L-R: Vince Gotera, Virginia Cerenio, N.V.M. Gonzalez, Cecilia Manguerra Brainard, William Oandasan
Gifts from N.V.M. Gonzalez
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
N.V.M. Gonzalez was a generous
writer and teacher who gave countless gifts to people around him. He may not
have realized it, but he also gave me some gifts.
I first met N.V.M. Gonzalez in the
mid-1980s in Los Angeles, California. He was in his 70s and had a number of
books to his name, including the novel, The
Bamboo Dancers, which aside from Rizal’s works was the first Filipino novel
I had read. I would later learn of N.V.M.’s numerous publications, awards, and
his involvement in the pre-war writers’ group in Manila, the Veronicans, with
its remarkable membership. I was impressed to meet N.V.M.
The literary event was organized by LindaNietes, owner of the bookshop, Philippine Expressions. N.V.M. read from his
works, talked, answered questions, and was friendly to the audience. He was
very “reachable” to the point that we, younger writers then, felt comfortable
enough to call him “N.V.M.” We would even link arms with him for
picture-taking, as if we were peers.
When I met him I had published several
short stories and was considering gathering them into a collection. I was also thinking
of writing a novel but had no idea how to do this. There were other questions
in my head, including: What is Filipino American literature? How different was
it from Filipino literature? Who qualified as Filipino American writers? These
questions sprung from the diaspora that Filipinos in America experienced. I had
noticed that American-born Filipinos disregarded immigrant-Filipinos as not
being “real” Filipino Americans. At the same time, immigrant Filipinos were
different from Filipinos in the Philippines. The questions confused me.
While N.V.M. did not directly answer
all my questions, how he conducted himself, how he pursued his own literary
goals were apparent to me. For instance I could see that he did not agonize
over his identity. People called him Filipino, Filipino American, Asian, and
Asian American, and these names did not bother him. It seemed to me that he
wrote about themes and topics close to his heart and that was all that mattered
to him. The certainty to write about what I wanted to and not categorize myself
nor my writings was a gift from him.
He was kind and accommodating to
other writers including me. N.V.M. discussed with me not just his writing but
mine. I recall a lively exchange that we had about novel-writing. I had said I
was having difficulties writing short stories while working on my novel, and he
said that could happen, which eased my qualms since I feared I had writer’s
block.
At some point I asked him for a blurb for
my first short story collection and he quickly sent it in. I also requested
stories for anthologies I edited, and he sent the stories. He also gifted me
advice about a possible title for one of the anthologies, advice which I took.
For the longest time he taught at
the California State University at Hayward, and he also taught at UC Santa
Barbara and UCLA. The time came, however, when he started spending more time in
the Philippines, and I saw less of him. But I continued to hear of his
successes and I was proud of this writer who shared my own diasporic experience
in America.
Perhaps because of the name that he
had made for himself in literature, N.V.M. had a quality of permanence, of
immortality, as if he would never leave us. But suddenly, in 1999, I received word
that he had passed away from kidney complications. Cristina Pantoja Hidalgo
wrote:
“Dear Cecilia,
I thought you
might want to know that NVM was discussing your latest story (the one that
appeared in the Graphic) with his wife, Narita, shortly before he passed away
during dialysis. Narita told me of it.
JING”
I received many other emails that day. It
seemed that everyone in the Filipino literary community was upset. We shouldn’t
have been surprised, but were, by his passing. I was perturbed, not only by his
death but by the strange news linking him to my story, Winning Hearts and Mind. I had not even seen the published version
since it came out in the Philippine
Graphic and I was in California. I wondered what N.V.M. had said about it.
It took a while before someone clarified
that N.V.M. had said something to the effect that war stories should be written
this way. His words, perhaps his last, were the greatest gift to me.
~end~
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Tags: Philippines, Philippine, literature, writer, author, books, novelist, Filipino, Filipina, National Artist, NVM Gonzalez, Filipino American, Philippine American, centenary
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