A Filipino Voice from Down Under
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Erwin Cabucos at El Nido Beach, 2022
Brisbane Literary Writers Group’s Lee Finn observes of Erwin Cabucos’ book, “His characters are always too strong to settle for victim mentality and what I got from all the stories was that people from the Philippines are like that.”
“They are great problem solvers no matter what you throw at them they seem to be able to turn it around and make the most of it.”
Cotabato-born Erwin Cabucos graduated cum laude in Psychology from Notre Dame University in Maguindanao. He moved to Australia in 1998 on a scholarship and completed his master’s in English Education from the University of New England as well as a bachelor’s degree in Communication from the University of New Castle. He now writes stories from his home in Brisbane, Australia, with his two children while teaching high school English and Religion in Queensland.
He received high commendations from The Queensland Independent Education Union (the non-government education sector) 2016 Literary Competition and the English Speaking Union Roly Sussex 2016 Short Story Prize. He was also shortlisted for the Stuart Hadows Literary Prize in 2020.
Erwin Cabucos at the famous Sydney Opera House, 2022
Cabuco’s articles have appeared in Philippines Graphic, Business Mirror, The Philippines Free Press magazine, Quarterly Literary Review in Singapore, FourW New Writing journal, and Verandah Journal in Australia. His stories have also appeared in US anthologies, notably Growing Up Filipino (Philippine-American Literary House, Santa Monica, CA, 2003, edited by Cecilia Brainard).
Cabucos has five short story collections: The Beach Spirit and Other Stories (Guinninderra Press, 2001), Green Blood and Other Stories (Manila Prints, 2008), Does It Matter What the Dead Think? (Kindle edition, 2016), The Long Road to Asik-Asik (Kindle edition, 2021) and Give us this Day: Growing Up Filipino (Kindle edition, 2022).
Some of Erwin Cabucos’ books
His stories have been about growing up Filipino, nostalgia, family, faith, forgiveness, and gay identity, always in short story form. “I only write short stories. I like the immediacy of short fiction to the reader,” he says.
Brisbane Literary Writers’ Lee Finn says, “Cabucos’ characters are very authentic. Even though he’s writing fiction, we have no difficulty at all believing that every word of these stories is true. He’s an absolute master of ‘show, don’t tell.’”
On ‘Give us this Day,’ the flagship story in his latest collection, the reader can feel the impact of the water cannon, the eagerness of an idealistic student, and impotent rage against mechanized police suppression. One wonders if this tale of a group of Pinoy teen-agers’ encounter with the police at a rally for the rights of indigenous people is autobiographical.
Cabucos says, “It is hard to quantify what makes up factual and what makes up imagined in the stories. The way the stories were written was based on the culture, politics, religion and society to which I was exposed and which I was thinking about as I craft the stories. The stories in Give Us This Day are just that – crossover of facts and fiction in my mind to put forward a thought, an idea, an emotion, a realization to readers. In saying that, however, the stories bear the human truth and I will let the readers discover the truth behind the characters, setting and plot and perspectives.”
If conflict is the basis of fiction, there’s a lot to consider in Cabucos’ background. Born in Muslim-majority Cotabato, Cabucos entered the Marist Fathers seminary after high school. After his scholarship in Australia, he married an Australian. From this experience, he once explained in a PowerPoint presentation the complex attraction of Filipinos to Caucasians.
In his adopted Australia, Filipino immigrants are the fifth largest immigrant group, making Pinoys 1.2 percent of the population. The top five occupations of Filipinos Down Under: RNs; motor mechanics; welder/steel workers; cooks; livestock farmers.
Cabucos is old enough to remember Marcos’ Martial Law and not unaware of the Duterte administration’s notoriety, but he is actually apolitical. However, in most of his stories, Cabucos elevates humanity over skin color. “That’s what stories should be. They should have social significance. Protest, realization, emotional upheaval, confrontation because life is not always binary.”
“I only write short stories. I like the immediacy of short fiction to the reader.”
Give Us This Day, is “a plea for justice, a prayer for the nourishment of the soul, the devastating effects of racism, the art of overcoming adversities in life. It is almost a philosophical statement of things related to questions in life.”
“I hope the book will be enjoyed by all the people of the world. I live in Australia but the characters, themes, plots and scenes in the book are essentially Filipino ... They may have distinct characteristics but all the same, they are human.”
“These stories can also be read by Americans and other cultures. I did not really write about the Philippines. I write about human realities and conditions through the experiences of the people from the Philippines.”
The books Cabucos enjoyed the most were To Kill A Mocking Bird, One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, Othello, and the short stories of Raymond Carver, Edgar Allan Poe, and Ernest Hemingway.
He still speaks Ilonggo at home and fried tilapia is his favorite dish.
Harvey Barkin is editor-in-chief at FilAm Star in San Francisco, correspondent for the San Jose Mercury News and content writer for an industry-specific newsletter. He is also a reporting fellow for campaigns and grant-funded projects. Previously, he was a correspondent for news portal BenitoLink, a tech writer for Silicon Valley start-ups and a book reviewer for Small Press in Rhode Island. His work has appeared in various media from advertising copy and collateral to B2B content and in various outlets from Valley Catholic to Inside Kungfu.
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