Filipino American novelist, playwright, poet and screenwriter
Jessica Hagedorn has been a key figure in Asian American literature
since the release of her 1990 debut “Dogeaters.” The
piece garnered wide acclaim and a National Book Award nomination
upon its release. Like “Dogeaters,” her latest work,
“Dream Jungle,” takes advantage of a historical time
period to tell an imaginative story.
Hagedorn, who will appear in Royce 362 tomorrow at 7 p.m. to
speak about “Dream Jungle,” was particularly intrigued
by American colonialism in the Philippines during the 1970s as she
created her latest work. Amid a new crop of second-generation Asian
American writers like Mian Mian and Sandra Tsing Loh, who skirt
history for a defiantly current take on the Asian American
experience, Hagedorn’s inspirations are an anomaly when
juxtaposed with current trends.
“Certainly, as people get more assimilated, they may feel
they have to grapple with issues that are right in their
faces,” Hagedorn said. “But what does that even mean?
The past is also in the present. I think it’s ridiculous to
think that you’re done with it.”
Hagedorn came to America from Manila when she was 13 years old.
She arrived in San Francisco in 1963 and became immersed into the
arts scene. Hagedorn’s experience there and in New York gave
her first-hand exposure to thriving artistic environments in
America. But she remained deeply connected to her place of origin.
Though Hagedorn specifically traveled to the Philippines to do
research for her latest novel, much of the imagery in “Dream
Jungle” is colored by her trips to the country and her own
experiences there as a child.
The novel contains several narrative threads, one inspired by
the the alleged discovery of an ancient “lost tribe” in
a remote rain forest and another inspired by the filming of
“Apocalypse Now.” Both are spurred on by historical
events, though Hagedorn found that groundwork conducive to her
creative whims.
“I think because I chose to write (“Dream
Jungle”) as fiction, it was liberating. I knew that I had the
groundwork of the history, but really history is a lot of
speculation,” she said.
This idea also spurs one of the novel’s main thematic
elements. Hagedorn says that her allusion to “Apocalypse
Now” resulted from her attraction to the idea of Vietnam
being recreated in the Philippines. Such ideas bring notions of
authenticity and myth-making into the fore, revealing the
complexities of the Filipino identity during changing times.
Though Hagedorn’s work is partly reliant on a historical
Filipino perspective, she still connects with Asian American
audiences.
“One of the interesting things about her work is that she
goes to the country she was born in and brings the Filipino
American perspective back to the issues that are happening in the
Philippines,” said Irene Soriano, Special Events Coordinator
for the UCLA Center for Southeast Asian Studies, the group that
helped organize Hagedorn’s upcoming appearance. “There
are all these stories that I heard outside her novels, and
it’s interesting to see her illustrate it in her own words
and to see it on paper, where anyone can read about it.”
Hagedorn recently just finished editing a second volume of
“Charlie Chan is Dead,” which collects works from
well-known and also obscure Asian American writers. The latest
edition , scheduled for release in February, features work from
Jhumpa Lahiri, Chang-Rae Lee and UCLA creative writing Professor
David Wong Louie.
An artist whose past has exposed her to the first Asian American
writers as well as the so-called second-generation artists,
Hagedorn is careful to avoid paying too much attention to the
trends. After all, as she points out, trends are just passing
things. It’s best to take a look at the bigger picture.
“I think there’s a real (creative) boom happening,
and it’s national,” she said. “There are a lot of
Vietnamese American writers, for example, from the South ““
you can’t just say, “˜Oh it’s only happening in
the Bay Area or New York.’ No, it’s all over the place,
and it’s wonderful to see this happening. The communities are
more diverse now, and there are constant influxes from different
parts of Asia. The notion of being Asian American is having to be
flexible.”