Last night, a snowy one here in Minneapolis, the writer/performance artist Jessica Hagedorn gave a reading of her new novel, _Dream Jungle_, at the Loft.
The plot sounds exciting, and given Hagedorn's biting humor, we're in for a treat. The setting is the Philippines, in the 1970s. Two historical events circumscribe the text: the "discovery" (in the Columbian sense, only) of a tribe that, for possibly many good reasons, has not participated in globalization and modernity; and the filming of the epic film, _Apocalypse Now_.
Sightings: David Mura was in the audience and asked some interesting questions about Hagedorn being a Filipina American writer writing stories set almost entirely in the Philippines, which she does with this text and _Dogeaters_, her most famous work to date -- especially given Hagedorn's sarcasm, which is potentially read as ignorant of the gravity of the postcolonial Philippines.
In a way, though, her focus on the Philippines even as an immigrated and assimilated writer demonstrates how our attention as an American reading audience should focus on places like the Philippines where American colonialism really f*cked up.
Her effort intervenes into the current Bush II dialogue about how Iraq has the promise of becoming what the Philippines became after decades of American presence. This discourse succeeds in ignoring what really happened (and still happens), relying on how little Americans know.
Hagedorn teaches us a little about it.
One.