Book Talk | Love Letters Home: Filipino American Sisters on Writing and Migration

Book Talk
Love Letters Home:
Filipino American Sisters on Writing and Migration


July 6, 2024 (Saturday) | 2:00 - 4:00 PM
Ayala Museum Function Room 1

Tickets
Proceeds will support the educational programs of Filipinas Heritage Library.

P300 (Regular) | P240 (Discounted)* | P150 (Student) | P210 (Senior/PWD)
*Discounted rate applies to students, teachers, Ayala Group employees, Ayala Museum members, and FHL Research Pass holders with valid I.D.
Book Talk ticket entitles you to a discount on Ayala Museum ticket on the same day.

Register now: bit.ly/fhl-lovelettershome

Sisters Grace and Mary Talusan, born in the Philippines, and Liza, born in the USA, grew up in America and seldom returned “home,” a word their migrant parents used interchangeably to mean Manila, where their clans lived. Despite the physical and temporal distances from their extended families and their ancestral lands, the sisters became scholars, professors, and authors whose work engages with the histories, cultures, and lived experiences of the Filipino diaspora. In this book talk and facilitated discussion, the sisters will introduce their research and books -- love letters to the home they moved from, but never truly left.

This book talk is presented by Filipinas Heritage Library (FHL). As a memory keeper and advocate of Philippine history and culture, FHL aims to spark and stoke interest in the story of the Filipino. FHL is a one-stop digital research hub on the Philippines that houses contemporary and rare volumes on Philippine art, history, and culture, including a collection on migration and the Filipino diaspora. FHL is managed by Ayala Foundation under its Arts and Culture Division. 

Register now

Ms. Grace Talusan
Speaker
 

Grace Talusan is the author of the memoir The Body Papers, which won the Restless Book Prize for New Immigrant writing. She teaches nonfiction writing in the English Department at Brown University. She has received support from United States Artists, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Brother Thomas Fund, the Fulbright, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council with residencies at Ragdale, Hedgebrook, Vermont Studio Center, Mass MOCA, and others. The Body Papers, also a winner of the Massachusetts Book Award for nonfiction, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, and was recognized by the Boston Area Rape Crisis Center with the Beacon Award. Talusan graduated from Tufts University and the MFA Program in Writing at UC Irvine, and is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle.

Dr. Mary Talusan
Speaker
 

Mary Talusan Lacanlale is the chairperson of Asian-Pacific Studies at California State University, Dominguez Hills. She is an ethnomusicologist focusing on Filipino and Filipino American music and culture. Published by University Press of Mississippi, her book Instruments of Empire: Filipino Musicians, Black Soldiers, and Military Band Music during U.S. Colonization of the Philippines is a profound contribution to our understanding of Philippine musical modernity. For the Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, she co-produced Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora. Mary is also a music and dance performer, and showcases southern-Philippine culture with the Pakaraguian Kulintang Ensemble.

Dr. Liza Talusan
Facilitator
 

Liza A. Talusan specializes in pedagogy and leadership. She holds a doctorate in higher education from the University of Massachusetts Boston, and her certified coaching credentials from the Institute for Professional Excellence in Coaching. She is a faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Boston in the Department of Leadership in Education, and authored The Identity Conscious Educator, which was the 2023 Gold Medal Recipient from the IPPY Awards. Liza has held leadership positions in a number of educational organizations, including the American Educational Research Association, the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators, and the Association for the Study of Higher Education.

THE BODY PAPERS
A Memoir by Grace Talusan

Winner of the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction

Grace Talusan’s critically acclaimed memoir The Body Papers, a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection, powerfully explores the fraught contours of her own life as a Filipino immigrant and survivor of cancer and childhood abuse.

Book Talk sale price: P975.00

For inquiries:
EMAIL: asklibrarian@filipinaslibrary.org.ph