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Missing
Mangoes - For Filipinos and Those Who Love Us
By
Marcelline
Santos-Taylor
Published
by Xlibris |
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Missing
Mangoes - For Filipinos and Those Who Love Us is composed of selections
from Marcelline Santos-Taylor's weekly column, "Manila Girl,"
published in the Filipino Express. A compilation of coming-to-America
insights peppered with Filipino pop and folk culture tidbits and quotes,
the book's enticing flavor is as Manila as the fruit celebrated in
the title - a touchstone for all Filipinos transplanted to foreign
lands, where the succulent taste and texture of the authentic Philippine
mango is so elusive it holds almost the same kind of mythical quality
as an Elvis sighting.
In this engaging collection of 27 essays, the author examines issues
of identity and adjustment, while conveying the strengths of character
as well as the unique quirks that define what it means to be Filipino.
Of course, one of the best ways to convey Filipino culture is through
food, which the book tackles fondly, often humorously and in great
detail - from the mouthwatering description of a lovingly prepared
and much missed childhood dish to a not-for-the-faint-hearted listing
of Fear Factor - worthy native delicacies to the Filipino fixation
on the humble Spam. The authorís voyage of discovery is not
only defined by moving away from the land of her birth but also the
journey-within-a-journey of becoming a wife and mother in America,
while infusing her culture and heritage into her family's everyday
life, in ways both big and small, every step of the way.
ìMissing Mangoesî is, indeed, for Filipinos and those
who know and love them; but its heartwarming honesty and perspective
will also resonate with anyone who has undertaken the uniquely eye-opening
journey that is the immigrant experience, or wants to come along for
the ride. Most of all, the compelling chronicles of ìMissing
Mangoesî make readers realize that the home we sometimes feel
is so far away is the same place that never really leaves us at all.
To order copies of the book, contact:
Xlibris Corporation
1-888-795-4274
http://www.Xlibris.com
ABOUT
THE AUTHOR:
Marcelline Santos-Taylor has worked in fields as diverse as education,
fashion styling, and journalism, broadcasting, graphic design and
television production in Manila, Philippines, but has always remained
a writer throughout her career. In the Philippines, she contributed
articles to the Philippine Daily Inquirer, Philippine Star, Mega Magazine
and Preview Magazine. She also worked as Advertising and Promotions
Director of cutting edge radio station NU 107 ñThe Home of
New Rock, and did TV production work for a show on Channel 5 and kidsí
cable channel Nickelodeon. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts degree
from the Ateneo de Manila University in 1993.
Marriage brought the author to the United States in 2000, shortly
after which she began to look for an outlet for her writing. "After
scanning local Filipino-American newspapers and magazines, I realized
there were hardly any articles, let alone columns that addressed people
like me - new immigrants who are fresh off the boat and yet not really
too naive about American life, having already been exposed a great
deal to Western culture." And thus begun her column Manila Girl
in a Philippine-American community newspaper published in New Jersey.
"I like to say I have a love-hate relationship with the city
of my birth,"says the author. "I like that she's very cosmopolitan
and, in my opinion, comparable in many ways to other capital cities
in the world, but 'ím also sad that she's poor and polluted.
But then Manila is where I'm from, it's what nurtured me and made
me who I am now."
In addition to writing the "Manila Girl" column upon which
this book is based, she contributed to regional magazines Cuizine
and Metrokids, Filipinas Magazine, and trade publications. She also
facilitates writing/creativity workshops for teens and women. Her
online portfolio is at www.marcellinetaylor.com
The author lives with her husband and two-year old son in a 250-year-old
house in the historic town of Burlington, NJ. "Missing Mangoes
- For Filipinos and Those Who Love Us"is her first book. For
more information about the book, visit www.missingmangoes.com
This
website: Copyright © 2004 Dream
World Media, LLC. / Urban Mozaik Magazine. All rights reserved.
The opinions expressed in Urban Mozaik Magazine are not necessarily
those of Urban Mozaik Magazine and the publisher cannot be held responsible
for them. This website/publication, in whole or in part, may not be
reproduced without written permission from the publisher.
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Equivalence
By Shin
Yu Pai
Published
by La Alameda Press |
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Drawing
its name from photographer Alfred Stieglitz’s series of cloud images,
the poems in this collection from poet Shin Yu Pai explore connections
and correspondences between poetry and the visual arts, Eastern and
Western cultures, tradition and modernity, perpetual migration and sense
of home. In the course of this exploration, the poet is inspired by
modern and contemporary artists such as Wolfgang Laib, Piet Mondrian,
Joseph Cornell, Yoko Ono, and Felix Gonzales-Torres.
Shin Yu Pai’s imagination is like a fine pottery bowl, delicately
shaped but capable of holding many things: playfulness, candor, descriptive
elegance. She is working out her own welcome blend of cultures, Eastern
and Western, and Equivalence is the lovely and often challenging result.
- Rosellen Brown
Shin Yu Pai matches a painter’s grasp of the materiality of things
with the poet’s trick of arranging word for maximum musical effect.
She knows that in poetry it is the music that keeps in the mind what
is seen. Her poems honor their imagist heritage by making it new.
-William Corbett
Shin Yu Pai’s voice is equal parts exciting, exuberant, and elegant.
Equivalence serves as a profound dual act of grace and wisdom. This
poet has carved out a bold, wondrous space on our mountain, complete
with unspeakable vistas that stretch clear toward the earth’s edge.
- Jim Behrle
Equivalence received a 2003 grant from the Cambridge Arts Council and
the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Shin Yu Pai is a Taiwanese-American poet and photographer. A special
edition letter-pressed, hand-bound chapbook, Paper Poems (working title),
is forthcoming in Fall 2003 from Convivio Bookworks. A chapbook of her
translations from ancient Chinese poetry, Ten Thousand Miles of Mountains
and Rivers, was published in 1998 by Third Ear Books. Her work has appeared
in literary and on-line journals including 580 Split, Spinning Jenny,
Mungo vs Ranger, eye-rhyme, and can we have our ball back? As a visual
artist, her work has appeared in galleries throughout the Mid-West including
Gallery 2 and The Three Arts
Club of Chicago. A portfolio of her photography can be viewed at www.zonezero.com
She has been awarded grants from the Cambridge Arts Council, the Union
League Civic and Arts Foundation and the Puffin Foundation, in addition
to residencies from The MacDowell Colony, The Ragdale Foundation, and
the Provincetown Fine Arts Work Center. Her one-act play Concave is
the Opposite of Convex was given a staged reading at NY's Theater 22
and the Park Theater in Union City, NJ, by The Hudson Exploited Theater
Company's Where Theater Starts Reading Series in 2001.
Ms. Pai has taught creative writing for the Dallas Museum of Art, The
Poetry Center of Chicago, Sojourner Feminist Institute, and Grub Street,
Inc. She was a former poetry reviewer for ChicagoPoetry.com and has
contributed literary criticism to Rain Taxi Review of Books and Persimmon:
A Journal of Asian Arts and Culture.
She studied at The Naropa Institute and Boston University and received
her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.
La Alameda Press books are distributed by the University of New Mexico
Press1-800-249-7737.
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