We landed in February, 1899, and Tondo was burning.

One more stunning line in Affairs in the Philippine Islands 1902.

click on the above to get to the page in Affairs in the Philippine Islands

Q. What is your occupation? A. Piano tuner

The denouement of this harrowing and winding and candid confession of William Gibbs, a regular of the 9th U.S. Infantry’s Company C, survivor of the events of Balangiga, ends with this quite affecting final line. In the end, he was only a piano tuner who found himself at war.

Affairs in the Philippine Islands 1902

Research for the Balangiga incident brings me to these intriguing pages in the U.S. congressional record. The witness in this section, a Sergeant Gibbs, comes up with inconsistencies and biases and odd moments of colonial clarity in his responses: there is nothing in the Balangiga research, as usual, that gives me only one way to read this story. I still cannot say for sure why this detachment of Americans even came to Balangiga.

click on the page for the link to the Google Book

Manila Noir is coming out in June 2013—catalog’s out!

Excerpts from The Unintended are in Jessica Hagedorn’s Manila Noir

“Revolution Amnesia”: Public Books reviews Gun Dealers’ Daughter

Read the review by Paul Nadal here or click on image below.

asianjournal advertised the PAWA Philippine Consulate in San Francisco reading

An Asian American journal on Gun Dealers’ Daughter event here.

gmanetwork mentions Gun Dealers’ Daughter

A rare comment from the Philippines on my work, see here.