Tales of the City: Noel Alumit’s "Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories"
/
“Noel Alumit’s graceful, understated stories resonate long after one is done reading them. Each one is an engraving of the diasporic Filipino experience, etched with finely drawn emotions of melancholy, longing, regret, and love. Deeply personal, often queer, always vulnerable, these stories reveal the ways in which history embeds itself in the body, in the mind, and, most of all, in the lonely soul.”
Despite coming to the US at the tender age of two, Noel strongly identifies with Filipino culture. Born in Baguio, Philippines in 1968, Noel and his family lived in Boston for a couple of years before settling in Los Angeles, specifically in the area called Historic Filipinotown (Hi-Fi for short). His home turf, Los Angeles, has become the setting for his stories. “It’s natural for me to use Los Angeles as a setting. Los Angeles has a kind of lore, which I like. It’s a place of dreams, both successful and failed. There is also huge Filipino community in LA,” he explained.
It is from this pool of Filipinos that he draws his stories. “All of these stories came from personal experiences and from people I knew … Someone might tell me an interesting story about himself or I might hear about some outlandish rumor about a friend. I’m always on the lookout for a good story.”
Earlier in our conversation, he had talked about running into Miss Universe Catriona Gray at a Filipino restaurant in LA. “I was not sure,” he said, “until she stood up!” He added how nice she was to visit and promote a Filipino restaurant. His eyes were sparkling and his voice had a “gush” that made me wonder if this chance encounter could perhaps develop into a story.
I recall this because Noel’s titular story “Music Heard in Hi-Fi” was based on a real person. The short story is about a talented Filipina who lands the lead role in the musical Miss Saigon but is forced to give it up because she is undocumented.
There is another character in his book based on a real person. Delya Arraya Cavanaugh was a student activist during the Marcos dictatorship. Her first love and husband became a desaparecido, and Delya herself was arrested. Because Delya’s family had clout, she was spared the horrors of maximum security, but it still took two years for her lawyer to get the charges against her dismissed. Delya immigrated to America, where she started a new life: a UCLA degree, a job in a senator’s office, a husband, two beautiful children. But Delya Arraya Cavanaugh could not shake off the memories of her first husband, Franky, and those dreadful Marcos years. These painful memories spill out when a young man interviews her about her experiences during the Marcos years.
There is another story that I like, about Brenda Silverio, who left the Philippines to start a new life in America as a man. Renamed Brandon Silverio, his life seems complete with a wife and stepson. But the past has not been erased as he returns to the Philippines for his father’s funeral. Donning the persona of Brenda, he has to confront not only family members, but also Filipino gender expectations. In the end, Brandon finds the courage to set the persona of Brenda aside, and, in a symbolic move, join the male pallbearers of his father’s casket.
Many of Alumit’s characters left the Philippines to escape poverty or political upheavals; some left to seek personal freedom from stifling families or society. But even when his characters have made it to America where they enjoy job opportunities, better housing, educational opportunities, they discover an imperfect world – a new world with discrimination, violence, and bewildering cultural mores. Their experiences in their adopted homes continue to be filtered by their prior lives. These dual realities prove to be both burden and grace.
Noel dedicated his new book to his first writing teacher, the African American lesbian poet Ayofemi Folayan. Noel explained, “I didn’t have a lot of money then, and she offered her writing class for free. She was the first person who encouraged me to write. She genuinely liked my stories and gave me important feedback.”
Indeed, Noel comes across as a person who remembers kindness rendered to him, and who gives back. He is a Buddhist. He said he had always been a seeker, but after his father’s death in 2004, he became more serious about spiritual matters. “I explored different faiths, including investigating my own Catholic upbringing. When I encountered Buddhism, I realized it was for me. Some people say that Buddhism is all about suffering. I disagree. Buddhism is about the transformation of suffering. Indeed, due to Buddhism I have suffered less.”
Aside from writing plays and fiction, Noel is an actor, activist, and artist. I asked how he juggles these creative energies. “I choose the medium that doesn’t hurt. I started writing because the acting was frustrating. I started to paint because the writing process was depressing me. I have been creating my entire adult life, so my body or mind knows which direction to go.
Noel Alumit (Photo by James Pratt)
He added: “My writing practice is changing and growing. I have a number of stories inside me. I think I want to explore my writing in other mediums. For example, I’d love to see Music Heard in Hi-Fi as a musical. That’s something new and scary. I’m looking forward to seeing how it manifests.”
Noel noted that his creative process has changed over the years. He used to be a strict disciplinarian, to the point of neglecting other parts of his life. But now he claims to be gentler with himself. “Writing was the first thing I did when I woke, now it’s more like the fourth thing I do. I eat, meditate, exercise, then write a little.”
Noel’s readers have another work of his to look forward to; he received a grant to write a novel about a Filipino in Hollywood in the 1920s. “He discovers his voice just as the ‘talkies’ began to take over,” Noel explained. “I think it’s fitting, he was a person leaving Spanish colonial rule and becoming an American.”
In the Los Angeles area, Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories will be launched at Skylight Books on September 16, 2023, 3 p.m.
~
Some Blurbs of Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories (Rebel Satori Press, 2023
Noel Alumit’s brilliant, long-awaited collection, Music Heard in Hi-Fi & Other Stories, spans decades, from the 1960s to the present, and is set mostly in Greater Los Angeles and Manila. Alumit is a storyteller who writes with profound compassion and sharp observations. He dramatizes the highs and lows of people who are not typically centered in movies and books, and trains his attention on the tragedy and beauty that has always been there if only we had paid more attention. A compelling, vibrant collection that you can read in one sitting, but will want to return to again and again.
--Grace Talusan, The Body Papers
Like the crackles and sizzles in a vinyl groove, each story in Music Heard in Hi-Fi strikes a new and necessary note in how people find ways to cope with upheaval and the stifling norms of culture and family. From the Philippines of the 1960s to the much closer days of Los Angeles, Noel Alumit sings of the long pull of history and the present on all of us, the “innocent, strong, [and] hopeful.”
--Manuel Muñoz, The Consequences
In Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories, author Noel Alumit introduces an array of characters I don’t often get to meet in literature: a transman who longs to be a pallbearer at his father’s funeral, a teen who testifies against the man who assaulted him at the beach, a woman who reluctantly relays her story of being imprisoned as an activist in her youth. Each character is poised at the intersection of culture, class, gender identity, and family history, and each resonates as a complex individual I’ll still be thinking about for a long time to come.
-- Terry Wolverton, Stealing Angel
*
Cecilia Manguerra Brainard is the author and editor of over 20 books, including her Selected Short Stories, which was awarded the 40th National Book Award for Best Book Short Fiction in English. She also edited three volumes of the popular anthologies for young adults: Growing Up Filipino, Growing Up Filipino II, and Growing Up Filipino 3. Her official website is ceciliabrainard.com.
More articles from Cecilia Manguerra Brainard
