Filipina writer and 2009 Octavia E. Butler Scholar Rochita Loenen-Ruiz has a guest post up at Jeff Vandermeer’s Ecstatic Days where she speaks about why she attempts to be true to her culture (as a Filipina who grew up in the Mountain Province) in her writing. Here’s an excerpt:
That a lot of Filipinos believe in the superiority of what’s foreign is a sad truth. It’s just like how Filipinos insist on bleaching their beautiful brown skin because they believe white is a superior color.
But I love the Filipino color. I love our beautiful brown skin and I don’t see why we need to be whiter. It’s just in this way that I love our beautiful Filipino culture. It is bright and colorful and filled with so many nuances. We are not just the color of earth, we are not just the beating of gongs, what we are includes the interweaving with other cultures. We are indigenous and multicultural at the same time.
If you’d like to read some of Rochita’s stories, her most recent tale, “59 Beads“, appears in the latest issue (December 2009) of Apex Magazine. We’re also honored to have two of her stories slated to appear in our Ruin and Resolve anthology.
[Photo sourced from Munting Nayon News Magazine]
