21st Century Literature

from Philippines and the

World
 TABLE OF
CONTENTS

01 02 03 04

REVIEW - OBJECTIVES DISCUSSION ACTIVITIES

QUIZ
REVIE
W-
QUIZ
 OBJECTIVES
A B C

elaborate the
discuss what are common issues explain how these
the literature from literatures have
that their helped to cultivate
the North literatures had culture in North
America; focused on; America
North America
Literature from
North America
LESSON 8
HISTORY OF NORTH AMERICA
For more than a century, America
was merely a group of colonies
scattered along the eastern seaboard
of the North American continent
where a few mission-strapped souls
ventured westward. After a
successful rebellion against the
motherland, America became the
United States, a nation.
THE FOLLOWING LITERATURE TACKLES
CERTAIN ISSUES
It is Important to be something by
01
Joshua Jennifer Espinosa

02 Twin Study by Stacy Ritcher

03 The Bully by Roger Dean Kiser

04 Mango Poem by Regie Cabico

It is Important to be
Something -
Joshua Jennifer
This is like a life. This is lifelike.
I climb inside a mistake
and remake myself in the
shape
of a better mistake—
a nice pair of glasses
without any lenses,
shoes that don’t quite fit,
? a chest that always hurts.
There is a checklist of things
you need to do to be a person.
I don’t want to be a person
but there isn’t a choice,
so I work my way down and
kiss the feet.
.
I work my way up and lick
the knee.
I give you my skull
to do with whatever you please.
You grow flowers from my head
and trim them too short.
I paint my nails nice and pretty
and who cares. Who gives a shit.
I’m trying not to give a shit
but it doesn’t fit well on me.
I wear my clothes. I wear my
body.
I walk out in the grass and turn
red
at the sight of everything.
Are you allowed to
be yourself all the Identity
time?
 Analysis
• Her lines often own a dreamy or surreal
quality.
• In other words, her trauma and her position in
this world as a trans woman mean she’s often
floating between extreme dissociation and
? intense jolts of the harshness of reality. She
wrote from this place without spending too
much time thinking about it, because it is too
painful. Instead, she let it flow out of me as
kind of release.
 Joshua Jennifer Espinoza is a trans
woman poet living in California. Her
work has been featured in The
Offing, PEN America, The
Feminist Wire, and elsewhere. She
is the author of I’m Alive, It
? Hurts, and I Love It (Boost House,
2014) and THERE SHOULD BE
FLOWERS (Civil Coping
Mechanisms, 2016).
What makes
you
different?
Twin Study -
Stacy Ritcher
 “Twin Study” gets off to a quirky
start. Identical twin sisters meet
every four years to be a part of a
study that was started when they
were twelve. The goal of one twin
is to be as different from her
? sister as possible.

Differences
 Stacey Richter is the author of the
short story collections My Date
with Satan and Twin Study. She
has received many prestigious and
fancy literary awards, including a
Pushcart Prize for the story “The
? Land of Pain,” first published in
Issue 56 of Willow Springs.
Bullying
The Bully –
Roger Dean
Kiser
What have
you realized
on the
video?
 Roger Dean Kiser was born in
Hayward, California. By the time
he reached four years of age, he
had been abandoned not only by his
parents, but his grandparents as
well. His life, from the age of
? three to 14, would play out in a
Jacksonville, Florida orphanage.
Heart-shaped,
golden-colored;
fragrant to smell,
delicious to eat
 Did you know?
Mango is the national fruit of not one
but three countries
The mango is the national fruit of
Pakistan, India and the Philippines. It
is also the national tree of
Bangladesh.
Mango Poem –
Regie Cabico
 Regie Cabico is a Filipino American
poet and spoken word artist. He
has been featured on two seasons
of Def Poetry Jam on HBO and has
been called the Lady Gaga of
spoken word. He is an "out and
? proud" gay man.
 “Mango Poem” by Regie
Cabico, was inspired
by documents within
the National
What can you say Archives related to
about the poem? the Philippine-
American War
(1899–1902).
After the United States defeated Spain in
the 1898 Spanish-American War, Spain
ceded the colony of the Philippines to
the U.S. in the Treaty of Paris.
• The mango embodies the struggles that
her and her mother went through day by
day living in the Philippines. When they
are trying to protect the mango from
getting taken, it symbolizes her holding
on tight to her Filipino roots and not
letting her new home take her culture
away from her. American
Dream
 RECALL!

It is Important to be something by
IDENTITY Joshua Jennifer Espinosa

DIFFERENCES Twin Study by Stacy Ritcher

BULLYING
AMERICAN The Bully by Roger Dean Kiser

DREAM Mango Poem by Regie Cabico

Aralinks Activities

will be posted
Aralinks
Aralinks on
 Thank you and
Goodbye!
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