Writing Lesbian: Pushing Against Boundaries Through Nonfiction in the Philippines VOLUME 1: Dissertation
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Writing Lesbian: Pushing Against Boundaries Through Nonfiction in the Philippines VOLUME 1: Dissertation A project submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctorate of Philosophy Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, 2001, De La Salle University-Manila Master of Arts in Language and Literature, 1995, De La Salle University-Manila Bachelor of Arts in Literature 1990, De La Salle University-Manila School of Media and Communication College of Design and Social Context RMIT University May 2020 i Declaration I certify that except where due acknowledgement has been made, the work is that of the author alone; the work has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, to qualify for any other academic award; the content of the project is the result of work which has been carried out since the official commencement date of the approved research program; any editorial work, paid or unpaid, carried out by a third party is acknowledged; and, ethics procedures and guidelines have been followed. Jhoanna Lynn B. Cruz 4 May 2020 ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS First of all, I am gladly indebted to the University of the Philippines for the doctoral studies grant that has allowed me to complete this PhD. Special thanks to the faculty of the Department of Humanities in the University of the Philippines Mindanao, for accepting the burden of my four-year study leave. Lifelong gratitude to my supervisors Associate Prof. Francesca Rendle-Short and Dr Michelle Aung Thin for their guidance and encouragement all throughout the program and the process. I had known and loved Francesca as a friend since meeting her in Bangkok at a literary conference in 2012, and it was a distinct pleasure to come under her thoughtful supervision in this program. I would not have continued in the program after the first year if not for her compassion and guidance. Michelle started out as a daunting taskmaster who later became an empathetic one, and generously shared her personal best practices while undertaking her PhD. I am so grateful for her eagle eye and heart. I have been truly blessed with their brilliant minds and kind attention. My appreciation also goes to the other faculty mentors in the program, Associate Prof. Jessica Wilkinson and Prof. David Carlin, for their insight and support. It was also helpful to hear the input of our guest critics, Dr Adam Nash, Prof. Laurene Vaughan, Prof. Bonnie Sunstein, and poet Nha Thuyen, but I would like to especially thank Dr Peta Murray and Dr Ronnie Scott for helping shape my thinking around queer identity and writing practice. Thank you to my PhD cohort, Alvin Pang and Laurel Fantauzzo for the constant encouragement and our shared journey in the program. I also acknowledge the support and inspiration provided by the other students in the PRS Asia program: Sandra Roldan, iii Joshua Ip, Marc Nair, Pooja Nansi, Terry Lam, and Khoa Trong Nguyen. Khoa, especially, for his empathy and friendship. Much admiration and gratitude as well to my examiners, Prof. Nicole Walker of the University of Northern Arizona and Dr Nike Sulway of the University of Southern Queensland, for their compassionate and incisive evaluation of my work on this PhD. I am particularly grateful for the guidance they have provided on possible paths for me to take in my future research. I acknowledge the proofreading that Jack Newbound did on this archival version. I also want to acknowledge the editors of the journals and anthologies in which some of my creative works were previously published. Special thanks to the editor-in- chief of Mindanao Times, Amalia Cabusao, for giving my political writing a home for two years and allowing me to express my dissent against the despotic Duterte regime, as well as to explore creative ways to do it. I hope to be able to write for the local daily again in safer times. Thank you to the members of the Facebook group ‘The Reading Room’ for the camaraderie and their personal insights each time I posted a shout-out about lesbian identity. I also thank the contributors to Tingle Anthology of Pinay Lesbian Writing, forthcoming from Anvil Publishing, Inc., for trusting me with their works. Let’s go, lesbians! Love and gratitude to my dear friend, the komiks artist known as Emiliana Kampilan for her illustrations of the Tarot cards in the piece, ‘Buying the House on Macopa St.’ And for putting form to my concept of a shape-shifting non-linear essay, ‘Doors.’ iv Thank you to the University of the Philippines Press for giving a home to my memoir, Abi Nako, Or So I Thought. I acknowledge Mags Z. Maglana for the many gifts of our former relationship, which formed part of the narrative of this memoir. Irrevocable love to my children, Veda Sachi and Raz Hiraya, for their unwavering faith in me. Finally, I thank my partner Camille Sevilla for renewing my faith in love and myself, and for testing it every day in the laboratory of our long-distance relationship. Like in the essay as a genre, there is only try. v TABLE OF CONTENTS VOLUME 1: DISSERTATION page Abstract …………………………………………………………………. 1 Chapter 1: Introduction ………………………………………………… 2 1.1 ‘Girl, Boy, Bakla, Tomboy’ …………………………………………... 8 1.2 The Practice of Gender Passing in the Philippines …………………… 12 1.3 The In/Visibility of the Philippine Lesbian Writer …………………… 23 1.4 Lesbian Writing in the Philippines: A Provisional Survey …………… 32 Chapter 2: Contexts 2.1 Passing Through the Gates of the Philippine Literary System ………. 44 2.2 Women Writing in the Philippines ………………………………….. 58 2.3 Coming into Nonfiction …………………………………………….. 65 Chapter 3: Pagka- Becoming …………………………………………... 72 3.1 Pagka-Babae: Woman-Becoming……………………………………. 74 3.2 Pagka-Lesbiana: Lesbian-Becoming ………………………………... 77 3.3 Pagka-Essay: A Pitch for Essay-Becoming …………………………. 80 a. Opinion Column-Becoming …………………………………… 95 b. Memoir-Becoming ……………………………………………. 101 c. Playing Dress-up in Essay-Becoming ………………………… 115 Chapter 4: Lesbian-Essaying: In(ter)ventions ………………………. 126 4.1 Marilyn Farwell and Disruption in Lesbian Narrative Space ………. 128 4.2 Nicole Brossard and her Picture Theory of Lesbian Writing ………. 140 4.3 Non-linguistic Tools for Lesbian-Essaying: a. Graphesis ……………………………………………………. 145 b. Erasure ………………………………………………………. 147 c. Collage ………………………………………………………. 148 d. Non-linear prose …………………………………………….. 151 Conclusion …………………………………………………………….. 154 Works Cited …………………………………………………………… 156 vi VOLUME 2: CREATIVE WORKS page Part 1: Memoir: Abi Nako. Or So I Thought …………………... 1 Part 2: Opinion Column: Lugar Lang …………………………. 171 Part 3: Origami Zine: Doors ……………………………………. 236 vii LIST OF FIGURES: page Figure 1: Colour-coded Index Cards System ………………………… 6 Figure 2 Sample Documentation in Index Cards …………………… 7 Figure 3: Field Notes Sample ……………………………………….. 24 Figure 4: Butch Boho ……………………………………………….. 27 Figure 5: Pretty Boho ……………………………………………….. 28 Figure 6: Creative Writing Journey Map …………………………… 49 Figure 7: Draft of Doors ………………………………………………… 152 viii ABSTRACT This dissertation examines how being a lesbian writer in the Philippines is a constant struggle to assert one’s presence when faced with the various levels of invisibility and oppression ingrained into our language and culture. I challenge this invisibility through my creative and critical work by discussing the concept of ‘passing’ as it relates to gender and sexual orientation and showing how it can be transformed into a strategy that can lead to greater visibility as a lesbian writer. By reflecting on my past writing and my community of practice, I provide context for examining my present creative practice, specifically in the writing of a memoir, Abi Nako. Or So I Thought, a newspaper opinion column, Lugar Lang, and an origami zine, Doors. Through this practice-led research I have found that a Philippine lesbian writer can use gaps in the way Filipinos language the world, for instance in the notion of ‘pagka-’, as a potential space for becoming in a lesbian text. In order to explore this space for becoming, I employ the theoretical ideas of Marilyn Farwell and Nicole Brossard, specifically on the disruptive and radical lesbian space in writing, which provide linguistic and non-linguistic tools that can be used by lesbian writers as in(ter)ventions in writing nonfiction specifically as markers of lesbian subjectivity and textuality. KEYWORDS: Lesbian, passing, gender, language, nonfiction, Philippines 1 Chapter 1: Introduction At the beginning of this offshore practice-based PhD program that RMIT University calls Practice Research Symposium (PRS) in September 2016, I reflected on my writing journey of the previous twenty years in order to provide context for what later became my creative practice research concern: how my subjectivity as a lesbian in the Philippines shapes my writing of nonfiction. My creative intent was focused on writing a memoir about my move to Davao City in the major island group Mindanao, about 1,500 kilometres south of the capital Metro Manila, and how this move contributed to my growth as a woman and as a writer. I was concerned with making a new home for myself in Davao both literally and through my writing. I initially thought my practice was about place. Place not only as setting, where something ‘takes place’, but also ‘taking my place’ in it by showing how my writing helps shape this place I now call home. As a secondary creative project, I also started writing an opinion column in a local daily, which I hoped would directly demonstrate my role as a writer in my adoptive community. But through the various iterations of the research, my critical intent evolved to focus more on how my sexual identity played out in what and how I wrote. At the start of the PhD program I was in a liminal stage. Neither here nor there, but sitting on a ‘limen’, a threshold to which I was being invited, and asking myself to decide whether I was going to stay where it was safe—doing what I knew how to do and coasting along without fanfare—or leave it for what I did not know.