Filam May

Issue 3, May 2018

The First Couple of Fiesta in America p8 Why we write books, and for whom p2 Hordes turn out for Kapuso stars p9

Fernando Mendez & Laura Garcia

More stories on the web @ TheFilAm.net

Letter from the Publisher

Why we write books, and for whom

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arlos Bulosan’s “America is in the Heart” was published in 1946 when the United States had just come out of World War II and there was racism across the board. Immigration was imposed through laws on quotas as large numbers of foreigners, including Asians, were trying to enter the U.S. Bulosan writes plaintively: "…the year of the great hatred: the lives of Filipinos were cheaper than those of dogs. They were forcibly shoved off the streets when they showed resistance. The sentiment against them was accelerated by the marriage of a Filipino and a girl of the Caucasian race in Pasadena. The case was tried in court and many technicalities were brought in with it to degrade the lineage and character of the Filipino people."

More than half a century later, Filipinos are still writing about immigration and how it has scarred their lives and those of their families, and persecuted their communities.

In her 2012 memoir, “Out of Status,” Jen Furer of Cranford, New Jersey writes about the torment of deportation and how it had hounded members of her family in the 1980s. One after the other, her parents and her five brothers were subjected to that “knock on the door” and later, the removal proceedings.

Founding Editor Cristina DC Pastor

Business & Advertising Manager Rene Pastor

Writes Furer, “For about 20 years my family paid their taxes yearly, did not commit any crimes, did not ask for welfare, assimilated with the community, created new ties with the neighborhood, worked hard, tried their fate with various businesses, and raised 10 new grandchildren who lovingly call them Mama and Papa. They dreamt of one day taking that oath of citizenship…”

While the pain of illegal immigration is a recurring theme of Filipinos writing from the Diaspora, others wrote of its redeeming aspect, how it has become a ‘baptism of fire’ that toughened them to succeed until they managed to assimilate and became proudly American. Ludy Ongkeko’s “Forty Years of Writing in America” is an important example. While many wrote autobiographical accounts, others wrote fiction but always with immigration a subliminal message in the background.

In this issue, The FilAm newsmagazine presents a collection of books that represent what Filipinos write about. It answers the Why? and For Whom? It expresses the authors’ heartaches and joys, the struggles and successes, always with the hope that whatever is shared the next generation FilAms can reflect on.

Status and identity may still color what FilAms write about in 2018 as they did in the 1940s or decades before that. But there is a resilience in the community, a steely resolve to survive all the challenges. More than anything else, that is probably why we write.

Rene Pastor

Address P.O. Box 8071 New York, NY 10116

Contact Editorial: 848-219-0069 Advertising: 732-428-6318 Thefilamny@gmail.com

The FilAm is a publication of A&V Editorial THE FILAM |

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Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

Letters to our children – native, brown, yellow, white, black, gay

Two thousand and three was not a good time to be with child. In March of that year, the U.S., UK, Australia, and Poland invaded Iraq. The same week, I was told that the baby that I was carrying was going to be a boy.

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n the subway ride home from the doctors’ office, I remember looking up at the advertisements and realizing that there were no brown nor black faces. I remember thinking that most likely my son is going to be brown like me rather than white like my husband. He will need brown skinned men to look up to. I have only sisters; my dad and all my close male cousins live in Manila. I wondered—How does one raise a Filipino American son?

In “We have not stopped trembling yet, Letters to my Filipino Athabascan Family," Filipino immigrant and Psychology Professor at University of Alaska Anchorage, EJR David writes a series of missives to his Filipino Athabascan family. David's wife is part Athabascan, the native people of Alaska.

David, who moved to Alaska when he was 12, wrote the book after his best friend Pamiuq, who is Inupiaq was shot and killed by police in his own home in February 2016. Pamiuq was 36 years old and left behind his wife and three young children. Pamiuq's death led David to think about his own death and how to prepare his offspring.

"I began to think of the possible risk-factors and threats to my life...and I realized I need to tell you what happened to my parents, the generations before...about our ancestors and what was violently taken away from them...the factors that played a role in my life and therefore factors that will play a role in my death."

In the book, David writes to his sons Malakas and Kaluguran, and his daughter Kalayaan about cardinal events in Asian American and Filipino American history, events that I read in disparate books when I first became an American citizen; historical milestones that I wish every Filipino

By Tricia J. Capistrano

The phrase, "we have not stopped trembling yet," is a line from U.S. civil rights activist and writer James Baldwin's essay, "My Dungeon Shook: Letter to My Nephew on the One Hundredth Anniversary of the Emancipation," published in 1962.

"It looked bad that day, too, yes, we were trembling. We have not stopped trembling yet, Prof. E.J.R. David writes but if we had not loved to his children about their each other none of us multiracial ethnicities – would have survived.”

American, Asian, Filipino, I applaud Professor and Athabascan.

David's use of James Baldwin's phrase for the title of his book. I see it as a rightful tribute to the participants of the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s which we all (black, white, brown, yellow, red) benefit from.

David’s book can sound too academic, he is a professor after all, but behind the discussion of thought processes and historical facts, is his love for “kapwa.”

I am not sure how my son, Emil, now 14, will respond to the book. He says he has not experienced racism—he is white passing—but he has been stared down in the subway for acting effeminate. His friends, American knew. David writes about how the Philhowever, black, brown, and white and the leaders in ippines fought for independence and but underthe public schools he has attended seem to celebrate all handedly became part of the United States. He ethnicities and gender expression. Is American culture describes the U.S. laws that discriminated against changing, or is Emil’s experience positive because we immigrants of color. He also tells us about the live in the bubble that is New York City? Nevertheless, I history of his wife’s ancestors, the native people of think Filipino Americans all over the country will find Alaska and how he thinks it is inevitable that his truths about ourselves in David’s letters. children will be weighted by the native people’s “How does one raise a Filipino American son?” I ask and the Philippines’ colonized histories. myself again and again over the years. Filipino Ameri"Your ancestors' traumatic colonized history can parents, a pivotal step is to read David's book. can still have very really, destructive, and lethal Tricia J. Capistrano’s articles have appeared in manifestations...I also worry about you as children Newsweek, Mr.BellersNeighborhood.com, the Philippine of a colonized Filipino man with internalized Star, and TheFilam.net. She is the author of “Dingding, oppression."

Ningning, Singsing and Other Fun Tagalog Words.” Her David also recounts the many instances of disessay, “Inadequately Asian” published in this magazine, crimination of minorities in the U.S. especially after was awarded the Best Personal Essay during the 2017 Donald Trump became President.

Plaridel Awards held in San Francisco.

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Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

Education is her

American Dream

By Allen Gaborro

There is something rather intimate about Dr. Ludy Astraquillo Ongkeko’s book, “Forty Years Of Writing In America.”

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he work not only has a contemplative and reflective aura about it. It also, especially with subsequent readings, radiates with a personal tone and gravity that touches on the author’s collective experiences as a Filipino in America. Ongkeko’s experiences, much of which came about as a writer and as a teacher, span some 40 years and two very different, yet historically interrelated cultures and societies.

The immediate image that emerges out of “Forty Years Of Writing In America” is one of Ongkeko as a female émigré who strongly identifies with both her Filipino heritage and with the United States, which is for her “a new world renewed.” Ongkeko sees America this way because she initially lived in the U.S. before returning to the Philippines.

She eventually chose to settle back in the former.

With both the Filipino culture and the American ethos having an active and constant presence in her life, it was to be expected that Ongkeko would ponder whether Filipino immigrants should say “Home is where the heart is,” or ask if “Home is where its hearth is?”

Several key themes are expounded on in “Forty Years Of Writing In America,” all of which have been painstakingly chronicled and organized by its author. It is Ongkeko’s intent to disseminate these pertinent themes to Filipinos back home and to Filipinos in the U.S. so that they can ruminate over them and gain a more thorough awareness of their bifurcated identity.

As a citizen of both the Philippines and then later, of the United States, Ongkeko was deeply sensitive to the swirl of contending influences she was exposed to.

Ongkeko’s reading of her own sense of culture shock in America is quite perceptive and alert to the multitude of factors that inform how an expatriate like herself registers the world around them.

Ongkeko reminds us that there is no perfect formula for dealing with the effects of culture shock.

Rather, she thinks that perhaps it is the peculiarities of an individual personality that constitute the primary elements that will make all the difference in fathoming and integrating into a new culture.

Ongkeko received her education first at the University of the Philippines and then as a graduate student at the University of Southern California (USC). As a university student, Ongkeko shared a passion with her contemporaries from other Filipino families for learning and getting a college education. In “Forty Years Of Writing In America,” she speaks to this passion as she quotes Philippine Consul General Armando C. Fernandez: “A college diploma ranks as the number one ornament in any [Filipino] home.”

Ongkeko continued to envision education as a worthwhile investment as she passed on its intrinsic THE FILAM |

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value to her children.

Ongkeko’s three children excelled in graduate school, something that came as a relief to her for she was concerned upon her emigration to the U.S. that they might “veer away from education.”

Contemplatively, Ongkeko imagines an alternative definition of the American Dream that does not correspond with how it has been traditionally defined. How she Dr. Ludy Astraquillo Ongkeko. visualizes the American Dream is based on a less Photo: Getty Images materialistic perspective than what American society has predominantly become accustomed to: “Answers pertaining to the fabled American Dream are not all tangible; that dream is not measured in possessing grand real estate properties; it is not evaluated by bank deposits; it is not measured by material comforts.”

Ongkeko also writes that “the quest was for that one yardstick which involved attaining higher education,” an aspiration that she cared deeply about for herself and for her children.

“Forty Years Of Writing In America” is a cornucopia of historical narratives, autobiographical sketches, social and political commentary, and observations on personal, everyday activities like cooking and the raising of a family. Other than a bicultural and bi-national dialectic that is crafted into her book, finding a common thread in Ongkeko’s wide-ranging work is not as easy as it looks since she apparently projected it to be many things to many people.

But this refrain from putting forth a singular thesis is balanced by Ongkeko’s dedication and uncompromising focus on the various issues and positions that unite Filipinos and Filipino Americans of every generation, political persuasion, and socio-economic background.

Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

How WWII hero Josefina Guerrero struggled with deportation

She was known by several names not because she had to hide behind several layers of identity as a spy. Her life just spun that way.

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he was born Josefina Veluya in Lucban, Quezon in 1917, got married at age 16 and became Josefina Guerrero. As a spy for the U.S. during World War II, she assumed the name Billy Ferrer. In 1945 as the war was winding down, she wrote an American nun in California about leper conditions in the Philippines and signed it Joey Guerrero, a name that became familiar to her American friends when she lived in the U.S. from 1948.

In the U.S. she married a Vietnamese immigrant and became Josefina Guerrero Lau. When their marriage ended, she changed her name to Joey Leaumax. She died on June 18, 1996 in Washington D.C., known only as an usher of 17 years at the Kennedy Center. Many were unaware of her selfless act of heroism during World War II. As a young mother, Joey was afflicted with leprosy. The disease forced a separation between her and her husband who took their daughter with him. At the time, leprosy was incurable and highly contagious, and lepers were treated as outcasts.

When war broke out, she volunteered to join the resistance movement. Although she was resigned to the idea of facing slow death, she wanted to do something with the remaining years in her life.

The guerrillas were skeptical because she looked young, but gave her first assignment to test her resolve: she was to report all movements in the Japanese garrison. To their surprise, Joey managed to get an invitation to a Japanese camp where she asked a lot of innocent-sounding questions. When she got home, she provided the Americans information about a secret tunnel, complete with a drawing of a map.

While leprosy took its toll on her body it worked in her favor as she engaged in espionage. She

By Cristina DC Pastor

hiding spare tires that contained bombs. As a spy, she was invaluable and smart; as a leper spy, she was feared.

As noted in the book, “The Japanese were culturally horrified of a disease they misunderstood…They feared being anywhere near someone afflicted.”

After the war, Joey received a Medal of Freedom with Silver Palm from the U.S. government, citing her work during the wear as showing “more courage Josefina Guerrero, 1970. than that of a soldier Photo: ‘The Leper Spy,’ on the field of battle.” from the Hoover Institution She was credited for Archives, Stanford, saving the lives of many California American soldiers.

She came to the U.S. heralded as a hero. The U.S. gave her temporary visitor’s permit to live in a leprosarium in Carville, Louisiana for treatment. For the first time, says the book, the U.S. government did something it had never done: welcome a foreigner with leprosy. became an ideal asset for U.S. troops because Over the years, there would be questions about Japanese forces, repelled by her skin infection, did her temporary visitor’s permit. She faced the not inspect her thoroughly. She was free to cross prospect of deportation, but always the public enemy lines, no questions asked. Soon, she was would rally behind her and lawmakers would file given tougher assignments, working as a courier bills seeking to bestow citizenship on her. While and carrying messages from one unit to another. at Carville, she married Vietnamese immigrant “At first, Joey carried the messages inside her Alec Lau, who was also undergoing treatment for hair, which she twisted and curled and bunched leprosy. He is a permanent resident of the U.S. She up in a chignon…The guerrillas told her that if and Alec would move to San Francisco, her leprosy she was caught, they’d never heard of her,” writes contained by this time. After filing for divorce from award-winning Tampa Bay Times journalist Ben her Filipino husband, Joey would be granted U.S. Montgomery in “The Leper Spy: The Story of an citizenship.

Unlikely Hero of World War II.” She moved to Washington D.C. single once again Her missions would become more challenging: after her marriage to Alec ended. She died at age hiding military diaries, mapping artillery 68, as Joey Guerrero Leaumax, a woman who had locations, smuggling medicine and food to POWs, “chosen to be alone…chosen to be forgotten.”

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Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

High Five for Ninotchka Rosca’s ‘Gang of 5’

By Joel David

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y copy of Ninotchka Rosca’s “Gang of 5: Tales, Cuentos, Sanaysay” will never leave my bookshelf, mainly because of the author’s signature succeeding a handwritten quotation from Conrad Aiken – and also because of the text, “Limited Edition,” affixed above the title. In an exchange on the social network, Rosca said that the book will be available to a general readership by mid-2013, and however one cuts the argument, it would be a major loss for readers of Philippine literature if it weren’t. None of the five pieces is less than inspired, each one represents a writing challenge distinct from the rest,

and everything builds up to the larger anticipation of greater pleasures awaiting in the output of other Filipino authors.

The book, as far as I can surmise, was another of Rosca’s selfless exercises in pursuit of a worthy crusade: it was intended for donors to the Mariposa Center for Change’s Stand with Grace Campaign, a so-far successful effort to prevent a corrupt and abusive Congressman to reclaim his mistress, who had sought asylum in the US. Such a cause-oriented origin should not mislead the reader into expecting a series of feminist philippics; rather, the pieces are feminist in the best updated sense, some of them even abandoning the literal prescription of center-positioning a lead female character, and in one case even revealing an otherwise strong and politicized woman as a villain – a lesson well-learned from the never-ending “positive images” debates of whether Others should always be depicted as virtuous, unblemished, normative, wholesome, victims-but-never-victimizers, etc.

The collection opens with an account of the musings of a murderously inclined male sociopath, an achievement noteworthy if only for its success in comprehending the morbid mind; the story’s ultimate source of terror lies in how such a person emerges as normal, even respected, in the Third-World milieu where he operates.

The collection then shifts gears – another country, another gender – and provides a well-earned feel-good tale of what it means to be a Filipina within an imagined

community, even among people who have precisely nothing else but their imagination to follow-through this exquisitely complex construct.

Rosca maintains the central story, “The Neighborhood,” as a link to her past and future fictions. It comes from her earlier anthology “The Monsoon Collection” (which, like her other prior output, I also have not read, to my continuing chagrin).

Here she orchestrates the social interaction of a Metro Manila slum neighborhood, a colony within a colony; a magic-realist event closes what is necessarily an openended account, so it makes perfect sense that the main character’s narrative will be continued in Rosca’s forthcoming novel, “The Synchrony Tree.”

The last two pieces focus on women’s heartbreak, one seemingly based on a famous Philippine multimedia pop star’s self-exile in the U.S., the other an account of a mother’s abandonment of her helpless, oppressed daughter. Rosca refuses the facile options of resorting to victimological formulations of these characters’ respective plights; the reader is assured of her sympathy precisely because of her willingness to cast a cool, almost clinical eye on the inner conflicts of these personae, familiar from the stock repertory of soap fictions yet unnervingly represented with flesh-and-blood tangibility in these texts.

Rosca recalled how Julie de Lima, wife of the founder of the Communist Party of the Philippines, once remarked that “Only Ninotchka can render Joma [Sison] speechless.” The occasion was a

public exchange on the use of English as a medium for expressing the ideas and sentiments of Filipinos, where Sison asserted the standard nationalist line that only a native language can fulfill the challenge of depicting, say, a slum child’s innermost concerns. Rosca, by her own account, maintained that “any language [is] a malleable tool, per the writer’s skill…. The question is why we accept reading scientific, philosophical, or political tracts in a foreign language [yet] demand that literature restrict itself to a first-level reality.” The incident reveals the little-known willingness of Sison in welcoming adversarial discussions, but it also cost Rosca the respect of some of his more fanatical followers.

“Gang of 5” is, among other things, elegant proof of her defiant stance regarding the utility of the language she happened to have at her command. Its achievements would have needed no further justification beyond the serendipity of reaching an extensive readership, but Rosca typically allowed it to shoulder a wide range of objectives – from assisting a battered woman, to embodying her convictions on language, even serving as a conduit in her once-and-future fiction projects – and like all major works of literature (even the shortest ones), the collection itself abides.

Joel David is Professor of Cultural Studies at Inha University and founding Director of the University of the Philippines Film Institute. He maintains an archival blog at Ámauteurish! (https:// amauteurish.com).

Ambitious Filipina lawyer is protagonist in David Lat’s legal thriller

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ilipino-American Audrey Coyne is a recent Yale Law School graduate who dreams of someday working as a clerk for the U.S. Supreme Court.

Audrey moves to California to serve as a clerk for Judge Christina Wong Stinson, a highly regarded appeals-court judge who is Audrey’s stepping stone to a Supreme Court clerkship. While working for the powerful and influential Judge Stinson, Audrey discovers that high ambitions come with a high price.

It is a plot from David Lat’s novel, “Supreme Ambitions,” not gossip fodder in the FilAm community. Having a

Filipino as a central character in a book is very rare, according to then Consul General Mario de Leon Jr. when the book was launched in 2015.

He said Lat’s novel offers a “fascinating insight into the Filipino-American family cultural mindset…an inspiring example of the accomplishments made

by Filipino-Americans in the legal and literature industry in the U.S.” Lat is the son of successful Filipino immigrant doctors, grew up in an affluent New Jersey neighborhood of Saddle River, became a lawyer, and is currently editor-at-large at a political satire site called Above the Law. He founded ATL THE FILAM |

for lawyers, judges and legal professionals. His writings have appeared in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, New York magazine, and the New York Observer.

Before pursuing a career in the media, David worked as a federal prosecutor in Newark, New Jersey; a litigation associate at Wachtell, Lipton, Rosen & Katz, in New York; and a law clerk to Judge Diarmuid O’Scannlain of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

He is a graduate of Regis High School, Harvard College and Yale Law School, where he served as an editor of the Yale Law Journal.

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Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

Digging the gems

in Eileen Tabios’ collection of poetry

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By T. C. Marshall

ileen R. Tabios’ prolific flow of books has presented all kinds of gems and demonstrated an ability to write from many angles, often within one collection. This book purports to be “An Archaeology” of or about “Manhattan.”

That’s a new angle for her, and in her typical way she does archaeology newly. Here, we “dig” the multiplicity of persons and perceptions within “Eileen R. Tabios” and how they unfold into thoughts and feelings among the multiplicities of the city.

The first two-thirds of the book elaborate multiple readings from a one-page prefacing poem called “The Artifacts.” Its core images provide the impetus for long poems and a “novella-in-verse” made of 11 “chapter” poems. They are followed by “vacation” poems on “Skiing away from Manhattan.” This serious framework of proliferations provides a strong sense of constructedness—a structure actually evoking Legos. The poems are solid, and yet their parts are moveable. We dig into feelings and their origins here in an archaeology that constructs or re-constructs a past and, as in Charles Olson’s “archaeology of morning,” a possible future of a city of possibilities.

In “Post-Nostalgia,” the concept of interactions through language helps define this city with “Will you articulate back / to me to teach me / the vocabulary I lose as I speak it?” That loss and recovery are the aesthetic core, as is San Juan de la Cruz’s epigraph: “Vivo sin vivir en mi / I live without inhabiting myself.” Lest that be another old Rimbaud bit re-hashed, Tabios works it fully as she links with many autres.

No poem is cut short; thought carries them on beyond succinctness. Worlds are elaborated from the boundary where irrealities meet the real: “while the air, too, begins / to become physical // by taking on the tinge / of fire, rose, ruby, / sunset, dawn, sunset …”.

The images for all the senses are strong, but they also cross back and forth over that line between thought and image. That is the thrust of this book.

The “Clyfford Still Studies” exemplify this poetics. They are linked to the whole book by the mention in “The Artifacts” of a “monograph on Still’s paintings,” but these poems take the book to its full pitch of intensity. Beyond Joan Mitchell’s excitingly abstract dogs or trees, Still’s paintings provide a dance or frieze of abstracted shapes without thing-ly referents. They have a “feel” to them, and that’s where the essayistic poems start and often end.

Tabios’ poems both rivet and ramble in a purposeful manner, moving into thinking as it arises from and with feelings. Still’s greatly abstract work are imagistic without being referential. Tabios followed in that direction—Still’s great strength—with their play beyond imagery. The poems “correspond with” the paintings, much in the manner of a Jack Spicer translation.

The poems are not deictic, and yet they read the paintings in a way that respects their abstractions. They are anti-deictic by ranging widely from their impetus and freely including multiplicities of thought, image and feeling.

The titles for each of the 18 “Clyfford Still Studies” begin with “On.” “On the Inescapability of Fragility” concludes with the word “Fragile.” Many other words might have arisen from this large painting (105 X 92 1/2 inches)—a field of black with a few jagged rips of color. Tabios’ choice to let the poem move from “If you would only consider the effects of humiliation from the existence of teeth” to “as if we are not all Fragile” is brilliant. The poetic logic may linger around the fragility of teeth, but along its way this poem meditates on gender and family and identity in ways that are hardly abstract.

These poems engage the paintings in a chat.

“On The Delusion Called ‘Relief’” begins with a spider who’s still alive after a squishing attempt. The interpretation may come from the non-figurative figures of black with light highlights floating in a field of deep red. These “figures” are almost disembodied; the only “things” they truly resemble might be something like galaxies, but they become “beings” in Tabios’ poem.

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The poem concludes “for certain creatures that wander throughout this vast universe / illusions are limited—there is no Relief.”

That’s the “essay” quality: these poems think. They push beyond the accepted aesthetic of image and feeling into questioning how our thoughts arise.

“On Obviating the Mundane” works its way from images of a bare back to the philosophical conclusion that “nothing is Mundane.” In these poems, nothing is merely mundane because everything can be read through the complex of thoughts and feelings delivered. Tabios’ readings make Still’s great paintings richer, even without our looking at them. That’s an accomplishment—and a new and large accomplishment, even in the vast bibliography of Eileen R. Tabios.

T.C. Marshall lives and works in the coastal mountains of California, darting out like a dragonfly into poetry scenes here and there. Recently, he delivered a paper on “Post-Crisis Poetics” at Buffalo’s big conference on what’s coming up in “the next 25 years” and had another published in Brian Ang’s online anthology exploring that topic.

Eileen R. Tabios’ Newest Book!

ONE TWO THREE: Selected Hay(na)ku Poems A bilingual edition with Spanish Translations by Rebeka Lembo ISBN: 968-1-387-60701-3 Contact: editor@palomapress.net Release Date: Spring/Summer 2018 from Paloma Press 7

Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

COVER STORY

Nanding & Laura find love anew and a life of purpose

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By Cristina DC Pastor

he prelude to Nanding and Laura’s love story had a religious backdrop.

They met at Simbang Gabi sa Konsulado in December of 2013. They were lining up before the buffet table when Fiesta in America CEO Fernando ‘Nanding’ Mendez spotted an old acquaintance, and said, “Hey, I think I know you.”

Nanding and nurse educator Laura Garcia have crossed paths in the past, but Laura’s recollection was only the “hello” they said to each other. When they reconnected, Nanding, almost reclusive into widowhood (his wife Mila, passed away in 2012), began to see the world around him open up to new possibilities.

“Friends were surprised,” he began, as he shared the story of their romance with The FilAm. “They were in puzzlement because I was not supposed to go out. I was in seclusion. Before, I attended many functions with Mila, and now suddenly I’m by myself.”

Laura, in the meantime, was this nursing professional balancing clinical duties with teaching nursing students and raising a young daughter. She was married at a young age to the scion of a political family in Cebu, their separate career options and lifestyles forcing a no-fault split: Laura opting to stay in the U.S. with her daughter, and her husband choosing to go back home with their son.

The family remains very close through their separate lives.

“My family here has been urging me to go out because I have been in seclusion (also), very busy with work. They said it’s time for me to, you know, go out and meet someone. Then I met Nanding,” recalled Laura laughing as she summoned the memories of five years ago.

When she went home that night from Simbang Gabi, she prayed if Nanding was ‘the one,’ and asked for a sign. The phone rang and came Nanding’s soft-spoken monotone. “I said to myself oh, I can love this guy,” laughed Laura.

At Fiesta in America 2017, Fernando Mendez and Laura Garcia welcomed dignitaries, led by then Consul General Tess Dizon-De Vega and Jersey City Council President Rolando Lavarro Jr. Nanding and Laura are the couple behind the revamped Fiesta in America, a 20-year indoor expo in Secaucus, N.J. bringing businesses and a growing consumer market together. This year, Fiesta will focus on the health care market, leveraging Laura’s expertise and network as a nursing professional. Currently, she is Associate Professor at the Phillips School of Nursing at Mount Sinai Beth Israel, at the same time that she is an Adjunct Clinical Educator at NYU Rory Meyers College of Nursing. In both schools, she teaches Obstetrics and Maternal-Child Nursing.

Laura’s nursing background actually started in 1985 when she was a Staff Nurse at the Long Island College Hospital, in Brooklyn, assigned to the Labor and Delivery and OB/GYN Unit. From there, it’s been an arduous climb to where she is currently. Her long experience with maternal care had prompted a career shift. From clinical nurse, she became a nurse educator. While teaching at several nursing schools in New Jersey and New York, she managed to complete her doctoral degree.

While known throughout the community as a businessman, Nanding is THE FILAM |

essentially an artist. He enjoys tooling around with graphics, designing logos, and creating corporate branding. When Fiesta was founded by Nanding and Mila in 1998, Nanding worked in the background while Mila became the face of Fiesta. Nanding emerged when she died in 2012, and carried the flag, so to speak, keeping Fiesta alive for its legions of followers.

“When Mila passed away and he thought he did not have the energy, the people around him lifted him up to pull Fiesta together,” said Laura. “Now, he just couldn’t let it go.”

At their new condo in the Theatre District, Laura professed how she imagined life with Nanding to be a “quiet, peaceful” one. Before long, he would take her to travels, meet members of the community, dancing and other activities she did not have time for as a working professional.

Said Nanding: “She’s not really into it because sometimes it’s about glamour, and she doesn’t like to draw attention to herself.

I said don’t worry, we’ll just eat and dance.

Mostly, she doesn’t like the politics of it.”

In time, Laura began to adapt and enjoy her new life loading with new friends, new experiences, and new possibilities. A 8

A shared love of dancing.

Photos by Boyet Loverita different world opened up. Fiesta is just one of many new horizons. “I just learned to stop fighting it,” she said.

She is currently chairperson of the National Federation of Filipino American Associations – or NaFFAA – for 2017 to 2019. Her coming-out of sorts began when she came back to New York from residing in New Jersey and became avidly involved in Filipino and non-Filipino community concerns, having received a June 2017 Citation for Academic Excellence and Community Leadership from New York State Assemblyman Brian Barnwell. She is past president of the Silliman University Alumni Association of New York and New Jersey.

At the moment, Nanding and Laura are “very happy, enjoying the moment.”

Marriage is something some friends have inquired about, but they are taking it one moment at a time. More important, they are growing together as one as they continue to find ways to be of help to others if not through Fiesta, maybe through other ways.

“It would be,” said Laura, “embarrassing not to do something good for humanity.

The possibilities are endless.”

‘Sikat ka, Kapuso!’ stars get the show on the road. Photos by Troi Santos

Shrieking fans turn out

for their favorite Kapuso stars

By Lindy Rosales

The doors opened at 5 p.m. to festive music as guests streamed into the Newark Symphony Hall for GMA’s “Sikat ka, Kapuso!” concert.

Concert goers were offered ice cream samples on their way in.

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erilyn Abiva and her husband, who are members of the Ilokano-American Association, were giddy with excitement. So were Nancy One of many entertaining dance numbers Malulan, her sister Melody Malulan and friend Estelita Thibodau who traveled all the way from The front act alone was already spectacular. Kirby Albany, N.Y. They were ready with their meet-andAsunto’s lyrical voice, Jared Babushchak’s cool congreet tickets and wristbands to have their pictures fidence, Angel Ram’s bouncy number and Alyssa Jade taken with Alden Richards of AlDub fame. The other Shoemaker’s performance were warmly received by stars of the show — Dennis Trillo, Jennylyn Mercado, the crowds.

Dingdong Dantes, Lovi Poe and Betong Sumaya – had In the preshow hosted by Grace Rustia, guests who their own legions of fans waiting to see them. correctly answered questions won prizes. Comedian THE FILAM |

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Betong Sumaya asked, “Did you know that New Jersey is considered the diner capital of the world?” Part of his antics was checking out people’s clothing labels. Gasp!

“Can I see your label? Oh my…oh my…Balenciaga…Gary Balenciaga!” or “Can I see it, Sir? Oh my… it’s a new brand… DiVi … Divisoria!” And so on. This funny man was able to hold his audience with his jokes.

Fans swooned as actors Dennis Trillo, Jennylyn Mercado, Alden Richards, Dingdong Dantes, and Lovi Poe performed musical numbers, individually or as a group.

The newest member of the Kapuso team, Dantes wowed the crowd by singing pop songs and dancing, a different kind of act for this talented drama actor.

Fresh from a two-week vacation with his actress wife Marian Rivera and their little girl, he gushed when they were mentioned.

“Nakakamiss, but lahat naman nito para sa kanila,” he said, adding how it is “such an inspiration” to be on stage with fellow GMA artists. “I get to work with them on screen as actors, but to be performing on stage is a different thing.”

Several times during the show, the stars went down the stage to be closer to the audience. But they only made it a few steps as the people came rushing toward them for pictures and selfies.

Two men and three women were picked to come on stage to be serenaded by each of the Kapuso stars.

There was a moment of surprise when Sumaya was slapped, twice, on the face by one of the overly excited women. It was obviously unscripted, and you could see the shock in Sumaya’s face. “Sinasaktan ako,” he said. There was a pause from the crowd before they cheered him on, and the show went on like nothing happened.

Toward the end of the show Dennis Trillo’s voice wavered a bit. Only then I realized he was singing live and not lip-synching. He and Jennylyn Mercado sang a duet and had a moment where she said, “Bakit ba mahal na mahal kita,” and he responded with an “I Love you” to which the fans roared with approval.

Mercado looked marvelous in her blue sheer gown with spaghetti straps.

Trillo also did a duet with Lovi Poe, promoting their teleserye “The One That Got Away.” Poe, the daughter of movie legend Fernando Poe, looked beautiful and resplendent in her sequined black gown with slits that go way up.

Another number that brought the house down was Sumaya — wearing a long curly wig, red bra, his tummy exposed — dancing and singing to his song “Despacito” with Mercado and Poe dancing along.

That number generated a lot of laughs and thunderous applause.

Gloria Saguin-Montecer from Bridgewater, New Jersey, a Jennylyn Mercado fan, said this is her second time to see Mercado perform live. She is a member of the Jennylyn Mercado Facebook club, which allows her to communicate with the star and other fans. She is looking forward to watching the actress’s latest teleserye, “The Cure.”

The show ended with fans, still high from the adrenaline rush, making their way to the photo ops with their favorite stars.

ONLY BITE-SIZE STORIES on everyday life for Gene Del Carmen

S

hort story writer Gene Del Carmen has published yet another engaging collection entitled, “The Manny Pacquiao Effect and Other Stories.”

“It was not hard to come up with nine fictional stories and one true story for the Manny Pacquiao book,” said Gene an accounting professional from Monmouth, New Jersey. “Story ideas come to me constantly. In my mind, words and phrases that sound new and unique quickly form images and situations that later become a story.”

Gene admits being a “true and avid fan” of boxer Manny Pacquiao led him to the book’s beckoning title.

“I cheer when he wins, and I feel deflated when he loses. I wrote the Pacquiao story after his winning fight with Oscar de la Hoya. At that time, I had an idea for a ‘coming home’ kind of story about a Filipino doctor in America. The Pacquiao win somehow found itself being a big part of the blended story,” he said.

Ten very insightful stories, which focus on life’s day-to-day experiences, a spectrum of emotions and decision-making are in the

book. Each story offers a positive takeaway that touches the heart.

The idea of writing a novel has crossed Gene’s mind but he doubts he can take on such demanding task.

“Short stories are my kind of stories. I like reading them and writing them. I can write a full-length novel by taking a short story and adding more characters and situations, but I’m not sure if I could keep my interest and energy for that project,” he said when interviewed by The FilAm. He recalled how his mother played a huge role in his interest to become a storyteller.

“I remember when my younger sister and I were of school age my mother would tell us stories about brave warriors and their dangerous adventures to save the maiden they love. These were stories she would imagine as she narrated them to us,” he said.

A segment in the book was personal.

He writes about his first wife Raquel’s illness.

“My first wife died of Lupus. That personal tragedy is always in my memory.

Then I read in the news about the FBI sting, ‘Operation Bid Rig,’ right here in my

By Maricar CP Hampton

county in New Jersey. One of those caught in that sting was an illegal kidney organ broker from New York. And then I saw a documentary about kidney transplant tourism where Filipinos were the donor victims. I put all those facts together and wrote the ‘Solomon, Peter, and Joseph’ story,” he recounted.

An accountant, Gene first wrote while working for an advertising agency in the Philippines. He wrote advertising copy, not short stories. Eventually, he wrote scripts for television and comics. He has written for “Pirapirasong Pangarap,” “Tambakan Alley,” and some illustrated comic books like “Pilipino Komiks” and “Liwayway.”

To date, Gene has written over 25 short stories. His first collection, “The Pork Bun Heist and Other Stories,” was published in 2015. He is working on his third anthology.

The light and refreshing tone of the “The Manny Pacquiao Effect” attracts many readers.

“There’s one lady who told me she likes to read my book on her doctor’s appointments’ wait time,” said Gene.

Personally, I like all the stories, but if I have to pick the ones that stood out, I would choose the following: “Blueprint for a Bordello” is about holding on to one’s Faith despite the pressures and temptation to sin. “Tissue” is a light romantic story with characters Harriet and Len meeting on a train station and falling in love. “Waray Waray Nurse” focuses on a timely topic of gun control. “Kaboom” teaches us that in life, every cloud has a silver lining.

Christina Lewis Halpern writes in memory of father’s legacy

C

hristina Lewis Halpern wrote an e-memoir in 2012 that ranked among Amazon’s Top 10 in the categories of Business and Biography & History not far from the latest Steve Jobs biography.

In “Lonely at the Top,” the journalist finds that her father Reginald Lewis’ larger-than-life legacy follows her at every turn — from when she was a student at Harvard to a Wall Street Journal reporter who interviewed some of his peers in the business world, such as Donald Trump.

Lewis is described in the book as “the first black man to own a billion-dollar business… and perhaps the only person to be admitted to Harvard Law School without even applying.” His wife is Philippine-born lawyer and philanthropist Loida Nicolas Lewis.

While Christina struggles to reconcile her father’s name with what she has made of herself as a young journalist (“Did affirmative action make me who I am today, or would I have gotten there, anyway?”), what she learned was he was a regular Joe who got through Harvard on the strength of his “drive, ambition, intelligence and confidence” despite being a mediocre student.

THE FILAM |

Okay, throw race in there and a little bit of luck. The book explains in a lively way how they all may have worked to create the legend that Lewis had become.

Excerpts from The FilAm’s interview with Christina.

TF: How do you explain the book’s success as a digital memoir? How many copies have been sold, downloaded?

CLH: Amazon will not let us give those numbers out. Let’s just say that they’re very happy at how it’s sold.

TF: Did you get emotional writing it?

CLH: It was very difficult to write but ultimately it was really cathartic. I was very happy with how it turned out. It was an emotional journey. I just put a lot of myself into it.

TF: What were some of the surprising details you learned about your father?

CLH: I was surprised at the grades. People have this idea that good grades would 10

make one a good lawyer. People would think of grades in terms of Harvard. People think that with good grades you’ll be good at that job, like good grades in English will make you a good writer. That’s not necessarily true in my father’s story. I think my father would be great candidate for Harvard Law then and Harvard Law now given his work ethic and personal story and track record for achievement.

TF: Are you comfortable being labeled an heiress in the book?

CLH: Is it a label or is it fact? I am what I am. I don’t think I should be ashamed.

TF: Which of your father’s remarkable traits did you acquire?

CLH: I’ve been told I have some of his perseverance, something he and my mother always emphasized to us and I’ve tried to never take for granted. He was a very perceptive person and I hope to have some of that too. – Cristina DC Pastor

Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

Jen Furer’s memoir of hope, devotion to family one deportation at a time

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ven by Filipino standards, Jen Furer’s immigration journey is one colossal heartache: Her entire family, meaning her parents and five brothers, were deported after living in the U.S. for several years. The worst episode came when a brother in California and another in New Jersey got their “knock on the door” on the same day.

“Out of Status” is a memoir about her journey from the Philippines to the U.S. and the significant lessons learned along the way – choosing immigration lawyers carefully, remaining steadfast as a family, and never coming to the U.S. and hiding from the law because that’s where Furer’s troubles began.

In 1984, Jen Dompor flew to the U.S. on a tourist visa to attend her grandparents’ 50th wedding anniversary. At the back of her mind, this young graduate of Psychology and Guidance Counseling from a private girls’ school in Manila knew she would never come back.

“I was the first in my family to come to America,” she told this reporter.

She had thought that a pleasant personality, college degree and facility with the English language, doors would open for her. They did but would quickly shut when potential employers learned about her status. She had considered filing for political amnesty but even that did not work out. Eventually, she found work at the IT department of a major

My sister Myrna

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By Luis H. Francia

n my mind’s eye, I can see my ‘ate,’ or older sister Myrna here, possibly as a ‘babaylan,’ part of a religious community more solidly rooted in folk beliefs than the Catholic Church and more empowering of her as a woman. I remember attending her 25th anniversary celebration as a nun with the congregation of the Immaculate Cordis Mariae. The occasion was marked by a renewal of her vow, along with those of six other nuns. On that day, the celebrants, calling themselves “Doves,” released seven of the birds during rituals presided over by 15 priests and headed by a bishop.

Considered a progressive by the more conservative members of her community, Myrna had evolved a decidedly feminist perspective. And yet what struck me about those proceedings was that 15 Catholic priests, embodying patriarchal traditions, were giving their blessings to seven women.

I have no doubt Myrna was aware of this ironic subtext. In her homily, she quoted Rilke, “Infinite dreams but finite deeds,” and referred to “a Steadfast Compassionate Mother God who knows where we are going even if we ourselves sometimes don’t.” In that reference to God as female was encapsu-

lated the part of her voyage that most of the congregation’s other members would refuse to undertake, a voyage that harked back to the sacred iconography of pre-Hispanic times when Bathala, the Divine Principle, had no gender, and the first man, Malakas, and the first woman, Maganda, sprang forth from bamboo at the same time and as equals.

I never imagined my fun-loving ‘ate’ would one day opt for the life of a religious. Before becoming a nun, Myrna, never a ‘santa-santita,’ had already been working, had had a busy social life, had had suitors. One night, coming home from a party, she had an epiphany and knew she wanted to be a nun. As she prepared for bed, Myrna remembers listening to Frank Sinatra singing these lines on the radio: ‘The party’s over, it’s time to call it a day! They’ve burst your pretty balloon and taken the moon away. Now you must wake up…’ For some reason the ballad crystallized her feelings.

Myrna’s experiences as a missionary in the Philippines’ remote rural south, then in the Indian state of Kerala, and her studies in Europe, made her see how, in a country as poor and beleaguered as the Philippines, asserting a communal bond with the less privileged was, to her, much more compelling than the traditional route of contemTHE FILAM |

retail store and would meet her future husband there.

One by one, members of her family followed her on the same ruse of being a tourist and then getting lost in the labyrinthine American landscape. By late 1980s, the entire Dompor family was in the U.S. They were able to convert their tourist visas to H1-B and H2-B employment-based visas. Her parents, who used to export apparel while in the Philippines, set up a garments business financed partly by friends and former associates. There would be the incessant run-ins with bogus and corrupt immigration attorneys – including one who was disbarred while working on their case. Through it all, the family went about their daily lives – got married and had kids — as if they were naturalized Americans. No one but themselves knew that there was a ticking time bomb every time one of their visas expired.

“I went through the whole craziness,” said Furer in an interview. “We hired lawyer after lawyer, but my family all ended

up getting deported.” The day the family was deported in mid-2000, she said, felt like “the world ended.”

Writes Furer in her book: “For about 20 years my family paid their taxes yearly, did not commit any crimes, did not ask for welfare, assimilated with the community, created new ties with the neighborhood, worked hard, tried their fate with various businesses, and raised 10 new grandchildren who lovingly call them Mama and Papa. They dreamt of one day taking that oath of citizenship…”

Furer said her experience clearly shows how seriously the immigration system needs fixing, and how it can bankrupt families desperate to legalize their status.

For one thing, she wondered why it would take families decades to be reunited. She also questioned why government can’t seem to run after attorneys who prey on out-of-status immigrants.

She is hoping that through her book, she may be able to “educate, challenge, inspire and make a difference.” – Cristina DC Pastor

plative isolation. She once told me that living among the fisherfolk of Mati, Davao Oriental in Mindanao, for two years during the Marcos regime “saved me from being a dried-up prune of a nun.”

As an educated urbanite, she initially displayed a smug self-righteousness thinking she and the American missionaries based in Mindanao had true faith while the peasants only had superstitious beliefs. “My pompousness crumbled upon hearing their genuine faith reflections and their from-the-heart

prayers. It was a real liberating experience.”

Marcos had declared martial law in 1972, yet the intensity of these peasants’ faith when confronted with an emboldened military opened her eyes “to the deeper realities of my country, those whom I previously never knew nor appreciated as ‘bayani’ (heroes).”

Myrna remembered the courage of the people she worked with, such as Nang Vecing, a fisherman’s wife. “She was no coward whether facing priest or police. She said things as she saw them. Jailed by the local military unit, she declared: ‘Maybe the soldiers don’t know the gospel of Jesus and so they confuse Marx with Mark.’”

I asked her if she felt she had taught the fisherfolk something. “Something for sure.

But much much more I have learned from these ‘mayukmok’ (ordinary people). Through their unsung lives and unheralded deaths, they bring in the ‘ani,’ or harvest, of justice and peace.” The situation there had gotten worse, she pointed out, during the subsequent decade, with even more brutal militarization.

“And how is Mindanao today?” she asked rhetorically. “Still bleeding. And its ‘mayukmok’ are still standing tall, honoring their faith in life even by their dying.”

This is one of the essays in the book “The Party’s Over: A Nun for Modern Times: The Story of Myrna H. Francia, ICM” edited by Lorna Kalaw Tirol.

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Our Books: Stories from Here and Home

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Boracay Island: Closed to tourists for six months until October.

Tourism Attach é Susan del Mundo meets the press;

talks Boracay and vandalized billboards

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Del Mundo gives a presentation to the FilAm media. The FilAm Photo

By Cristina DC Pastor

t’s “very sad,” said new Tourism Attaché to New York Susan del Mundo, that people would vandalize Philippine tourism billboards.

“Sad because effort ito ng mga Pilipino,” she told members of the FilAm media in a press conference. “We would like to promote our country to have a very good image. And then they have to do this.”

She was referring to the outdoor advertising ‘It’s More Fun in the Philippines’ bouncing all over Manhattan on subway trains and buses. They are also visible on subway platforms and on Times Square digital screens.

The acts of vandalism appear to be directed toward Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, in some calling him a ‘Fascist’ because of his government’s brutal campaign against drugs. An estimated 12K suspected drug pushers and users have been killed by Philippine police.

Asked who she thought was behind the graffiti, Del Mundo replied, “Perhaps the same group who are against EJK.” EJK, for extrajudicial killings, is the term used by human rights groups to describe the Duterte Government’s lack of aggressiveness in prosecuting police officers who kill drug suspects.

THE FILAM |

A mobile ad in New York can be very expensive. Del Mundo said she had no idea of cost because such advertising was commissioned by the Department of Tourism (DOT) office in Manila.

Just to give an idea, the New Yorker magazine reported in 2016 the cost of outdoor advertising.

• “Subway cars: $44,000 to cover 25 percent of a train’s interior ad spaces.

• “Subway platform: $40,000 to cover 200 stations.

• “Static subway-entrance ads: $3,000.

• “Buses: $500 for an exterior ad; interior ad spaces are $26 each.”

The frequency and size of the ads need to be determined to get a closer estimate of the cost. Del Mundo said the DOT has about 1,000 posters on trains and subways.

She said the DOT has a modest budget but Tourism Secretary Wanda Teo made sure New York is given a big share for its marketing campaign because it is a “global center.” The DOT has a budget of P3.1 billion (approx. $59.7 million) for fiscal year 2018, according to the government’s Department of Budget and Management.

Said Del Mundo, “New York is a source market, a hub. We’re not only targeting the New Yorkers but also the foreigners who are visitors here. New York is the global trend center.”

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||Alternatives to Boracay

She said she has not received any complaints from tour operators about the planned closure of Boracay island off Aklan province. The Duterte Government is closing Boracay – voted Conde Nast’s Best Island – for six months beginning April 26, to clean up garbage and debris that have accumulated since it became a tourist destination in the 1970s.

“There’s not so much impact,” she said.

How can the government continue to promote Boracay as a premiere destination if the island begins to deteriorate, she wondered to reporters in the press conference. There are alternative locations around the Visayas region, she added. She named Sicogon and Gigantes islands in Iloilo, and Guimaras in Panay.

She conceded Boracay has crowded beaches, and noted how some tourists, like Europeans, “like to go to less crowded places.”

“There are many islands that are comparable or better than Boracay,” she said, indicating the six-month closure would allow the DOT to promote other locations in the country.

Through all the negative publicity surrounding massive numbers of drug-related killings, she said tourism arrivals have actually gone up. In 2016, when Duterte became president, arrivals registered at 5.9 million, according to the DOT website. In 2017, the number rose to 6.6 million.

Stella Abrera: A heart for the homeland

By April Deocariza

Some of America’s biggest names in ballet performed on the Philippine stage on April 6-7 in a gala curated by none other than Stella Abrera, the first Filipino American to reach the top rank of principal dancer at the prestigious American Ballet Theatre (ABT).

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he program, entitled “An Intimate Evening with Stella Abrera & American Ballet Stars” benefitted CENTEX (Center of Excellence in Public Elementary Education), Ayala Foundation’s flagship program providing holistic, quality education for economically disadvantaged children.

The idea for a gala came about two years ago after Abrera was introduced to Sofia Zobel Elizalde, former dancer for Ballet Philippines and founder of Steps Dance Studio in Manila.

“Sofia is a strong advocate for the arts, as well as education,” explained Abrera during a phone interview from ABT’s Broadway studios. “We became fast friends and were talking about how amazing it would be to one day put together a show. When I learned that ABT was going on an Asia tour and that we would be getting a twoweek break afterwards, I got on the phone with Sofia and said, ‘This is our opportunity’. She was totally game.”

For Abrera, who has performed on some of the most famous stages in the world from Hollywood to Paris, this particular show was a homecoming.

“It’s the country of my heritage,” said the Manila-born Abrera. “I definitely have my Filipino roots that are very intertwined in my family. I have a lot of extended family in the Philippines that have never seen me perform, so it was really cool to have them be there.”

It has been a long and illustrious career thus far, which has taken Abrera around the globe. Raised in South Pasadena, California, Abrera began dancing at the age of 5. She spent three years studying the Royal Academy of Dancing method at the Halliday Dance Centre in Sydney, Australia.

After receiving the Gold Medal at the

Royal Academy of Dancing’s Adeline Genee Awards in London, she joined ABT’s corps de ballet in 1996. Abrera climbed the ladder performing leading roles in ballets such as “The Sleeping Beauty,” “Symphonic Variations,” and “Afternoon of a Faun.” In 2015, she was promoted to the coveted rank of principal dancer. Her exquisite lines, ethereal grace and passionate depiction of roles are unmatched, but what truly sets Abrera apart is her heart for giving back to her homeland.

This wasn’t the first time Abrera has traveled to the Philippines for charity. In 2014, she partnered with Operation USA to form Steps Forward for the Philippines, a charitable fund dedicated to providing educational supplies to school children in Guiuan, Eastern Samar, the town hardest hit by Super Typhoon Haiyan. After a

special performance of “Giselle” with Ballet Philippines, Abrera flew to Guiuan to meet with the children and distribute supplies.

In this latest trip, Abrera and her husband, retired ABT soloist Sascha Radetsky, taught master classes to CENTEX’s students. The students were also given the unique opportunity to perform alongside Abrera and her fellow stars during the gala, something Abrera specifically requested.

“Visiting the CENTEX school in Tondo was the coolest part of the trip,” said Abrera. “These kids were so full of joy and big dreams. To see the light on their faces, that’s something every kid should have, not just those born on the right side of the tracks. To know that CENTEX helps these kids who are gifted, it’s amazing.”

Stella Abrera and JooWon Ahn in “Don Quixote.” Photo by Jojo Mamangun/ABT THE FILAM |

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Receiving gifts of papier-mâché pointe shoes from CENTEX students. Photo: ABT Next up for Abrera are rehearsals for ABT’s spring season at The Metropolitan Opera House in New York City, which opens on May 14.

“Every year, we put on eight productions in eight weeks. We’re on the grand stage of The Met which is our main home in New York, so it’s all very meaningful this time of year.”

Meaningful indeed, particularly as Abrera will be performing the lead role of Juliet in Kenneth MacMillan’s Romeo and Juliet on June 14.

“It’s the jewel of my season, if not my career,” she said. “I’ve performed many different parts in this ballet after being in the company for so long. It carries so much weight for me and to bring it to The Met, it’s monumental.”

Abrera celebrated her 20th anniversary with ABT in 2016, and the sky is still the limit for this ballerina.

“Right now, I’m doing as much as I can to train myself for the next step.

I’m hoping the path will become illuminated sometime soon but until then, I’m going to keep dancing and doing what I do. If I can keep connecting the arts and philanthropy, I would love to do that.”

April Deocariza is a Southern California native. She worked for 10 years at New York public relations firm, Emanate PR, before returning to her first passion, writing. Her stories have appeared in the Press-Enterprise newspaper and Blessed Is She.

Issue 3, May 2018

Ballerina Stella Abrera gives back to her homeland p15 Special Report on Books featuring Ninotchka Rosca, Luis Francia, Ludy Ongkeko, E.J.R. David and more p3

Photo by Rosalie O'Connor