Fil-Am bookshop hosts ‘Celebrating the Spoken Word’

SAN PEDRO, California – To mark National Poetry Month, Philippine Expressions Bookshop is hosting “Celebrating the Spoken Word,” an afternoon of poetry reading, featuring Filipino American public servants and community leaders from Los Angeles and South Bay.

Joining them is a visiting Filipina author who will also be launching her first children’s book. This fourth 2023 Book Talk coincides with the 10th Anniversary of Independent Bookstore Day.

The event will be on Saturday, April 29 from 2:00 to 6:00 p.m. at Philippine Expressions, 479 W Sixth Street, Suite 105, San Pedro, CA 90731. The bookshop is located in the historic Arts District of San Pedro, the Port City of Los Angeles. The Book Talk is free and open to the public, but RSVP is requested due to limited space.

The selection of poetry for this event includes the inspirational poems of two prominent figures of the Fil-Am “Manong” generation: Carlos Bulosan and Philip Vera Cruz, as well as from the compelling works of four Philippine National Artists for Literature: Nick Joaquin, NVM Gonzalez, Jose Garcia Villa and Edith L. Tiempo.

These literary figures are now members of the Dead Poets Society, so to speak. And their poems will be read by Mark Pulido, Susana Reyes, Jessica Caloza, and Moises Jun Aglipay.

Joining them is Nina Daza Puyat, a Manila-based cookbook author and culinary expert. Puyat will share her delectable take on poetry with scrumptious verses from a small volume called TUGTONG: Mga Tulang Bugtong Para sa Mga Pinoy na Mahilig Kumain, a collection of Tagalog poems about food and ingredients which are presented as riddles, thus, aptly called “tugtong” or tulang bugtong. She will also launch her first children’s book, Ang Alamat ng Lumpiang Shanghai.

Mark Pulido is the former Mayor of the City of Cerritos and former Board President of the ABC Unified School District. In the late-1980s to early-1990s, Mark was a student activist, community organizer who served as student body president of UCLA, where he studied History and Asian American Studies., Mark will read Philip Vera Cruz’s “Profits Enslave the World” and Bulosan’s “I Want the Wide American Earth.”

Susana Reyes was appointed Commissioner of the City of Los Angeles’ Board of Public Works in 2022. She was previously on the Board of the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (LADWP), a position she has held since 2019. Elected as Board Vice President in 2020, she was part of the all-female-led Board in the 120-year history of LADWP.

Jessica Caloza is a lifelong public servant and has worked in various roles at the federal, state, and local levels. Currently, she serves as the Deputy Chief of Staff to California Attorney General Rob Bonta. Previously, she was appointed by the Los Angeles Mayor to serve as the Filipina American Commissioner on the Board of Public Works.

Moises “Jun” Aglipay was born in Bontoc Mountain Province in the Philippines and immigrated to the US in 1989. He attended St. Philomena Elementary School, Bishop Montgomery High School, and El Camino Community College. He had worked with Farmer Brothers for 11 years and had a brief stint in the hospitality industry. Currently, he is a Field Representative at the office of Assemblymember Mike Gipson.

The Book Talk Series of Philippine Expressions Bookshop is part of its ongoing outreach program in order to increase the visibility of Filipino American and Filipino Authors, Performance and Visual Artists in the American scene. Visit their online bookshop for more titles: https://philippinebookshop.com Email: [email protected] Tel No. 310-514-9139 Cell; 310-548-8148 landline.
The physical bookshop is open on Fridays and Saturdays, from 2:00pm – 6:00pm and by appointment.