Manoa, vol. 9, no. 2 (1997): Century of Dreams

This issue is available online via JSTOR.

Presented by Manoa: A Pacific Journal of International Writing

Century of Dreams: New writing from the Philippines

Guest-edited by Eric Gamalinda and Alfred A. Yuson

This issue features fiction, poetry, and essays from the Philippines as well as new work from the U.S. and throughout the Pacific. The publication of this volume coincides with the commemoration of the 100th anniversary of the Philippine Revolution (1898), and the feature illuminates the special relationship between America and the Philippine archipelago, with its 7,000 islands and 800 languages. Among the outstanding Filipino writers are Rowena Torrevillas, Bino A. Realuyo, Jose Y. Dalisay Jr., Cirilo F. Bautista, Marjorie M. Evasco, Simeon P. Dumdum Jr., Gemino H. Abad, Lakambini A. Sitoy, Michelle Cruz Skinner, Luis H. Francia, Eric Gamalinda, and Alfred A. Yuson. The US writing includes fiction by Barry Lopez, Shirley Geok-lin Lim, Josip Novakovich, and Gordon Lish; poetry by Jane Hirshfield, Alberto Rios, Robert Dana, and Arthur Sze; and an essay by Donald Morrill. And, as always, there are insightful reviews of current books, such as one on a John Muir omnibus.

In addition, a portfolio of fine visual art by Hawai‘i photographer Franco Salmoiraghi brings to life some of the Filipino experience in Hawai‘i. The first Filipinos arrived in the islands in 1906 as contract laborers to satisfy the demand for workers created by the labor-intensive sugarcane industry, which was Hawai‘i’s major economic activity until the 1960s. But local sugar growing has long been in a period of decline, and the last crop was harvested in 1996 above the town of Pahala in the Ka‘u district on the Big Island. “It was a very sad and poignant time in Pahala town,” according to Salmoiraghi. “For those people whose jobs and lives depended on the plantation, this was the only life that several generations of their families ever knew.” Many of the displaced workers are Filipinos, and this series of photographs is a salute to the passing of an era they were instrumental in shaping.