Born Male, Raised Feminist

This week while writing a literary agent query letter, something dawned on me about the content of both my query letter and my synopsis for Bataan New Jersey. It was the Nth iteration of both, but I continue to not be completely happy with them. The synopsis looked too general, too prescribed. Probably because I had read way too many publication promotional copies of historical novels -- that one paragraph that could light one's eyes and appealed to readers to buy and read.

While I always mentioned I wrote about strong women, the masculated war description of the novel still blanketed my pitches. While the heart of Bataan New Jersey IS Bataan, or my reimagination of it, the rest of the 700-page novel isn't about the war at all. It's about four generation of women and Queers. Does that show in my description, book pitch, synopsis?

Thanks, J Gatsby

Yesterday I saw the Broadway version of The Great Gatsby. While the production failed on so many levels, it still brought back the memory of F. Scott Fitzgerald who lived not to see the success of his novel. When it came out, he was quoted saying, "of all the reviews, even the most enthusiastic, not one had the slightest idea what the book was about". Do authors really expect to be totally understood? Twenty-four years after the publication of my first novel The Umbrella Country, I have only seen very few readings of the book that "got" what I was trying to do. It was labeled and categorized to follow the marketing whims of the time--gay and immigrant. Although I consciously never mentioned the word "bakla" in the novel, although I could have. Eventually, I would start seeing "Gendered Reading" of my novel. And finally, a scholarly aper would be sent to my email about the novel's feminist lens, an examination of women characters that seamlessly flowed through the narratives.

When I published my first collection of poetry The Gods We Worship Live Next Door, I took on the female voice again. I always felt comfortable writing from that perspective, reading the world from a woman's lips, how I was taught, albeit male. While that would be problematic today in the battleground of contentious sense of truth and authenticity, we cannot ignore the existence of those of us, born male but/and raised Feminist.

In his 2011 article 6 Male Poets Who Are Not Afraid to Write about Feminism in Guernica, poet Matt Petronzio highlighted the lack of attention given to male feminist poets. Suddenly there I was--acknowledged. Although I wouldn't call my feminism an example of "not being afraid." I have never really given it much thought. I was always a feminist.

Raised by Feminists

My father left to come to New York when I was only ten. Even in my first ten years, he was always absent. He, the only male figure in our household. When he left, that male figure all but disappeared. I never knew what it meant to be male. My mother and sister undressed in front of me, and their female bodies were always natural sight I didn't know mine was different. Since I was always gay and attracted to the male gender, I also felt alliance with the women around me. My mother, to survive and raise three kids without my father, turned our Manila "apartment" into a women-only boarding house. My fascination with being surrounded by women has appeared in my first novel, and now in Bataan New Jersey. What does it mean for a male to be raised by women? Do we become less male? Do we become more sensitive to the plight of women? I am not sure, but I know, we do not become gay.

I don't walk the grounds of gender thinking I'm feminist. The Philippines is full of women politicians that I don't like. The U.S. has yet to see a female president, and I know that will not make a difference in politics in the short term. There are toxic females as there are males. Our models for leadership have a penis. Male toxicity being too prevalent in our time. It would take a revolution for us to erase the male obsession with war and violence. To remove the traces of misogyny. There are so many ISMs with strings attached. I don't think I will see that in my time. Meanwhile, my job is to plant the seeds. I don't know how many poets and novelists, who are born male, were raised by women. But I do know that a lot of the literary agents I query are women. And I need them to know where I am coming from. War equals Men. And I don't want my writings about War to be lost in that limited equation. Bataan New Jersey will see the light, hopefully not the posthumous way The Great Gatsby did. I would hope to be there to blow birthday candles.

And so today, the first paragraph of my query letter screams with feminist clues. The way it should. I make no excuses for the way I was raised. I am proud of everything and everyone who made me who I am today.

Bataan New Jersey is a sweeping, multigenerational family saga spanning a century, from 1921 to 2021, across four generations, multiple countries, and languages. This episodic novel connects the roots of the Filipino American diaspora to three consecutive colonial invasions in the Philippines, as experienced by a matrilineal line of resilient Filipino women and Queers, each making impossible choices through 100 years of global turmoil and generational secrets. Inspired by my father, a survivor of the Fall of Bataan, the largest military surrender in U.S. history, I reimagine the story of Bataan itself, bringing the overlooked Filipino and feminist voice into sharp focus.

Read More:

https://www.bbc.com/culture/article/20210209-the-worlds-most-misunderstood-novel

https://www.guernicamag.com/matt_petronzio_6_male_poets_wh/ (Thanks, Mattt!)

Ceremony of circles a gendered reading of Bino Realuyo's The Umbrella Country (Please ask the author Pia Arboleda. Thanks, Pia!)