Literary Nonfiction. California Interest. Asian & Asian American Studies. Women's Studies. "Every word of WE ARE NO LONGER BABAYLAN brilliantly hooks with and hinges on magic, and the magic of possibility. Valmidiano frames the ancient, persistent pain that hammers and chisels Filipina American knowledge with ritual and unrest. She articulates screams and silences, exalting that in order to engage with the Filipina, female, and storied being is to see her in all of her palimpsests. Her prose about the mysteries of waiting, family in manifold forms, and Pinay friendship, features a heartfelt, phenomenal voice declaring, time and time again, women's bodies--of writing, of work, of ceremony--theirs to narrate and protect."--Janice Lobo Sapigao "When a powerful witch promises revenge before being fed to crocodiles and then, hundreds of years into the future, over decades of colonization and occupation, whispers into the ear of a rebellious girl, the ear of her descendant, a book like WE ARE NO LONGER BABAYLAN is born. Elsa Valmidiano uses language like a bolo cutting through hectares of land overgrown with amnesia and myopia. With this collection of critical and graceful stories, we readers are able to see again with such clarity and light. So much light that the shadows lengthen and then retreat again, a continuous ebb and flow of politicized, personal revelation and cultural examination. Many who read this book--from those of generations who remember demons intimately to the younger generations only now recalling their names--will see a kind of summoning of the Babaylan we 'used to be,' an invitation for her to once again stand by our side."--Trinidad Escobar

Babaylan Sing Back depicts the embodied voices of Native Philippine ritual specialists popularly known as babaylan. These ritual specialists are widely believed to have perished during colonial times, or to survive on the margins in the present-day. They are either persecuted as witches and purveyors of superstition, or valorized as symbols of gender equality and anticolonial resistance. Drawing on fieldwork in the Philippines and in the Philippine diaspora, Grace Nono's deep engagement with the song and speech of a number of living ritual specialists demonstrates Native historical agency in the 500th year anniversary of the contact between the people of the Philippine Islands and the European colonizers.

Fiction. Asian American Studies. As the first international anthology of Filipina writers published in the United States, BABAYLAN reflects the complex history of a people whose roots have stretched to both sides of the globe. The voices represented in this collection offer a broad and varied perspective on the Filipina writer whose diasporic existence is a living, breathing bridge, not only between countries but also generations, as strong voices from the past fuel realities of the future. As a result, vibrant and original art, the trademark of Filipina writers perpetually emerges and evolves. With contributions from over 60 writers--both Filipina and Filipina American--BABAYLAN provides readers with a comprehensive view of a growing and vibrant transnational literary culture. Challenging. Innovative. Fierce and reflective. Somber and funny. No one word can capture the extraordinary range of this collection.

Babaylan Sing Back depicts the embodied voices of Native Philippine ritual specialists popularly known as babaylan. These ritual specialists are widely believed to have perished during colonial times, or to survive on the margins in the present-day. They are either persecuted as witches and purveyors of superstition, or valorized as symbols of gender equality and anticolonial resistance. Drawing on fieldwork in the Philippines and in the Philippine diaspora, Grace Nono's deep engagement with the song and speech of a number of living ritual specialists demonstrates Native historical agency in the 500th year anniversary of the contact between the people of the Philippine Islands and the European colonizers.