Peter Bacho - Böcker

A love note to the city and its once vibrant Pinoy communityFrom the 1950s through the 1970s, blue-collar Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, lived a hardscrabble existence. Immigrant parents endured blatant racism, sporadic violence, and poverty while their US-born children faced more subtle forms of racism, such as the low expectations of teachers and counselors in the public school system. In this collection of autobiographical essays, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Peter Bacho centers the experiences of the Pinoy generation that grew up in Seattle’s multiethnic neighborhoods, from the Central Area to Beacon Hill to Rainier Valley. He recounts intimate moments of everyday life: fishing with marshmallows at Madison Beach, playing bruising games of basketball at Madrona Park, and celebrating with his uncles in Chinatown as hundreds of workers returned from Alaska canneries in the fall. He also relates vivid stories of defiance and activism, including resistance to the union-busting efforts of the federal government in the 1950s and organizing for decent housing and services for elders in the 1970s. Sharing a life inextricably connected to his community and the generation that came before him, this memoir is a tribute to Filipino Seattle.

A love note to the city and its once vibrant Pinoy communityFrom the 1950s through the 1970s, blue-collar Filipino Americans, or Pinoys, lived a hardscrabble existence. Immigrant parents endured blatant racism, sporadic violence, and poverty while their US-born children faced more subtle forms of racism, such as the low expectations of teachers and counselors in the public school system. In this collection of autobiographical essays, acclaimed novelist and short-story writer Peter Bacho centers the experiences of the Pinoy generation that grew up in Seattle’s multiethnic neighborhoods, from the Central Area to Beacon Hill to Rainier Valley. He recounts intimate moments of everyday life: fishing with marshmallows at Madison Beach, playing bruising games of basketball at Madrona Park, and celebrating with his uncles in Chinatown as hundreds of workers returned from Alaska canneries in the fall. He also relates vivid stories of defiance and activism, including resistance to the union-busting efforts of the federal government in the 1950s and organizing for decent housing and services for elders in the 1970s. Sharing a life inextricably connected to his community and the generation that came before him, this memoir is a tribute to Filipino Seattle.

This remarkable first novel follows the struggle of Ben Lucero, a young Filipino American priest who must come to terms with his bifurcated notion of home as well as his own religious commitment. Ben’s first visit to the city of Cebu in the Philippines, for his mother’s burial, becomes the occasion of his corruption when he is confronted with the manipulative wiles of two enigmatic women, his powerful Aunt Clara and her glamorous young business associate, Ellen. Ben is inherently corruptible, but his moment of truth is advanced by what he sees as a perversion of Catholicism, namely the crucifixion as a means of bargaining with God. Despair, guilt, and their religious corollary, the need for redemption, follow Ben back to Seattle, where he attempts to unravel his existential dilemma.Bacho’s vision is darkly comic, and he refuses to sentimentalize his demanding material. He conveys his vision well, balancing aphoristic meditations with the oblique revelations of funny, vivid, believable dialogue. His complex and timely message is underscored with skillful irony; even the denouement has an ambiguous twist, raising as many questions as answers.The fiction of Carlos Bulosan and Bienvenido N. Santos has long been valued for its depiction of the lives of Filipino immigrants; this book tells the story of those immigrants’ American-born sons and daughters. Bacho’s dramatization of the conflict between Filipino and Filipino American cultures conveys the concerns of the post-World War II generation with boldness and skill.

November 20, 1968 Now I'll have more time. I'm finally out of the shit. The docs say I got hit a week ago, but I don't remember...I woke up in a hospital bed. A nice young doc said, ""You're lucky, Corporal Divina, you're going home. Nasty, yeah, some muscle damage, but no vital organs. A frag just missed your heart..."" Doc was wrong. I don't have a heart, not now, anyway. ""The others?"" I asked. He was a nice doc and he looked at me, like maybe that's something I shouldn't have said. ""You're lucky,"" he said and turned away. After being wounded in Vietnam, nineteen-year-old Rico Divina is sent home to a string of low-paying jobs and shabby apartments while trying to cope with the demons inside him. As an ""Indipino"" (half Yakima, half Filipino), Rico has come up against obstacles all his life - those of race, culture, nationality, and now the experience of war - that have left him without hope. In time he embarks on a course that is self-destructive and increasingly violent. People and situations present themselves, offering him the chance to turn his life around, but Rico, whether from lack of faith or pride, rejects them. The only thing that sustains him is writing his own story with a happy ending - something he has long suspected he will never have.