Book Party on September 16!

 

Please join me for my book party on September 16 at 3pm.

Music Heard in Hi-Fi and Other Stories (Rebel Satori)

Skylight Books

1818 North Vermont

LA  CA  90027

There will be lots of food! Read more HERE!

LA Times Article on Gentrification

I was interviewed for an article in the LA Times about the gentrification of my neighborhood, Historic Filipinotown. 

For the last few months, Noel Alumit, a writer in Historic Filipinotown, has been adopting plants from Craigslist users, moved by the plaintive note in their appeals.

I’ve been evicted, their posts begin. I’ve lived here for 2 decades and my landlord is selling my building. Please give my plants a good home.

“I guess I feel like I’m being helpful by taking their trees,” Alumit said.

The 20th Anniversary of the Killing of Joseph lleto

On August 10, 1999 Buford Furrow, a white supremacist, killed Filipino mail carrier Joseph Ileto. Furrow said he was specifically looking for an Asian or Latino man to kill. Earlier that day, Furrow had sprayed a Jewish daycare center with bullets, wounding five.

The death of Joseph Ileto inspired my second novel Talking to the Moon.  I suppose I wrote the novel to try and make sense of what happened. I was inspired by the Ileto family who went onto to discuss the effects of hate crimes and ways to prevent it.

That was probably one of the most moving experiences I'd witnessed in the Filipino American community in Los Angeles. Joseph's brother, Ismael, stepped up to bring awareness to the situation.

I wonder how many of us would have the strength to do this kind of advocacy work.  Would you?