9/18/2021
Time to replenish . . .
It’s been a very busy week, workwise—culminating in my participation in a panel discussion, at the Salinas Valley Ethnic Studies Conference, on the legacy of Filipino farmworkers in Monterey and the Salinas Valley. I talked about Filipino newspapers, in particular, one that was published out of Salinas Chinatown for almost 50 years. Although I was feeling a little “rusty” (haven’t done this for awhile), it was good to be able to share some of my research with educators.
That’s another part of my life, which I don’t write about much here; when I was in grad school, I got interested in and researched pre-WWII Filipino newspapers published in the U.S. I wrote my dissertation on this topic.
If you’re wondering, I do think it has a connection to my artistic life; I was approaching the subject from the perspective of a writer, curious about how these newspapers published early writings (prose and poems) by Filipinos in the U.S., and how they have become archives of that early work. You can read a little about that in my CommonwealthCafe website, which is still up. I do sometimes wonder if and how I could incorporate that research into some visual art.
In any case, time for me to replenish my energy reserves.
I’ll leave you with a few clouds floating gloriously over my neighborhood.
More next weekend . . .
