Filipino author releases ‘Pinoy Capital’ in US
MANILA, Philippines — Another feather to the growing cap of the Philippines is in the hands of author Dr. Benito Vergara Jr., a UPLB and Cornell University graduate, for his new book titled “Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City."
The book has recently been published by Temple University Press in San Francisco, California, the city also famous for the historic “Summer of Love." Vergara held his most recent book talk at the San Francisco State University where he shared with students and participants what the book is all about.
“It's about Filipinos in the US, how they live, what they left, and what money and nation mean to them," said Vergara.
Vergara, 38, said the book was officially released in January 2009 and is set for more book talks and other events related to his book. He said he decided to focus on Daly City, the subject of his book, when he visited one time and was amazed at how many Filipinos he had met.
“I was amazed with what I could see and how many Filipino products — food, newspapers, videos, etc. — one had access to. It was quite a contrast to central New York," he said, comparing his experience in the East Coast.
The book, he said, is about Daly City, host to the highest Filipino population in the US. According to his book the city has the highest concentration of Filipino residents for a mid-sized American city, about a third of Daly City's 100,000 residents. Vergara said there are lots of Filipinos all over the San Francisco Bay Area, but Daly City has an almost mythic personality as being full of “Pinoys."
He said he finds it amazing that once it gets known as being predominantly Filipino, more Filipino immigrants may want to live in Daly City for that reason.
The first chapter of his book started with a running joke that when someone sees the usual fog in Daly City, that only means the Filipinos are rolling their rice cookers either for lunch or dinner.
Vergara said he came out with the title of the book because Daly City after all is famous to be the Pinoy Capital of the USA; yet, a pun about money and its significance to Filipino immigrant lives. He added that his immersion in the city and his exposure to other parts of the US where Filipino immigrants live helped him tremendously to write his book.
“Immigration is a funny thing," he said, “We like to think of statistics, of demographics, of patterns, etcetera when we talk about immigrants. But we talk about them as if they were fully rational actors, but they're not."
Vergara averred that he didn’t refer to them as irrational but Filipinos have many different and sometimes even contradictory reasons for coming to the United States. He said his book tries to disentangle the “messy reality" that underlies immigration; why people leave, what they miss about "home;" why they sometimes feel guilty about leaving; and, what they do in order to not feel as guilty.
He said, “Basically all the stuff that doesn't get seen when looking at just numbers. Also, there have been only a few academic monographs, relatively speaking, on Filipinos in the US in general, and even less on those emigrating after 1965."
Vergara said he hopes that the book will leave questions to the readers such as a question about political participation as to why the first-generation Filipino immigrants, particularly those who are now US citizens, are still knowledgeable about major and minor issues in the Philippines.
“Not necessarily about the politics of their newly-adopted country? I don't write this outright, but I think there's a double accommodation that should happen: on the part of the US government, which should understand that loyalties to different places are easier to maintain nowadays, and on the part of the Filipino immigrant community, which should understand that citizenship does entail certain responsibilities to one's new country."
Vergara moved to the US in 1990 with his family and relatives all the way from his beloved hometown in Los Baňos, Laguna. He finished high school at the University of the Philippines Rural High School in Los Baňos. He graduated from UPLB with a Communication Arts degree with his thesis centered on writer and author F. Sionil Jose.
He took his MA in Asian Studies and Ph.D. in Anthropology both from Cornell University. He now lives in the East Bay, a sub region of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Vergara said he missed the Philippines that when he was researching for his book, he couldn’t help but relate to his interviewees, especially when he asked them of what they are nostalgic about their home country.
“Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City" is now available online through Amazon.Com or through Temple University Press website at www.temple.edu.
Vergara is scheduled for another book talk on April 4, 3:30 p.m. at the Eastwind Books in Berkeley, a city considered to be another center of academic achievement in California. - GMANews.TV
The book has recently been published by Temple University Press in San Francisco, California, the city also famous for the historic “Summer of Love." Vergara held his most recent book talk at the San Francisco State University where he shared with students and participants what the book is all about.
“It's about Filipinos in the US, how they live, what they left, and what money and nation mean to them," said Vergara.
Vergara, 38, said the book was officially released in January 2009 and is set for more book talks and other events related to his book. He said he decided to focus on Daly City, the subject of his book, when he visited one time and was amazed at how many Filipinos he had met.
“I was amazed with what I could see and how many Filipino products — food, newspapers, videos, etc. — one had access to. It was quite a contrast to central New York," he said, comparing his experience in the East Coast.
The book, he said, is about Daly City, host to the highest Filipino population in the US. According to his book the city has the highest concentration of Filipino residents for a mid-sized American city, about a third of Daly City's 100,000 residents. Vergara said there are lots of Filipinos all over the San Francisco Bay Area, but Daly City has an almost mythic personality as being full of “Pinoys."
He said he finds it amazing that once it gets known as being predominantly Filipino, more Filipino immigrants may want to live in Daly City for that reason.
The first chapter of his book started with a running joke that when someone sees the usual fog in Daly City, that only means the Filipinos are rolling their rice cookers either for lunch or dinner.
Vergara said he came out with the title of the book because Daly City after all is famous to be the Pinoy Capital of the USA; yet, a pun about money and its significance to Filipino immigrant lives. He added that his immersion in the city and his exposure to other parts of the US where Filipino immigrants live helped him tremendously to write his book.
“Immigration is a funny thing," he said, “We like to think of statistics, of demographics, of patterns, etcetera when we talk about immigrants. But we talk about them as if they were fully rational actors, but they're not."
Vergara averred that he didn’t refer to them as irrational but Filipinos have many different and sometimes even contradictory reasons for coming to the United States. He said his book tries to disentangle the “messy reality" that underlies immigration; why people leave, what they miss about "home;" why they sometimes feel guilty about leaving; and, what they do in order to not feel as guilty.
He said, “Basically all the stuff that doesn't get seen when looking at just numbers. Also, there have been only a few academic monographs, relatively speaking, on Filipinos in the US in general, and even less on those emigrating after 1965."
Vergara said he hopes that the book will leave questions to the readers such as a question about political participation as to why the first-generation Filipino immigrants, particularly those who are now US citizens, are still knowledgeable about major and minor issues in the Philippines.
“Not necessarily about the politics of their newly-adopted country? I don't write this outright, but I think there's a double accommodation that should happen: on the part of the US government, which should understand that loyalties to different places are easier to maintain nowadays, and on the part of the Filipino immigrant community, which should understand that citizenship does entail certain responsibilities to one's new country."
Vergara moved to the US in 1990 with his family and relatives all the way from his beloved hometown in Los Baňos, Laguna. He finished high school at the University of the Philippines Rural High School in Los Baňos. He graduated from UPLB with a Communication Arts degree with his thesis centered on writer and author F. Sionil Jose.
He took his MA in Asian Studies and Ph.D. in Anthropology both from Cornell University. He now lives in the East Bay, a sub region of the San Francisco Bay Area.
Vergara said he missed the Philippines that when he was researching for his book, he couldn’t help but relate to his interviewees, especially when he asked them of what they are nostalgic about their home country.
“Pinoy Capital: The Filipino Nation in Daly City" is now available online through Amazon.Com or through Temple University Press website at www.temple.edu.
Vergara is scheduled for another book talk on April 4, 3:30 p.m. at the Eastwind Books in Berkeley, a city considered to be another center of academic achievement in California. - GMANews.TV
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