Books and Music
Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects (Smithsonian Books, 2023)
Edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves. A rich and compelling introduction to the history of Asian Pacific American communities as told through 101 objects, from a fortune cookie baking mold to the debut Ms. Marvel comic featuring Kamala Khan. APA101 invites readers to experience both well-known and untold stories through influential, controversial, and meaningful objects. Thematic chapters explore complex history and shared experiences: navigation, intersections, labor, innovation, belonging, tragedy, resistance and solidarity, community, service, memory, and joy. The book features vibrant full-color illustrations of objects that embody and engage with Asian Pacific American issues, including the immigrant experience, the importance of media representation, what history gets officially documented vs. what does not, and so much more.
"This brilliant and beautiful book is a moving tribute to Asian Pacific American contributions, challenges, and triumphs. Vivid illustrations and insightful commentaries on the stunning objects introduce readers to the incredible diversity of Asian Pacific American experiences and their centrality in American history.”
—Catherine Ceniza Choy, author of Asian American Histories of the United States
"Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects gathers the wide expanse of our boundless creativity and the evidence of hard-won survival. In these objects and the poignant meditations that accompany them, the ordinary and the magnificent, the tragic and the joyous, the intimate and the universal tell the powerful stories of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Feel the bold touch of our ancestors, trace the broad contours of how we are shaping the present, and see the signs of our shared future.”
—Jeff Chang, author of Water Mirror Echo: Bruce Lee and the Making of Asian America
"History is more than just dates—it’s about being able to relate to our past. Asian Pacific American history, long underrepresented and undertaught, can be especially hard to bring to life. Luckily, Theodore Gonzalves has given us a monumental gift in Smithsonian Asian Pacific American History, Art, and Culture in 101 Objects that uses the vast Smithsonian collections to animate our stories.”
—Hari Kondabolu, comedian and writer
Gossip, Sex, and the End of the World: Collected Works of tongue in A mood (Arkipelago Books, 2021)
Edited by Theodore S. Gonzalves and A. Samson Manalo. The theater troupe “tongue in A mood” blends comedy, satire, music, and social commentary. Gossip, Sex, and the End of the World: Collected Works of tongue in A mood collects the group’s critically-acclaimed and popular sketch comedy shows - Tsismis, Bomba, and Damo - into one volume. See what critics called “sharp, irreverent, and sometimes deadly serious comedy” (San Francisco Bay Guardian); “slapstick comedy that explores and pokes fun at the Filipino American experience” (San Francisco Chronicle); and a “bullshit variety show” (San Francisco Weekly). Featuring: sketch comedy written by A. Samson Manalo, Patty Cachapero, Kevin Camia, and Kennedy Kabasares; director’s notes; diagrams of the original Bindlestiff Studio layout by Ramon Abad; sheet music composed by Theodore S. Gonzalves; an afterword with the founding mother of Bindlestiff Studio, Chrystene Ells; a glossary of terms; and full color photographs.
“This book is a hoot! Funny in a provocative way, and provocative in a funny way: Gonzalves and Manalo rip within the folds of the diasporic Filipino culture. With this tome they prove you can be laugh-out-loud funny and serious at the same time. I had so many light bulbs go off while reading this book, I’m afraid to check next month’s bill.”
— Luis H. Francia, author of Eye of the Fish: A Personal Archipelago
”Gossip, Sex, and the End of the World: Collected Works of tongue in A mood provides crucial context for showing that we as a Filipino community have been tackling the same issues for decades – using our creativity, humor, and wit to understand ourselves, our parents, our culture, and our place in American society. The jokes are as fresh and relevant as ever. Ranging from being pissed off that someone had the audacity to eat their leftover sinigang to poking fun of whitewashed Filipinos (Chad!), the sketches touch on deeper questions about what it means to be Filipino American. Whatever we as a community are going through at the present – it has been examined, poked and satirized by generations before. Gossip, Sex, and the End of the World is a comfort – offering validation to Filipino Americans today that they are not alone – and we are talented and as hilarious as hell.”
— Malaka Gharib, author of I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir
“Tongue in a mood talaga! I read this book aboard a flight from Guam to Honolulu, breaking only to exhale before diving back for more riotous laughter and memories of that special time in the Bay Area in the late 90s, when, despite the advent of the dot.com doom, we witnessed the explosive birth of a theater group that began with three performance artists in 1994 and which quickly grew into an ensemble to include musicians and other performers. tongue in A mood critiques culture, colonial history, and peoples through smart, twisted, and memorable vignettes. Who could ever forget the plight of the Filipino house decors, like the talking giant wooden spoon and fork, for example, in “Klosit Komrads,” with Jesus Christ impersonating Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver? Or how about Lola Sayang food products that sold exotic delicacies, like preserved pig’s blood in aluminum cans or lechon ice cream with actual pig body parts? Or, my favorite, the poignant, unapologetic lovemaking between a Filipino couple in their “Golden Years.” Riffing on a line by Nostradamo in “Sandwich Boards,” a fantastical one-act about a jeepney ride to the end of the world, i.e., Manila — the stories may be tragic, but tongue in A mood is pure magic.”
— R. Zamora Linmark, author of Rollin’ the R’s, Leche, and The Importance of Being Wilde at Heart
Migrant Musicians: Filipino Entertainers and the Work of Music Making (Center for Art and Thought, 2013)
With Karen Tongson, R. Zamora Linmark, and Sarita Echavez See. Informed by their creative and scholarly work and by their own histories and experiences, they reflect on how Filipino musicians have circulated as part of a global entertainment industry. Their discussion ranges from their family memories and mythologies about music’s transportative power to their encounters with the legal realities of Filipino musicians’ experiences as overseas contract workers. As See remarks, the processes of migration and survival transform “living song into living labor”—a process that can disguise and deny the work that undergirds the making and feeling of music.
Each copy of this limited run edition of Migrant Musicians: Filipino Entertainers and the Work of Music Making (150 total) is a beautiful art object: The covers were printed on a hand-fed, hand-cranked Vandercook letterpress at the Horse & Buggy Press studio in Durham, North Carolina, and the inner pages—digitally printed to provide high quality text and color images—are then hand bound using linen thread. All proceeds go towards sustaining CA+T's cultural and educational missions.
Carlos Villa and the Integrity of Spaces (Meritage Press, 2011)
An anthology surveying the work of the critically-acclaimed artist/educator Carlos Villa. Essays and poetry by Bill Berkson, David A.M. Goldberg, Theodore S. Gonzalves, Mark Dean Johnson, Margo Machida, and Moira Roth. The book also features a gallery of 77 images of the artist's work from 1961 to 2011.
“For this beautiful book, cultural studies scholar Theo Gonzalves brings together the most relevant and important voices on the work of Carlos Villa, which spans more than half a century. Together with Gonzalves’ own detailed and nuanced essay, which provides a rich context for our understanding and appreciation of Villa’s art and life, they variously illuminate how the artist’s vision emerges from Filipino American history, how his work engages the work of other American visual artists, and how he thinks about and makes art. The book ends as powerfully as it begins, with Villa’s own words, both as a teacher and artist. Carlos Villa and the Integrity of Spaces is the definitive work on one of the most important American artists of our time.”
— Elaine H. Kim, author of Fresh Talk/Daring Gazes: Conversations on Asian American Art
“Here, finally, is the book that Carlos Villa so richly deserves. His fascinating art-and-life trajectory is explored by an equally stellar group of writers who weave the links (and ruptures) between Filipino/U.S. histories, art worlds, jazz, Asian American arts, San Francisco, and Villa’s gifts for friendship, teaching, and cultural activism. His art is memorable, powerful, and moving. So is this book.”
— Lucy R. Lippard, author of Mixed Blessings: New Art in a Multicultural America
“When I first moved to the Bay Area in 1990, I remember seeing a pair of feathered shoes in a glass box. The implication—that by lifting the glass the shoes might fly away—did not feel like mainstream art or party line culture. It felt like a leap both personal and tribal. Looking back, I can now see the leap that Carlos Villa took as something close to my own immigration, one having always stood for a non-ideological American multiculturalism firmly grounded in the steps of his, and our own, journey.”
— Hung Liu, professor of studio art, Mills College
“Carlos Villa is a legendary figure in the arts and in the struggles of a multicultural generation. For over four decades he has created work from the soul of his ancestry, language, and ceremonial vision. His generous leadership in the movement for cultural rights has brought together the luminaries of our time. His contribution to global artistic expressions is immense and incalculable and his iconic work marks an era critical to the arts in America.”
— Amalia Mesa-Bains, artist and author of Ceremony of Spirit: Nature and Memory in Contemporary Latino Art
“A wonderfully rich and important anthology that generously offers several instances of Carlos Villa’s own words with writings by distinguished contributors. Editor Gonzalves critically coheres a lively collection of essays and a brilliant piece of pantoum poetry, from discussions of the manong legacy to an assertion of hybridity and the primacy of art. Carlos Villa and the Integrity of Spaces will ensure the artist his rightful place in art and cultural history.”
— Yong Soon Min, professor of studio art, University of California at Irvine
“This remarkable book on Carlos Villa—artist, educator, curator, and author—reveals the breadth of his work worldwide. His book, Worlds in Collision: Dialogues on Multicultural Art Issues, has been one of the most important texts for the education of students and artists for over two decades; and his own art extends the cultural range of visual perception.”
— Keith A. Morrison, art educator, curator, art critic, and administrator
Filipinos in Hawaiʻi (Arcadia Publishing, 2011)
With Roderick N. Labrador. A collaboration with the Filipino American Historical Society of Hawaiʻi. Please visit filipinosinhawaii.info for sample galleries, a reading list, an historical timeline of U.S.-Philippine and Hawaiʻi history, and links to other digital photo collections. Nearly one in four persons in Hawaiʻi is of Filipino heritage. Representing one-fifth of the state's workforce, Filipinos have been in Hawaiʻi for more than a century, turning the rough and raw materials of sugar and pineapple into billion-dollar commodities. This book traces a history from 1946—the last year that sakadas (plantation workers) were imported from the Philippines—to the centennial year of their settlement in Hawaiʻi. Filipinos are central to much that has been built and cherished in the state, including the agricultural industry, tourism, military presence, labor movements, community activism, politics, education, entertainment, and sports.
“Filipinos in Hawaiʻi performs a most poignant and powerful task of narrating history through photography. It captures moments in time and space that take us to the past not just to recover and recreate personal memory but also to locate such memory within a global, national, and local imaginary. They are, therefore, photographs of imperial subject-hood, national exclusion, and racialized labor exploitation. Simultaneously—and defiantly—these photographs are also records of collective pleasure, uplift, and empowerment. Not yet quite timeworn, they remind us of how the past continues to speak to us, why they matter in our present, and what we still need to do in the future.”
— Rick Bonus, author of Locating Filipino Americans: Ethnicity and the Cultural Politics of Space
“If a picture is worth a thousand words—it also tells the personal story of people in the photograph. Images in Theodore S. Gonzalves and Roderick N. Labrador’s new Arcadia book, Filipinos in Hawaiʻi, chronicles the unique life of Filipino Americans who settled in Hawaiʻi since 1906. This book touches many facets of their life—at work, school, and play, celebrating weddings and fiestas, and participating in social movements during the ‘70s through ‘90s. Of special interest to me were chapters on trail blazers Dr. Mario Bautista and Amy Agbayani. This book provides valuable insights to Filipino history in America.
— Dorothy L. Cordova, executive director of the Filipino American National Historical Society
"Who are the Filipinos in Hawaiʻi? This is difficult to answer because, as Theo Gonzalves and Rod Labrador show in their new pictorial history, the Filipinos in Hawaiʻi have complex identities. The authors present pictures in chapters organized by themes (rituals, portraits, labor, places, communities, social movements and play), showing how Filipinos celebrate their heritage and how they’ve integrated in their new Hawaiʻi home. Pictures in the last chapters focus on two outstanding Filipino Americans (Mario Bautista and Amy Agbayani). Filipinos started to arrive in Hawaiʻi in 1906 to work in sugarcane plantations and though today they comprise a major ethnic group in Hawaiʻi, there are only a few books about them. Filipinos in Hawaiʻi is an important book that fills this huge gap and helps counter lazy interpretations and ethnic stereotyping."
— Melinda T. Kerkvliet, author of Unbending Cane: Pablo Manlapit, a Filipino Labor Leader in Hawaiʻi
“Theo Gonzalves and Rod Labrador’s Filipinos in Hawai‘i is a major contribution to the Arcadia Publishing series on Filipino American communities in capturing in photographs the diverse and significant contributions of Filipinos to Hawai‘i society, culture and history. Their book colorfully demonstrates how Filipinos became Hawayanos (Filipinos from Hawai‘i) over time, transforming the islands and themselves in the process. As a pictorial history, it provocatively reveals what a textual history could indicate about the Filipino American experience in Hawai‘i.”
— Jonathan Y. Okamura, author of Imagining the Filipino American Diaspora: Transnational Relations, Identities, and Communities
The Day the Dancers Stayed: Performing in the Filipino/American Diaspora (Temple University Press, 2010)
Pilipino Cultural Nights at U.S. campuses have been a rite of passage for youth culture and a source of local community pride since the 1980s. Through performances - and parodies of them - these celebrations of national identity through music, dance and theatrical narratives reemphasize what it means to be Filipino American. In The Day the Dancers Stayed, scholar and performer Theodore S. Gonzalves uses interviews and participant observer techniques to consider the relationship between the invention of performance repertoire and the development of diasporic identification. Gonzalves traces a genealogy of performance repertoire from the 1930s to the present. Culture nights serve several functions as exercises in nostalgia, celebrations of rigid community entertainment, and occasionally forums for political intervention. Taking up more recent parodies of Pilipino Cultural Nights, Gonzalves discusses how the rebellious spirit that enlivened the original seditious performances has been stifled.
“With acumen, verve, and a politics of style that effect an important counter-appropriation of performance studies in today’s American academy, The Day the Dancers Stayed offers a differently historicized analysis of the processes by which cultural—kinetic, aural, visual—knowledges get produced, repeated, and transformed. Gonzalves shows us or, more precisely and more crucially, reminds us how and why culture dies. And how it always lives on.”
— Sarita Echavez See, author of The Decolonized Eye: Filipino American Art and Performance
“Theo Gonzalves’ brilliant riff on the modes of cultural productions adroitly taps into new realms of discourse, locating multiple sites where cultural memories are crafted, authenticated, challenged, and reclaimed though the aesthetics of performance. Elegantly written and grounded in historical swirls complicated and connected by U.S. colonial policies in the Philippines, The Day the Dancers Stayed delves into Filipino/a experiences and the tenets of a sustained vision of nation/nationhood that marks the arrival of a talent whose remarkable work is a necessary text in cultural analyses.”
— Linda España-Maram, author of Creating Masculinity in Los Angeles’s Little Manila: Working-Class Filipinos and Popular Culture in the United States
Stage Presence: Conversations with Filipino American Performing Artists (Meritage Press, 2007)
Stage Presence is a collection of essays and interviews with Filipino American performing artists. Each of the chapters features critically acclaimed and popular artists who have also mentored hundreds of dancers, comedians, theater artists, and musicians of all genres. In this rare collection, performers take time off-stage to speak candidly about their creative processes, revealing personal frustrations and triumphs, while testifying to the challenges of what it could mean to be an artist of Filipino descent working and living in the United States. Featuring: musicians Eleanor Academia, Gabe Baltazar Jr., and Danongan Kalanduyan; bandleader and poet Jessica Hagedorn; choreographers and dancers Joel Jacinto, Alleluia Panis, and Pearl Ubungen; and theater artists Remé Grefalda, Allan S. Manalo, and Ralph Peña. The book also includes a thought-provoking foreword by ethnomusicologist Ricardo D. Trimillos, and an afterword by the editor.
“Fusing history, culture, jazz, and art, Stage Presence is one big happening jam session featuring ten Filipino American performing artists rapping on their craft, their process, their defiance to be boxed in by the category-obsessed American market, and their hunger and struggles necessary to stay true to their vision, identity, and art.”
— R. Zamora Linmark, author of Rolling the R’s, Prime Time Apparitions, and Leche
“This collection of interviews and reflections by many of the leading Filipino American cultural workers demonstrates the range and vitality of Filipino American performing arts – an inspiring and dynamic range of practices encompassing everything from kulintang to head-banging heavy metal, from college PCNs to off-Broadway New York theatre, from the Bayanihan to site-specific performance art. Stage Presence gives us a view rarely available to students, scholars, and audiences: the winding paths through history and identity that led these groundbreaking artists into the spotlight.”
— Karen Shimakawa, author of National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage
“When The New York Times looks at Filipinos, it sees only house maids and cooks, copycats, and mimics. But when scholar and artist Theo Gonzalves looks at and talks with his compatriots, he sees stunningly original and creative thinkers who use an eclectic range of forms and methods to make art and perform culture. This book is dizzy and alive with the Filipino soul. Read at your own risk!”
— Karin Aguilar-San Juan, editor of The State of Asian America
Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora (Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, 2021).
Kulintang Kultura pays homage to the late Danongan “Danny” Kalanduyan (1947-2016), a talented musician and generous teacher who championed traditional Filipino kulintang gong music in the United States, helping to keep the memory and practice alive. Disc 1 features Kalanduyan’s ensemble at the peak of their powers in a recording featuring a traditional Philippine repertoire. Disc 2 turns our attention to Filipino musicians in the diaspora who weave those traditions into electronica, hip-hop, rock, jazz, and other contemporary styles - featuring tracks by Han Han & DATU; Kulintronica; Gingee; Fred Ho, The Asian American Art Ensemble, and Kulintang Arts; the Noh Buddies; Asian Crisis; Bo Razon; Subla Neokulintang; Hafez Modirzadeh, Conrad Benedicto, and Royal Hartigan; Eleanor Academia; Florante Aguilar; Bernard Ellorin and Eric Abutin; and Kim Kalanduyan. Kulintang Kultura: Danongan Kalanduyan and Gong Music of the Philippine Diaspora is the music of Filipinos both rooted and scattered, both ancient and modern—music that has held fast and continues to inspire. Two CDs with extensive liner notes and over 100 minutes of music. Produced by Theodore S. Gonzalves and Mary Talusan Lacanlale.
Theo Gonzalves, The Ballad of Salvatore de Legaspi (Brothers with a Fundamental Problem Recordings, 2005).
Field recordings and music produced, arranged, and composed by Theo Gonzalves. Recorded in Baguio, Carcar, Dumaguete, Makati, and Honolulu.
Theo Gonzalves, Novemberly: A Jazz and Poetry Lounge Act (Jeepney Dash Records, 2002).
Recorded live at Jack Adams Hall, San Francisco, California. Theo Gonzalves (piano), Farris Smith (bass), Mark Foglia (drums), Raym Picardo (flute), and Al Robles (vocals).
“Gonzalves’ lush and playful arrangements are indeed reminiscent of the relaxed atmosphere one would find in a piano bar, where one can gather late at night with good friends, ready to sing along with familiar tunes, and call out requests for your favorites. Gonzalves has a sure grasp of traditional jazz phrasing.... I especially enjoyed his romantic interpretation of Brandt & Hayme’s “That’s All.” In a different, er, vein, “‘Cuz u” (“She is a vampyre” mix) felt edgy. Gonzalves’ arrangement takes off, soaring and swooping like a sensual Filipina aswang (the Philippine version of the vampire) in this moody, yet lyrical piece, which is perhaps my favorite on the CD. With flutist Raym Picardo, Gonzalves’ interpretation of the Filipino “Bahay Kubo” was a surprise, lending an urban, postmodern feel to this traditional, folk melody about the humble Filipino nipa hut. One more surprise awaited on the last track: poet/storyteller/activist Al Robles’ spoken poetry accompanied by Gonzalves in a tribute to jazz vocalist Flip NuĖez, a lovely and delicate collaboration, which sounds freshly improvised (whether it was, or not). Robles’ words could just as well describe the music of Theo Gonzalves in this collection aptly entitled, Novemberly: “Fresh, clean and vibrant as the first rising touch of autumn.’” — International Examiner
Bobby Banduria, The Rudiments of Conversation, Volume 6 (Jeepney Dash Records, 2001).
“Even with the crazy personas of the bandmates, the music is mostly a sophisticated fusion of jazz, funk, pop, and traditional Pinoy instrumentals. Kevin may kill me for saying this, but the music is actually quite soothing, and a real joy to listen to. Mr. Camia is multi-talented - a performance artist, comedian, and laud player.” — Bamboo Girl
Bobby Banduria, Shiny Silver Jeepney (Jeepney Dash Records, 2000).
“I liked the playful mood alongside the tremendous proficiency of the playing, the lightness of tone alongside the seriousness of the purpose, the tightness of the sound and image alongside the seeming incongruity of their elements. Someone would tell me later that Bobby Banduria, a.k.a Kevin Camia, was a member of a group that did stand-up comedies. Now that is Pinoy.” — Conrado de Quiros, Philippine Daily Inquirer