Magdaragat, page 38
Kawika Guillermo is the author of Stamped: an anti-travel novel (2018), which won the Asian American Studies Book Award for Best Novel, as well as the queer speculative fiction novel, All Flowers Bloom (2020) and the prose-poetry book, Nimrods: a fake-punk self-hurt anti-memoir (2023). Under his patrilineal/legal name, Christopher Patterson, he is an associate professor in the Social Justice Institute at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver and is the author of the books Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific (2018) and Open World Empire: Race, Erotics, and the Global Rise of Video Games (2020).
Primrose Madayag Knazan (she/her) is an award-winning playwright and author and has been featured at Winnipeg Jewish Theatre, Royal Manitoba Theatre Centre, the Winnipeg International Writers Festival, CBC Radio, the Winnipeg Fringe, and the Tales from the Flipside Festival of new Filipinx-Canadian Plays. She won the bi-annual Canadian Jewish Playwriting Competition and her plays have been published by Scirocco Drama and Playwrights Canada Press. Her debut novel, Lessons in Fusion, won the Manitoba Book Award for Young People, and was nominated for both the Manitoba and Saskatchewan Young Readers Choice Awards, as well as the Manitoba Book Award for Best New Book.
José Romelo Lagman hails from Angeles, Pampanga. He graduated cum laude from the University of Santo Tomás (Manila) with a BS in Mathematics degree in 1989. He has since worked as a computer programmer in the Philippines, Malaysia, U.S., and Canada, arriving in Toronto as an immigrant in January 1994. José is also an internationally published sports and travel photographer. He started writing during the pandemic lockdowns, and he is nearly finished with his first novel — a multilingual historical fiction piece set in Manila in the tumultuous 1890s.
Yves Lamson is a second-generation Filipino-Canadian writer who takes from the Philippine oral tradition to spin tales of fantastic creatures. He also enjoys writing around the historical elements of the islands he is wistful and wondrous for. He is a writer by profession, but at the core, he is a storyteller. Interested in preserving the intangible histories, he writes the stories down as a tool to not forget, to keep the precious things safe.
Grace Sanchez MacCall (she/her) was born in Manila, grew up in Calgary, and went to university in Vancouver. She currently splits her time between Toronto, where she lives and writes, and Tatamagouche, where she tries not to do anything at all. Her work has appeared in the Capilano Review and Hamilton Arts and Letters. She is a founding member of the Eastwood Writers Collective and is currently working on a novel. Her writing explores themes of power, culture, construction of knowledge, inequality, and strategies of resistance.
Lorina Mapa was born in Manila and at the age of sixteen moved with her family to Washington, DC. In 1991 she graduated from the Kubert School of Comic and Graphic Art in New Jersey, where she met her husband, artist Daniel Shelton. They have four children and live in Hudson, Québec. Her graphic novel Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos, and Me was nominated by the American Library Association as a Great Graphic Novel for Teens. Lorina was featured on the CBC’s 2017 list of Writers to Watch and nominated for the Joe Schuster Award for best writer.
Deann Louise C. Nardo is a poet, interwoven artist, and cultural worker living and napping in Tiohtiá:ke/Montréal, Québec. They work as mycelium: connecting, decomposing, metabolizing, and regenerating nutrients for/with their community. Their practice thrives on the thin line where questions live and curiosity flowers.
Rafael Palma (he/him) is an English major at Brandon University, with a minor in Creative Writing. He was born and raised in the province of Laguna, in the Calabarzon region. As a kid, he read science fiction and fantasy novels and started writing short stories in his elementary days. He immigrated to Brandon, Manitoba, with his family when he was fifteen and continued his studies. He discovered Western Poetry in high school and has been writing poetry ever since. He follows the styles of Margaret Atwood, Mary Oliver, Sylvia Plath, and Robin Morgan, his favourite poets.
Remilyn “Felix” Policarpio is a Filipino transmasculine artist, musician, educator, and storyteller. Member of the Filipino artist group Dupil Collective, he performs in charity events and arts shows around Ottawa. The oldest of four siblings and first in his family to be born on Canadian soil in Toronto, and inspired by a thirst for learning, he grew up reading encyclopedias for fun. He attended the Iona School of the Arts, specializing in instrumental works there before later transferring to visual arts. He moved to Ottawa in 2015 to study philosophy, stopping short due to mental illness but continuing his work as an educator. Felix currently resides in Britannia, Ottawa, lurking around as a member of the Haunted Walk and learning how to be a death worker.
Leah Ranada’s stories have been published in On Spec, Room Magazine, Santa Ana River Review, emerge 2013, and elsewhere. Her writing is informed by her childhood in Metro Manila and eventual move to Vancouver in 2006, where she made writing her permanent home. She now lives in New Westminster, British Columbia. In 2013, she attended the Writer’s Studio (TWS) at SFU. She released her debut novel, The Cine Star Salon (NeWest Press), in 2021.
Alma Salazar Retuta, MD, a veterinarian and a doctor of medicine, works in Calgary, Alberta, as a physician. She came to Canada in 2011 with her husband and five children. She loves cooking, reading, camping, and singing. She also adores babies and children. She hopes to uplift the lives of close family members by assisting them to come to Canada to build a new life here.
In her brief life, Rani Rivera (1981–2016) experienced moments of darkness and light. She worked among the marginalized in two of the neediest neighbourhoods in Toronto: first, at St. James Town, where she organized after-school activities for children and youth, and later, at the Community Place Hub in the Weston and Mount Denis area. She enrolled in the English program of the University of Toronto on a bridging scholarship. Her poetry collection All Violet was published by Caitlin Press (Dagger Editions) in 2017. For a review of Rivera’s posthumous collection, All Violet, please go to: http://themaynard.org/views/rivera0218.php.
Aileen Santiago (she/they) is a teacher in Toronto, Ontario, with a background in languages, literacy, and social justice education. Born in the Philippines to Filipino and Chinese parents and coming to Canada at the age of seven, Aileen has some understanding of what it feels to straddle diverse cultures, embrace shifting identities, and the discomfort of learning how to unlearn. Her ongoing journey of reconnecting to her Philippine Taga-Ilog and Chinese Fukien roots has led her to curriculum writing projects, poetry performances, building the Fil-Can Educators Network, and research in anti-racist and decolonizing pedagogies. She shares her story as a racialized settler who is always ready to learn in community with others.
Angelo Santos is a writer, filmmaker, and physiotherapist who spent his formative years living in many places around the world — namely, the Philippines, the Middle East, the United States, and Canada. He now lives in Oakville, Ontario. Angelo’s work has been published in various outlets including Ricepaper Magazine and filling Station. He is currently working on a collection of essays.
Carlo Sayo is a cultural worker engaging in diverse artistic disciplines such as visual and installation art, poetry, new media, and performance work. Drawing from experiences as the child of Filipino immigrants who left the Philippines during the Martial Law era of the 1970s, Carlo’s creative endeavours delve into themes of culture, identity, migration, and settlement. His work is rooted in community building, striving to foster a greater understanding of the Filipino settler experience on unceded territories. Born in Montréal and later moving to Vancouver during Expo 86, Carlo’s imaginative spirit grew partly from being a child of the 1980s. As a youth, Carlo grew up in and around the Kalayaan Centre, a Filipino community centre based in Vancouver’s downtown eastside that was the heart of Filipino political activism in the late 1990s and early 2000s. Alongside his artistic pursuits, Carlo takes immense pride in being a devoted parent to two curious children.
Maribeth Manalaysay Tabanera a.k.a. Kilusan (siya/sanda/they/she/he) is a Tagalog Visayan filipinx queer non-binary multi-hyphenate artist, educator, and community organizer. They were born and raised on Treaty 1 Territory (Winnipeg, Manitoba) and spent thirty-five years based in this community. They have presented their work as an educator, dancer, and DJ at events all over Turtle Island (North America). Maribeth is now based in Tkaronto (Toronto, Ontario) completing their Master of Education in Social Justice Education at the University of Toronto and working part-time as a research assistant for Elevate Equity. For more information about them, please visit: https://www.maribethtabanera.com.
Born and raised in Manila, Philippines, Steffi Tad-y is a poet and writer based in the territories of the Musqueam, Squamish, and Tsleil-Waututh Nations, also known as Vancouver, British Columbia. Her chapbook of poems Merienda, published by Rahila’s Ghost Press, was nominated for the 2021 bpNichol Chapbook Award. In 2022, she published her debut book of poetry, From the Shoreline, with Gordon Hill Press. Steffi’s poems often reflect on kinship, diasporic geographies, and formations of the mind.
Vincent Ternida is the author of the novella The Seven Muses of Harry Salcedo. His essays, articles, and poetry have appeared in several publications, including Polyglot, British Columbia Review, rabble.ca, Rappler, Voice and Verse Poetry Magazine, and PR&TA Journal. His short story “Elevator Lady” was long listed for the CBC Short Story Prize in 2019. He is currently completing a short story collection. He lives in Vancouver, British Columbia.
Acknowledgements
Much thanks to the Canada Council for the Arts, for financially supporting this project.
A big thank-you to the team at Cormorant Books — Marc Côté, Sarah Cooper, Barry Jowett, Luckshika Rajaratnam, Marijke Friesen, Sarah Jensen, Fei Dong, Basil Sylvester, Diyasha Sen — for their warmth, openness, and enthusiasm.
Gratitude to Daniel Gawthrop for connecting us with Cormorant.
Thank you to Leonora C. Angeles, Darlyne Bautista, Ida Beltran, Robert Diaz, and Eleanor Guerrero-Campbell for voicing their steadfast support for this project at a crucial time.
And finally, a shout-out to the late Jim Wong-Chu — legendary author, activist, and co-founder of Asian Canadian Writers Workshop — for helping plant the seeds for this anthology before his passing. While we wish Jim were still with us to see this book come to fruition, his nurturing spirit lives on in its every page.
We acknowledge the sacred land on which Cormorant Books operates. It has been a site of human activity for 15,000 years. This land is the territory of the Huron-Wendat and Petun First Nations, the Seneca, and most recently, the Mississaugas of the Credit River. The territory was the subject of the Dish With One Spoon Wampum Belt Covenant, an agreement between the Iroquois Confederacy and Confederacy of the Ojibway and allied nations to peaceably share and steward the resources around the Great Lakes. Today, the meeting place of Toronto is still home to many Indigenous people from across Turtle Island. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work in the community, on this territory.
We are also mindful of broken covenants and the need to strive to make right with all our relations.
Long Description 1, page 275
January 1992, Pointe-Claire, Québec. Rina puts a cup away in her kitchen cupboard while the radio plays in the background.
Radio: … for a total of 40 centimetres by midnight. And that’s Montréal CHOM weather. Now for some “Tom Sawyer” …
Rina thinks to herself: This town sure does love Rush. The landline phone rings. It’s Rina’s husband.
Rina: Hello?
Rina’s husband: Hi Babe, how’s it going?
Rina: Good! I finished all the kitchen stuff. And for dinner we’re having adobo.
Rina’s husband pulls on a jacket over his sweater and collared shirt.
Rina’s husband: Well, I’m headed to the metro now. A lot of snow fell so maybe I’ll just take a cab from the train station.
Rina: What? No why? I’ll pick you up as usual.
Rina’s husband: I’m worried about the conditions. Did the snow removal guy come?
Rina: Yeah. Besides, I have to practise driving in the snow sometime.
Outside Rina’s house, snow comes down fast and thick, burying the car and the driveway.
Rina’s husband: Okay, but you should start getting ready now.
Rina: Now? It’s only a ten minute drive. I’ll be fine!
Rina’s husband: Well, just make sure give yourself plenty of time.
Much later, Rina is now dressed to go outside with her black parka and wool hat. She sits on the stairs and laces up her winter boots. When she tries to leave her house, she is stopped by a pile of snow right at her door step. She thinks: Eeep! I forgot to shovel the path.
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Long Description, Page 276
The snowfall does not let up. Using a shovel, Rina clears a path down the driveway, sweat beads of effort flying off of her. When she sees the thick layer of snow on her car, she thinks: Oh man! The car! Shivering in the cold, she scrapes the windshield clear, thinking: I wonder why his ancestors chose to settle here?
Once inside the car, Rina thinks: Oh my gosh, I’m so late! He’ll be freezing! The vehicle vrooms as it starts, but as Rina reverses out of the driveway, the car crashes into a tall mound of snow and is stalled.
Rina climbs out of the car. In her confusion, question marks fly from her head as she turns toward the sound of someone calling out for her. It’s Tommy.
Tommy: Looks like you need digging out, Miss!
Rina: I – I thought the snow removal cleared our driveway …
Tommy: Yeah, but the street plow just came by. Let me get my shovel.
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Long Description, Page 277
As Tommy shovels the snow away, Rina clasps her hands together in gratitude.
Rina: Thank you so much sir!
Tommy: Oh, it’s nothing. Name’s Tommy. My wife Helen and I live across the street. Where are you from?
Rina: The Philippines. My name is Rina.
Tommy: Well, I guess you’re new to winter, then!
Someone else approaches Rina and Tommy with a snow shovel in hand. It’s Michel.
Michel: Need some help there, Tommy?
Tommy: Hey Michel. Our new neighbour got herself stuck.
Rina, Tommy, and Michel work together to shovel the snow mound away and clear the driveway.
Rina: Thank you Mr … er, Tommy. And M-Michel …
Michel: C’est pas grave! It happens to all of us.
Tommy: Why don’t you and your husband come by this weekend and meet my wife Helen?
Later, when Rina is back inside the car and driving through the persistent snowfall, she thinks: Now … just take it nice and slow … and don’t crash …
Meanwhile, Rina’s husband is waiting for her outside the train station, arms crossed, shivering in the snowfall with waves of cold wafting off of him. His teeth are clenched and chattering. Snow piles on his shoulders, his backpack, the top of his head.
But that night, Rina and her husband are home again. Snow is still falling outside their window, but inside, by the warmth of the fireplace, they are huddled together on the couch, watching TV and enjoying a mug of something hot.
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C. E. Gatchalian, Magdaragat
