Literature and San Francisco: More Thoughts on Being Filipino Here and not There

… where ever “there” may be (and here, I don’t mean Oakland, which because of Gertrude Stein, is known as “there.”). For the purposes of this here blog post, “there” means not the West Coast.

When Luis Francia came to town last month, one thing he marveled about was the deep sense of history our local Filipino American community not only honors, but also carries in our collective memories/consciousness and our bodies. Certainly, our community’s ancestors brought with them here that connection to the land as rural folk and farmers who’ve poured so much of themselves into this earth, and who’ve formed kinships and communities for material and spiritual survival. Hence, a deep connection to this place. Don’t you feel it, when you are driving through the state? Not only the Steinbeck Monterey, Salinas, and Watsonville, but the Bulosan, the Philip Vera Cruz Monterey and Salinas, the Jeff Tagami Watsonville. Not only the Jack London Oakland, the Gertrude Stein Oakland, but the Vangie Buell Oakland (and hell yeah, Black Panther Oakland). Not only the Beat Poetry San Francisco, but the Al Robles San Francisco, the Jessica Hagedorn San Francisco.

11/10/09 Panel at the Urban Center (SF)

I need to prepare a presentation for tomorrow evening’s Young Urbanists [Literature] panel. Some guiding questions, as per our moderator, Matthew Zapruder:

• In the introduction to his anthology Writing Los Angeles, editor David Ulin writes “The story of Los Angeles has always been, on the most basic level, the story of the interaction between civilization and nature … an idiosyncratic hybrid of the urban and the elemental.” He then goes on to discuss how the “literature of Los Angeles” reflects that story. Do you think there is a literature of San Francisco? If so, how would you characterize it, and its relationship to both the natural landscape and the built environment?

• In what ways does being a resident of San Francisco in particular (as opposed to some other place) affect your creative work, as well as your life as a writer?

SPUR Young Urbanists: [Literature] in the city (SF) 11/10/09

YOUNG URBANISTS

Tuesday, November 10, 2009 6:00pm

[Literature] in the city

From the Beat movement and City Lights to McSweeney’s, San Francisco has been shaped by its literary history. But this history does not simply lie in the texts produced by the writers—it was also a history produced in the city’s fabric, in literary movements that defined and influenced people and place. Join us in exploring the role of literature in shaping our local cultural understanding of Urbanism and policy-making. The SPUR Young Urbanists welcome writer Stephen Elliott of the San Francisco Writer’s Grotto and editor of The Rumpus, writer and City Lights editor Elaine Katzenberger, Filipino American poet and professor Barbara Jane Reyes and poet Matthew Zapruder, the forum moderator, for an evening that explores [Literature] in the City. SPUR’s Young Urbanist program is generously supported by the Koret Foundation.