The Happiest Boy

in the World
by
Nestor Vicente Madali
Gonzales
NVM Gonzales
 About the Author

N.V.M Gonzalez, an important icon among the Filipino literary

community, feels like a fitting way to wrap up Filipino American
History Month.

Born in the Philippines in 1915 in the province of Oriental

Mindoro, Gonzalez expressed passion for music at a young age.
He learned to play the violin and made his own guitars by hand.
For college, he attended National University at Manila,
Philippines, but did not finish his degree. During his time there,
he wrote for the Philippine Graphic and later edited for both
Evening News Magazine and Manila Chronicle.
 About the Author

Gonzalez published his first essay in the Philippine Graphic

and his first poem was published in 1934. These early
publications started Gonzalez’s literary career. He went on the
found The Diliman Review and worked as a member on the
Board of Advisers of Likhaan: the University of the Philippines
Creative Writing Center and president of the Philippine
Writers’ Association.
 About the Author

His lack of college degree didn’t stop him from pursuing

teaching, and he received teaching positions at multiple
universities in the Philippines, including the University of the
Philippines (U.P) and the Philippine Women’s University. In fact,
Gonzalez was one of only two faculty members at U.P. to teach
without holding a college degree. Since then, he’s taught at
numerous universities in California.
 About the Author

During his writing career, Gonzalez wrote five novels, eight

short fictions and multiple essays, with his work translated into
languages like English, Chinese, German, Russian, and
Indonesian. His first novel, The Winds of April, was published
in 1941 and won honorable mention for the Commonwealth
Literary Awards. Unfortunately, most of the copies were
destroyed when the Japanese occupied the Philippines during
the war. An article in LA Times explains that “soldiers…used
copies of the book as fuel for cooking and making tea.”
Recently, the University of the Philippines Press republished
copies of this lost book.
 About the Author

Gonzalez has received numerous awards including

the City of Manila Medal of Honor in 1971, the
Cultural Center of the Philippines award in 1990,
and the role of Regents professor at the
University of California at Los Angeles in 1988-
1989.
 About the Author
Gonzalez passed away in 1999 at the age of 84,
leaving behind his wife, four children, and five
grandchildren. In 2016, Gonzalez’s son, Dr. Michael
Gonzalez, led an N.V.M. Gonzalez Workshop in
Oriental Mindoro. This workshop was in honor of
the 2015 centenary of Gonzalez’s birth and was
held in the province of Gonzalez’s childhood. As an
article in The Philippine Star explains, this
workshop brought together writers, many Filipino-
Americans who visited for the workshop.
 About the Author
During the writers’ time together, “the mixed
composition of the group and the diversity of the
participants’ backgrounds led to some very
interesting discussions dealing with identity, race,
language, and representation.” This workshop, and
the redistribution of his destroyed novel, work as
ways to keep his memory alive and continue to share
the impact N.V.M. Gonzalez had for Filipino and
Filipino American literature.
The Happiest Boy in the World
by NVM Gonzales
 Julio , who had come from Tablas to settle
in Barok, was writing a letter, of all people,
Ka Ponso, his landlord, one warm June night.
It was about his son, Jose, who wanted to go
to school in Mansalay that year. Jose was in
fifth grade when Julio and his family had left
Tablas the year before and migrated to
Mindoro; because the father had some
difficulty in getting some land of his own to
farm, the boy had to stop schooling for a
year.
 As it was, Julio thought himself lucky
enough to have Ka Ponso take him on as
tetant. Later, when Julio's wife Fidela gave
birth to a baby, Ka Ponso, which happened to
be visiting his property then, offered to
become its godfather. After that they began
to call each other compadre.
 "Dear Compadre," Julio started to write in
Tagalog, bending earnestly over a piece of paper
which he had torn out of Jose's school notebook. It
was many months ago, when, just as now, he had
sat down with a writing implement in his hand.
That was when he had gone to the municipio in
Mansalay to file a homestead application, and he
had used a pen, and to his great surprise, filled in
the blank forms neatly. Nothing came of the
application, although Ka Ponso had assured him he
had looked into the matter and talked with the
officials concerned.
 Now, with a pencil instead of a pen to write
with, Julio was sure that he could make his
letter legible enough for Ka Ponso.
"It's about my boy, Jose." he wrote on.
"I want him to study this June in Mansalay.
He's in the sixth grade now, and since he's
quite a poor hand at looking after your
carabaos, I thought it would be best that he
go to school in the town."
 The kerosene lamp's yellow flame flickered
ceaselessly. The drank smell of food , fish
broth, particularly, that had been spilled
from many a bowl and had dried on the form,
now seemed to rise from the very texture of
the wood itself. The stark truth about their
poverty...
This boy, Jose, compadre," he went on,
"is quite an industrious lad. If you can
only let him stay in your big house,
compadre, you can make him do
anything you wish--any work. He can
cook rice, and I'm sure he'll wash the
dishes."
..."I hope you will not think of this as a great
bother," Julio continued, trying his best to phrase
his thoughts. he had a vague fear that Ka Ponso
might not favorably regard his letter. But he wrote
on, slowly and steadily, stopping only to read what
he had put down. "We shall repay you for whatever
you can do for us, compadre. It's true we already
owe you for many things, but your compadre and I
will do all we can indeed to repay you."
...Suddenly he began wondering hoe
Jose would move about in Ka Ponso's
household, being unaccustomed to
so many things there. The boy might
even stumble over a chair and break
some dishes...He feared for the boy.
 Julio felt he had nothing more to say, and that
he had written the longest letter in his life... He
sat back again and smiled to himself. About six
o'clock the following morning, a boy of twelve was
riding a carabao along the river-bed road to town.
He was very puny load on carabao's broad back.
Walking close behind the carabao, the father did
not cross the stream but only stood there by the
bank. "Mind to look after the letter," he called out
from where he was. "Do you have it there, in your
shirt pocket?"
 The boy fumbled for it. When he had found
it, he said, "No, Tatay, I won't lose it.“ Then
Julio started to walk back to his house,
thinking of the world that awaited him in his
clearing that day.
Jose grew suddenly curious about the letter
he carried in his shirt pocket. He stopped his
carabao under a shady tree by the roadside.
 A bird sang in a bush nearby. Jose could hear
it even as he read the letter, jumping from word to
word, for him the dialect was quite difficult. But as
the meaning of each sentence became clear to
him, he experienced a curious exultation. It was as
though he were the happiest boy in the world and
that the bird was singing for him. He heard the
rumbling of the stream faraway. There he and his
father had parted. The world seemed full of bird
song and music from the stream.
 Comprehension Questions:

1. What was Julio’s occupation?

2. Why did Julio not accompany his
son to town?
3. How did the son feel as he read
and understood his father’s letter to
his compadre?
4. What is the moral of the story?
Resources
Biography of the Author
https://english.colostate.edu/news/filipino-american-history-mo
nth-n-v-m-gonzalez/

English 7 Learner’s Material