From my experience in both high school and college, the literary material offered by almost all my English literature classes was curated from works written by poets and authors from the Western world and white backgrounds. There remains an assumption that Western art in general is inherently more “educated” and “intelligent”, but that is evolving towards a more inclusive collection of work from writers of color. We seek a reflection of ourselves in fiction, and I was dreadin

There is a surge of artists of all backgrounds, specifically within marginalized populations, establishing themselves in the art community. It is an exciting sight seeing these artists collaborate and find confidence in their work. One in particular is local, half-Filipino artist, Max DeHart. He is a self-taught acrylic painter who focuses on natural settings and creatures utilizing realism techniques with an urban abstract texture. He began his art journey painting when he w

Representing your home country in a major sport is one of the many important responsibilities athletes hold. It is unfortunate that most cannot represent their country because of the potential risk of injury before a sport season starts. It is also rare to see an Asian athlete, let alone a Filipino, in baseball, football, basketball and hockey, which are the four major sports in the U.S. However, there is one individual that truly stands out as one of the best to represent th

The conversation between the Filipinos who left the island and those who stayed is ongoing and as passionate as ever. The subject of the Filipino identity is one way this heated dialogue continues: what is it that defines the essence of “Filipino-ness”? Having survived colonization and WWII, some argue that Filipinos don’t have an identity that is not influenced by colonizers. However, why is it that we are so quick to limit the definition of this identity to solely one? The

Coco is a recent art graduate from Laguna College of Art + Design and has a passion for telling stories through her colorfully, whimsical art style that may be viewed on her online portfolio. As a Filipino-American, she paved her way into the art scene and continues to grow every day through her wonderful style. Drawing since a young age, Coco took art more seriously around the 4th grade and pulls inspiration from her childhood, whether it's celebrating it or depicting growth

Amanda Pascual is a recent graduate of Sacramento State University. Through her love of painting and printmaking, she wishes to represent her Filipino American culture through her idea of home. She wants the diverse Asian American population to be better represented in the art scene. She is also the current Art Editor for both Chopsticks Alley Pinoy and our sister organization, Chopsticks Alley Art. Like most Filipino Americans, her decision to become an artist was not immedi

In our recent story on the novel, America Is not the Heart by Elaine Castillo, we explore the experiences shared by Filipino women that unravel the perspectives on the standards of beauty and health; however, I would like to address its connections to Carlos Bulosan’s autobiographical novel, America Is in the Heart: A Personal History. In the epigraph from America Is not the Heart, the novel connects back to Bulosan’s passages, expressing that “I knew I could trust a gambler

In Elaine Castillo’s debut novel, America is not the Heart, it delves into the themes of Filipino suffering and survival in which we explore a generational story of three Filipino women, each revealing the physical and emotional scars of their past while living in the Philippines and migrating to America. The story is first told through second person point of view, establishing the narrator, Paz or Pacita, as defensive and vulnerable as she shares her difficult experiences gr

In the Filipino culture, art and photography lack the support from our communities in which we place our focus towards health and business as careers. On the contrary, we are in dire need of careers that hold the values of creativity and critical thought to encourage new generations to be able to think freely and open-minded especially during a time of understanding serious global, political, and social issues of today. Photography as an art form provides a diverse lens of ex

Taiko drums reverberated through the neighborhood. The smell of fish sauce wafted through the streets of Japantown. The scent and sound greeted excited guests at the gates of Art Object Gallery to celebrate the exhibition opening of Salt Stained, Chopsticks Alley Art’s inaugural exhibition. It was the first time Filipino, Vietnamese, and Japanese artists collaborated in San Jose, CA. Salt Stained is a testament to the vibrancy of Vietnamese, Filipino, and Japanese culture tha

Kenneth Tan Ronquillo is a San Jose based Filipino artist whose beginnings started with an unconventional move: he left Southern California, homeward bound, to help care for Crescenciana Tan, his grandma, or “lola” in Tagalog, when she turned ninety-four. In our recent interview with Kenneth, he shares that he wanted to find a way to make the most of their time together, by coming up with the idea of collaborative art. His lola makes the paintings, and his promise is to finis

A Filipino history lacks visibility in the eyes of society and more importantly for today’s Filipino and Filipino Americans. Why is this such a common issue with our youth and communities? We can begin to form a few assumptions that fall back on our Filipino identity and narrative, more precisely the narrative of Philip Vera Cruz’s reflection and criticism on the farmworkers movement that explores the Filipino political activism involved in the Grape Strike or the 1965 Delano

Filipino author Lysley Tenorio’s stories has appeared in The Atlantic, Zoetrope: All-Story, Ploughshares Monoa, and The Best New American Voices and The Pushcart Prize anthologies. He has won the Whiting Writer’s Award and a former Stegner Fellow at Stanford University as well as receiving fellowships for University of Wisconsin, Philips Exeter Academy, Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the National Endowment for the Arts. In his most recent collection of eight stories from Mo

Having read Jessica Hagedorn’s controversial novel, Dogeaters, I found myself struggling with the the novel’s complex structure of the narrative, which uses the risky interchanges of first and third person point of views as well as interwoven newspaper clippings that pieces together an intense journey leading up to the main event of plotting an assassination. Jessica Hagedorn is a Filipino author, poet, playwright, and a multimedia artist, born in the Philippines and migrated

Throughout my studies as a studio art major, I envied my Chinese and Latina friends who had easy access to an abundance of resources on artists to study and look for inspiration. Being Filipino American, I did not have the same kind of access to references like other cultures. In the Asian American community, many of our art sources stem from major countries such as Japan, China, and Korea. Although their art is inspiring and altogether amazing, I craved the connection to my

The predicament of Filipino Americans, children either born in the United States or immigrated at a very young age, is usually not a lack of knowing the culture but having an aversion to it. Because our parents and rather large families are determined to remain attune to traditions from the homeland, in a desperate effort to fit in, we trade and ignore our Filipino identity for an American one. This leads to the loss of the language from a refusal to use it and persisting emb

Even with the push for progressive and multicultural children’s literature, it still required a bit of searching to find a Filipino children’s book. I could not even rely on my own resources, as I was not brought up on Filipino stories. When I asked my mother why she did not read these stories to my siblings and I, she answered, “I don’t know. I think I just told you what I remembered.” Even after hearing her response, I could not recall any of the Filipino fables she told me

In all my years of education, this quote remained ubiquitous in my social studies courses: “History is written by the victors.” There have been numerous criticisms of schools “editing” or glossing over certain events with the intention of portraying a particular group or individual in a beneficial perspective. In calamities such as World War II, there are definitely details embellished more so than others. With beloved Blockbuster hits such as Dunkirk and Saving Private Ryan,

As much as we would like to believe there are more than two political parties in the United States, it is truthful to be aware of our bipartisan government. Democrats and Republicans are at the forefront of every election and often use mudslinging campaign tactics, highlighting the flaws of the other’s views and standpoints. Mirroring the volume of criticism regarding the previous Republican candidate, current President Donald Trump, there is much commentary and opinions conc

We often question why is there such a gap between the old and new generations of Filipinos and Filipino Americans? Why is there little interest with today’s Filipino youths in terms of understanding our history and culture? One can begin by understanding the loss of history during the mass Filipino migration to America in which even back in the Philippines the stress of Americanization was heavily reinforced in education and Filipino society. We may even look to our parents a