Cebu is a 1991 first novel by Filipino American author Peter Reme Bacho the "most visible figure" of second-generation, native-born Filipino American writing[1] and one of several Seattle novelists in the 1990s to explore the racial history and sociology of Seattle.[2] The novel is also "the first novel about a Filipino American who identifies primarily with US localities," rather than with the Philippines.[3]
This section needs expansion. You can help by adding to it. (June 2008)
The novel's main character is an American priest named Ben Lucero, who is the son of a Filipino mother and a Filipino American father, as he makes his first trip to the Philippines. The story is set in 1983, when Ben's mother dies, and he takes her body to Cebu, Philippines for burial; it is his first trip to his mother's country. In the Philippines, he stays with his mother's best friend from childhood, "Aunt" Clara Natividad, who has become a wealthy and powerful businesswoman but led guerilla fighters during the war and earned her fortune through ethically questionable business practices.
The novel follows Ben's encounters with Philippine culture and tradition, both in the Philippine Cebu City and in Manila, where he spends time with Clara's assistant Ellen but also sees the violence around him, such as a protest at the U.S. Embassy in which Philippine soldiers attacked their own people. Unnerved by his experiences in Manila, Ben returns home to Seattle, where he finds himself caught up in an escalating cycle of violence within the Filipino immigrant community. Ben is confused by his experiences, feeling like an outsider in both his mother's homeland and his own local community.[4]
Prologue: Ben's arrival in the Philippines and reunion with Aunt Clara
Part 1: The history of Clara's friendship with Ben's mother, Remedios; how Clara became wealthy, how she rescued Remedios from the Japanese, and how Remedios married Ben's father, Albert, and moved to the States.
Part 2: The story of Clara's friend Carlito as he tries to save his daughter through personal sacrifice; more on Clara's history during the War.
Part 3: The discovery of Carlito's actions.
Part 4: Ben's stay with Ellen in Manila as he waits for a flight back to the States
Part 5: Ben's return to Seattle and resumption of his priestly duties, which involve a series of killings in the immigrant community.
Characters in "Cebu"
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Ben Lucero
Remedios Lucero
Albert Lucero
In the Philippines
"Aunt" Clara Natividad
Ellen Labrado
Marites
Carlito
Sitoy
In Seattle
Teddy
Johnny Romero: a local cop who works in Ben's section of town; he is half-Filipino and half-Native American, and although he is raised Filipino, he uses his Native American ancestry to get a college degree and government money; he illustrates the impossibility of pinning minorities to either "Filipino" or "white," and he exemplifies the ways minority groups get ranked in a hierarchy of importance and/or respect
Carmen "Zorro" Gamboa: a Mexican girl who moves into Ben's neighborhood while they are still in school; Teddy calls her Zorro because she has facial hair, and the nickname becomes popular with the schoolkids; only Ben is friendly with her, but she is upset to find out that he is not romantically interested in her; when she dies a few months later after getting involved with a "bad crowd," Ben blames himself until he finds out that she came from a bad home and was all but destined for a bad life.
Major themes
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The novel features themes around the differences between American and Philippine culture and between American and Philippine Roman Catholicism. Other themes covered include the history of the Philippines from the final days of World War II, the effect of American presence in the country, and the difference between American-born Filipinos and Filipino immigrants and neocolonialism. The Philippine concept of "barkada", a notion of loyalty to one's peer group, plays an important role in his experiences in Seattle after his return. The novel follows the protagonist's sexual repression and bifurcated notion of home. Bacho’s vision is darkly comic, and he refuses to sentimentalize this demanding material. Ben’s return to his homeland ends with a reaffirmation of his Filipino American identity
Allusions to actual history, geography and current science
Besides the descriptions of life in Cebu City and Manila, the novel refers to the general history of the Philippines from the time of Japanese control to the beginning of the revolt against the Marcos regime, including the student protests at American Embassy in 1970.
1991, USA, U of Washington P ISBN978-0-295-97113-1, Pub date November 1991, hardback and paperback
Sources, references, external links, quotations
↑ Oscar V. Compomanes, "Filipino American Literature," with N.V.M. Gonzalez, An Interethnic Companion to Asian American Literature, ed. King-Kok Cheung, Cambridge UP, 1997, 62-124.
↑ Elizabeth H. Pisares, "Payback Time: Neocolonial Discourses in Peter Bacho's 'Cebu'," MELUS 29.1 (2004): 79-97.
↑ Nerissa Balce-Cortes and Jean Vengua Gier, "Filipino American Literature," New Immigrant Literatures in the United States: A Sourcebook to Our Multicultural Literary Heritage, ed. Alpana Sharma Knippling, Greenwood 1996, 67-90.
↑ Patterson, Christopher B. (2018). Transitive Cultures: Anglophone Literature of the Transpacific. New Jersey: Rutgers University Press. pp.91–118. ISBN978-0-8135-9186-5.
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