Flipping across the Ocean: nostalgia, matchmaking and displacement in Filipino American narrative.

Abstract

The article addresses the nomadic nature of Filipino American social reality and how that is conveyed through a literature imbued with a peculiarly Filipino “exilic sensibility ”. The literary texts chosen to illustrate this hypothesis are Bienvenido Santos ’s What The Hell For You Left Your Heart In San Francisco (1987), as well as several short stories: N.V.M. González ’s “The Tomato Game ” (1993), Bienvenido Santos ’s “Immigration Blues ” (1979), Linda Ty-Casper ’s “Hills, Sky, Longing ” (1990), and Jessica Hagedorn ’s “The Blossoming of Bong Bong ” (1990). The fiction of Bienvenido Santos, N.V.M. González, and Ty-Casper, portray the nostalgia for an idealized homeland, especially through the oldtimers ’ and old people ’s perspective. Both Santos and González also tackle the question of green-card marriages between young Filipinas and oldtimers. On the other hand, Hagedorn ’s story and Santos ’s novel choose a young immigrant as the focal point who does not echo the elders ’ feeling of homesickness, displacement and exile.