Fly on the Wall<\/em>, who was born in Indonesia, grew up in Singapore, and now lives in Australia.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHanna Alkaf was the moderator, and she first asked about identity. She is Malay and Muslim, which puts her in the majority in Malaysia and gives her some privilege.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rin Chupeco is of Chinese descent but has lived in the Philippines all her life. She\u2019s liberal, pansexual and atheist, so she\u2019s always felt like an outsider. People are always telling her what she\u2019s supposed to be. She feels that books highlight that different people have very different experiences, even within the same culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail Villanueva is a brown Filipino and looks more typically Filipino. But there is colorism in the Philippines, and she told a story of being mistreated at a bank because they didn\u2019t think she\u2019d be able to afford the product she wanted.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Remy Lai has a complex identity from the many countries where she\u2019s lived. Her world speaks multiple languages, and her main character in her new book does the same, switching back to Mandarin to speak with family.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The panelists agreed that representation is lacking for Southeast Asians. People want one book to stand in for everyone. Then they reject stories that don\u2019t fit the mold.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gail pointed out that middle class folks in the Philippines are not that different from the U.S. She gets tired of people expecting island huts.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Rin said that people think she\u2019s writing English as a second language, but they speak English in the Philippines.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Hanna has experienced pushback for her very existence in the sphere of American publishing. There\u2019s a perception that she can\u2019t possibly be as good or as deserving.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
They all talked about wanting to write books that are just for fun, that have nothing to do with their culture \u2014 about a duck, for example! \u2014 and that aren\u2019t expected to teach American readers anything, but just be a fun experience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Southeast Asia is not a monolith. We don\u2019t give that same pressure to educate to American authors. They don\u2019t want pressure to always have to be a window.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
In conclusion they asked us to:
Keep an open mind.
Trust us about our own experiences.
Treat us as one of you.
Give us a chance! Let us stand toe-to-toe with American authors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Today I caught an On-demand virtual program and watched Stories from Beyond U.S. Borders: The Young Reader\u2019s Window to the World. The four panelists were children\u2019s and YA authors who all live in Southeast Asia. The speakers were:Hanna Alkaf, author of The Weight of Our Sky and the upcoming The Girl and the Ghost, who lives in MalaysiaRin Chupeco, author of several book including the recent Wicked As You Wish, who lives in the PhilippinesGail Villanueva, author of My Fate According to the Butterfly and the upcoming A Potful of Magic, who also lives in the PhilippinesRemy Lai, author of Pie in the Sky and the upcoming Fly on the Wall, who was born in Indonesia, grew up in Singapore, and now lives in Australia. Hanna Alkaf was the moderator, and she first asked about identity. She is Malay and Muslim, which puts her in the majority in Malaysia and…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":276,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":"","_members_access_role":[],"_members_access_error":""},"categories":[2020,134,151],"tags":[2021,2023],"class_list":["post-23528","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ala-virtual-conference-2020","category-guest-blogger","category-live-blogging","tag-alavirtual","tag-alavirtual20"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/276"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.alsc.ala.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}