Last spring after I attended the first Malaya Movement National Summit, I wrote about the joy I felt in activism and being a part of something so much larger than myself. There is no bigger happiness than seeing collective voices and powers amplified — flowering into something more meaningful. I feel the same way about Decolonize Your Bookshelves. Yesterday was my third event, and once again I felt rejuvenated by doing my part to bring joy into the art of resistance.
At this event, we celebrated author Randy Ribay and his latest novel, Patron Saints of Nothing, which explores themes of family, belonging, and ethnic and national identity through a distinctly Filipino-American lens. His work--which is exhilarating, harrowing, uplifting and redemptive--is a powerful testament to so many of our experiences, and it is deeply resonant for me personally.
When I was a kid, I wanted nothing more than to fit in. I grew up in the 80s and 90s in Baltimore County. For the first part of my life, conformity was everything to me. The dominant culture that I was raised in taught me to be “acceptable.” That was the most important thing of all. Don’t rock the boat. Don’t be too much, and if you’re too little…well, that’s better than being too much. I think my Filipino friends can all relate to this: I was told to never be “bastos.”
Later on, when I got to college, I got a little wiser and I started to realize that nonconformity was much better for me. There, instead of being surrounded by conservative, preppy white kids, I was exposed to diverse cultures. As an art major, I was immersed in a spectrum of gender identities and sexual orientations, and I was introduced to a whole new world -- music, films, literature, and fashion. College was the first time I was around lots of Filipino kids who shared similar interests with me.
It was at that time that I started to get more political too. Fast forward to present day. I have my blog and my podcast, I’ve started Decolonize Your Bookshelves and I’ve become a convener for Malaya Movement, which is an international organization dedicated to upholding human rights and democracy in the Philippines. While all this was going on, I was still discovering my own voice and identity. I believe that finding your voice, so to speak, is one of the most important experiences we can have in our lives. Some people find it really early on and I envy them. Some people don’t find it until their thirties or forties or even beyond. On many levels, the work I do is driven by a need to articulate my own awakening and my own decolonization.
One of the reasons I started Decolonize Your Bookshelves is because as humans, we are born to love stories. We’re hardwired to love them because they help us understand the world around us. We use stories to organize and communicate our surroundings, our emotions, our unique experiences and the wisdom we’ve gained. Stories have a way of moving people into action. People will adopt someone else’s experience as their own so it helps build empathy. Stories can also help people have difficult conversations with our friends and family. One of my favorite chapters in Patron Saints of Nothing (don’t worry, this isn’t a spoiler) is when Jay has a conversation with his Uncle about the political climate on the ground in the Philippines. That conversation taught me how to handle it when my own friends and relatives try to invalidate my moral understanding of the War on Drugs because I’m Filipino American and I grew up here in the states.
Growing up I also had no exposure to Filipino authors, and especially no Filipino American authors. But there is a new wave that’s rushing in. It’s a brave, honest and culturally proud group of storytellers whose mission is to be seen and be heard and to tell the truth. Books have long been at the forefront of my own decolonization process. Little by little, we change and grow as we read. And there are some significant books that change us substantially and elucidate our path.
I’m happy to say that Patron Saints of Nothing is one such work for me.
*Special thanks to Randy Ribay! And a huge thanks to all of my kasamas in Malaya Movement Baltimore for helping me organize such a great event. Thank you to Missi Feliciano for letting us use her beautiful church, First Unitarian Church of Baltimore, as our venue. And of course, thank you to Greedy Reads for being such a great sponsor and event partner!
Malaya Movement Baltimore with Randy Ribay!
My daughter Luisita with Irene Batingue of Greedy Reads!
With Professor Gem Daus of the Filipino American Studies Program at the University of Maryland.
Randy!
Randy Ribay’s latest novel, Patron Saints of Nothing, is a 2019 National Book Award finalist. Even if you are not familiar with the history or current political climate in the Philippines, this book is one of the best primers out there. Randy is also a convener for Malaya Movement, and he is based in the San Francisco Bay Area.
Recent Posts
I usually do a write up of the events I’ve organized or hosted and my most-read articles at the end of the year. This was an unusual year (obviously, there is no need to go into it here) so I didn’t bother. Instead I want to highlight a project of mine that I am particularly proud of — it’s my new podcast show, Unverified Accounts, that I cohost with my frequent collaborators, Chris Jesu Lee and Filip Guo. If you're a big movie/TV/book buff, have leftist sympathies, but can't stand 'wokeness' dumbing down our culture, then we're the podcast for you. So far in our 25 episodes, we’ve covered a range of contentious topics.