoing work with the Philippine American Writers and Artists (PAWA), and the collaborative work we’re doing there with other local APIA arts orgs. In addition to continuing on with the reading series (which we have been running monthly since 2008), we will be offering more writing and publishing workshops.

As co-editor of Doveglion Press, I can also tell you about a collaboration with fellow APIA poet Lee Herrick’s In the Grove, dedicated to California writers. We are working on a special print issue of In the Grove, featuring Filipino American writers from California. While the issue is already quite comprehensive, it’s also still only a tiny snapshot of our community’s talent.

I am also creating a Pinay Literature curriculum for the Philippine Studies Program where I teach; I’m super excited to have an entire semester course solely dedicated to the writings of Filipinas, which to me is just phenomenal. The only time I have ever taken (much less heard of) a class like this was at University of the Philippines.

AAP: Has your artistic process changed over time, or do you feel you’ve found a specific approach that works for you now?

BJR: I would like to think my process is always growing or evolving. I used to keep Moleskines and rollerball pens with superfine points with me at all times, but that was when I was actually in public spaces for hours — parks, cafes, bars — people watching, eavesdropping on conversations, wandering slowly through art exhibits and gettin’ ekphrastic.

These days, I don’t have that kind of time, so I am now dong my best to multitask in efficient and concentrated bursts, starting with an idea, a line, a question. I am also writing less with pen and paper, so perhaps that’s why I’m nostalgic for those Moleskines and superfine point rollerball pens.

What’s been working best for me is to write within specific projects (and I know some poets hate it when you call your poetry a project). I am focused not so much on individual poems, but on bodies of poems which will one day become books of poems.

AAP: What do you deplore in poetry?

BJR: Inability and unwillingness to risk, to learn, and to grow. Unwillingness to read and write outside of one’s comfort zone. Lack of imagination, lack of curiosity / inquisitiveness. Selfishness.

Mostly, I deplore uncritical deployments of privileged narratives that portray women, women of color, people of color, and native people as objects, caricatures, backdrops, and foils/contrasts to reinforce their own dominant/centered whiteness and maleness.

AAP: How important is risk for Asian American artists?

BJR: Very. I think, if you don’t risk, then you are in danger of re-treading what you and others before you have already written.

AAP: What advice would you give to emerging writers?

BJR: Push your boundaries. Read everything! Write outside of your usual sets of aesthetics and politics. Let yourself be inspired by the diversity of literature, art, and cultural productions out there. Be open.

Be generous and supportive of your fellow writers. Share with others the opportunities that have presented themselves to you.

Be DIY and participate in the gift economy. It’s great practice to produce your own chapbooks, to swap work with others, to build a network of working artists this way. The kinship, camaraderie, and empathy you cultivate is necessary and irreplaceable.

Blog! It’s a wonderful public space in which to work out your ideas on process; to discuss who and what is informing your work, as well as why and how; to flesh out work in progress and receive feedback from others.

Gisele Tongi and Dr. Tess Mauricio, RSVP's hosts, will ask viewers in the Filipino community to respond and voice their concerns, issues and praises about the latest trends in fashion, beauty, health, and family.

Dr. Tess Mauricio, dermatologist, physician educator and television personality, will debut a half-hour magazine talk show on The Filipino Channel starting Sept. 10. “RSVP” will feature in-studio guest hosts and discussions on the latest topics and news happening in the Philippines, the United States and beyond.

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Filipino American Women’s Network of MN (FAWN-MN) presents “Asian Women, Feminism and Gender Dimensions of Poverty (including trafficking of women and children)”, a discussion led by Dr. Carolyn I. Sobritchea, on Sunday, August 7, 2011, from 2 to 4 p.m. in the Cummins Room of First Universalist Church, 3400 Dupont Avenue South, Minneapolis, MN 55408.

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By MARY TAN
AAP staff writer

East meets West — Have you ever wanted to see an Asian musical?  Do you have a particular interest in the Filipino community?  If so, a performance called PAGDIRIWANG is an event you won’t want to miss.

PAGDIRIWANG means celebration in Filipino and Director Lita Vargas Malicsi says “the show celebrates the artistry and brilliance of local performers.”  She describes it simply as a “musical jamboree of aesthetic expressions, much like a musical garden – full of color, variety, and surprise.”

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Ritchie Valens (Allen Malicsi) is joined for "La Bamba" by The Big Bopper (Scott Jorgenson) and Buddy Holly (Nicholas Freeman) for the Winter Dance Party Tour in Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story. (Photo by Scott Pakudaitis)

AAP staff report

Local Filipino American actor Allen Malicsi has the role of Ritchie Valens in the encore production of Buddy – The Buddy Holly Story at the History Theater.

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Brussels (March 32, 2011) – The head of the United Nations agency defending press freedom Thursday condemned the recent murder of a radio news anchor in the Philippines and urged that her killer be brought to justice.

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