The Umbrella Country
by Bino A. Realuyo
List Price: $12.95
Pages: 320
Format: Paperback
ISBN: 0345428889
Publisher: Ballantine
Bino A. Realuyo was born and raised in Manila, Philippines, and studied
international relations in the United States and South America. He has
finished a poetry collection, In Spite of Open Eyes, and is the
editor of The NuyorAsian Anthology: Asian American Writings on New
York City.
Bino's poetry and fiction have regularly appeared in The Kenyon Review, Manoa, New
Letters, Puerto del Sol, The Asian Pacific American Journal,
and The Literary Review. He has done readings at universities across
the country, and was an invited poet at the Geraldine Dodge Foundation
Poetry Festival in 1996 and a guest lecturer for literature at Yale University.
He has received a Pushcart Prize nomination and the 1998 Lucille Medwick
Memorial Award from the Poetry Society of America.
Bino works full-time in the field of literacy and technology and also teaches survival English part-time
to immigrant sweatshop workers. He is at work on a new novel and a second
poetry collection. He lives in Manhattan. The Umbrella Country
is his first novel.
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Q: Although completely set in the Philippines, there seems to be an underlying relationship with the
United States running throughout the book. Why is this?
BR: I wanted to write about America without setting the book in the United States. I think the
borders of world literature are slowly diminishing as a result of the
globalization of culture, commerce and technology. The "American dream"
is as strongly felt in the streets of Manila as it is in New York City.
While it works to the advantage of some, it breaks the hearts of many.
Q: Why did you feel the need to write about America?
BR: This country saved me and my family from poverty. If I hadn't come to the United States,
I wouldn't have all the advantages I have now and I most likely wouldn't
be writing. I would be more concerned as we were then about putting food
on the table and would be expected to labor for little money. Literature
is a luxury for most Filipinos, whether it is reading or writing. So growing
up, we always had this dream of going to America, where those who went
before us were doing so much better than those of us left behind.
Q: The narrative structure changes in different chapters, sometimes linear, sometimes conversational.
Why is this so?
BR: During the writing of this novel, I read a lot of contemporary literature. I knew even then
that I didn't want to write conventional narratives. I wanted a variation
on storytelling on many different levels, without losing the sensory and
emotional content of the novel. I like the idea of trying to do something
different by writing a book without following a particular standard. This
was very liberating.
Q: The chapters read like interwoven stories, with distinct beginnings and ends. Why did you choose
to tell the story this way?
BR: I wondered at first how Gringo would have dealt with his remembrance of his past. I thought
his memories might have come at different times. I don't think memory
flows smoothly. I think it's more uneven, like the way I have shaped the
book, with each chapter like a sudden rush of thought, it began, it ended,
then followed by another influx of memory. It takes the reader through
a different kind of remembering, with each chapter having equal emotional
impact.
Q: You also write poetry. How does this affect your fiction?
BR: They complement one another. When I began the novel I was trying to finish my poetry collection.
Actually, I got bored with the restraints of the collection and needed
a diversion. Before I knew it, I couldn't leave the novel and felt the
need to finish it. I have learned that fiction gives me the space to experiment
with language, while my poems are quite formal. I think poetry can be
very restrictive because a poet must deliver the message of the work in
so few pages. Because of the length of a novel, there is a lot of room
for creativity. The only relationship between the two for me is that I
am working within the confines of the same landscape of images, my body
of work being all about the Philippines.
Q: As a Filipino-American, do you find much representation of your culture in books?
BR: There has been a Filipino presence in American literature for a very long time. Filipinos
first started writing in English a hundred years ago when the United States
took over the Philippines in 1898. And because of immigration to the United
States, there has been a steady increase in Filipino-American literature.
Many non-Filipinos write about the Philippines and our experiences, but
we are slowly reclaiming our voices, our stories, our truths.
Q: Daddy Groovie, Gringo, and Boy Spit are all very colorful names, as are the others in The Umbrella
Country. How carefully do you choose the names for your characters?
BR: I revere names, that they mark people, so I am very careful to attach meaning to all names.
In the Philippines, the name of a child often reflects changes in the
political climate. There was a period when everyone had multiple Spanish
names, like Maria Consuelo Veronica de Los Santos Buenaventura. During
the American Period, Anglo names were suddenly adopted everywhere. Then
to reclaim some of the past, we started giving our children combinations
of Spanish and Anglo names. This has caused a lot of confusion, as many
people now have complicated names, or similar names, so if we don't know
someone's name, we give them nicknames based on how they look or what
they do--like Boy Manicure, Boy Spit, or Sergio Putita.
Q: You seem to have written a classic coming-of-age story--would you agree?
BR: I don't want the book to be read only as a coming-of-age story of the two brothers. I think
there is much more in the novel than watching Gringo and Pipo deal with
their lives. I am also trying to explore the strange and very complex
nature of family bonds amid poverty and sometimes violent circumstances,
while telling the quiet story of the Philippines during its most turbulent
period. So I guess it's also a sort of coming-of-age for the country and
all the characters, not just the boys, as we are never too old to grow.
Q: There seems to be a trend toward young, immigrant fiction. Do you see yourself as part of this movement?
BR: I think literature in other countries has always been the domain of the economic elite because
they are the ones who have the luxury to send their children to good schools
at home and abroad to study literature. The Philippines is no different--the
literati there is dominated by people who were schooled in the United
States. I think immigration of people from the lower economic bracket
has given birth to a new form of world literature--the literature of the
educated poor. I am very excited to be part of this emerging generation
who understands what being hungry means because they have either experienced
it firsthand or have once lived so close to it.
Q: There are shadowy characters in the novel--specifically Estrella and Boy Manicure. Why did you choose
not to develop them more?
BR: Well, I chose to sketch Estrella simply because Gringo didn't know her. Returning to the
past was a way for him to find her, to get to know her, only to realize
memory isn't enough, and perhaps can never be enough. For Boy Manicure
I wanted to create a gay character who exists only in the perception of
the people around him, based on the stereotypes and homophobic ideas of
the society he lives in. Because no one really knows him, everybody fears
him, so they must make him an outcast. Very few people are strong enough
to withstand that pressure. Boy Manicure is no exception.
Q: Does much of your fiction originate from your personal experiences?
BR: Yes, but I use my entire family's life, not just mine. I draw much inspiration from the
rich and complex histories of my family, beginning from the root--my father,
who was imprisoned by the Japanese in the concentration camps during World
War II, then my mother, then my whole family--we all have special relationships
to the Philippines. However, these stories do not come without a price.
They may be rich sources for future literary works, but writing about
them is very painful and difficult.
Q: Your female characters are very believable, and you seem to love writing about them. Why?
BR: When I was growing up my father wasn't around much and when he got sick and was taken to
the United States, the only people around me were my mother and my oldest
sister, so I was basically raised by women. Because of the lack of male
figures, I used to always think I knew exactly how to be a woman but had
no idea what it was like to be a man. This might have affected my character
and sensitivity to women's issues--a lot of my poems are written in a
woman's voice.
Q: When Gringo refuses to look at his mother at the airport, he seems to be turning his back on
the past, as though he'll never return. Have you ever gone home?
BR: For many, many years I would go to sleep and end up in Manila, as if in my psyche I needed
to be taken home to face my past again. The reality of it was I had no
desire to go home. Home for me goes beyond native origins; home is where
you find your heart, your soul. That for me is the United States. Writing
is my dialogue with the Philippines. I am not sure when this conversation
will end, or if it will. But I know that someday I will have to confront
my country by going home. By then, I hope to be armed with a great deal
of understanding of myself and my past.
Courtesy of Random House, Inc.
© Copyright 2012 by Bino A. Realuyo. Reprinted with permission by Ballantine. All rights reserved.
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