THE THIRDEST WORLD: STORIES AND ESSAYS BY THREE FILIPINO WRITERS
By GINA APOSTOL, ERIC GAMALINDA, and LARA STAPLETON

Factory School, 2007
ISBN: 9781600019876
146 pages; Paperback
GENRE(S): Fiction, Nonfiction, Short Stories, Essays, Cultural Studies

Reviewed by Michael Ward

The Thirdest World is a collection of short fiction, novel excerpts, and essays by two writers of Filipino ancestry—Gina Apostol and Eric Gamalinda—and one of Filipino-American ancestry, Lara Stapleton. Although the writers' varied backgrounds and cultural influences differ, the works within this short collection are cohesive and center upon the issues of race and Filipino-ness.

Having been occupied and oftentimes devastated by Spain, America, and Japan, Filipino culture and Filipino national identity might seem quite fractured to the outside observer, because it is difficult to separate what is purely Filipino from what is of foreign origin. Whereas East Asian nations such as Korea and Japan often center their national identity on language, the Philippines has 13 official languages and 180 unofficial ones. To add to this smorgasbord, English is considered to be the lingua franca of the nation, as it is the language of the nation whose cultural monolith shadows that of native Filipino culture.

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It is the struggle to break through the shadow and to cement Filipino culture, or at least to make readers aware of said struggles, that makes The Thirdest World an important collection. The issues of race and Filipino-ness are tied in with other issues such as history and how history is told, adoptive children, and class and social differences. Gina Apostol's short story "Cunanan's Wake" centers on the perception of the 1997 murder of Gianni Versace by the half Filipino Andrew Cunanan. Reviled abroad for murdering the famous fashion designer, Cunanan is designated a cultural hero in a small town in the Philippines because he is an example of the Philippines striking out against not only its cultural oppressor America, but against other countries such as Italy and France—countries in which Filipinos live behind the screens as servants and cooks.

Although it is never directly stated in the story, the otherness of being Filipino is the theme of Eric Gamalinda's short story "People Are Strange (When You're a Stranger)," which follows the life of a man named Eric, who has the ability to change his skin color at will. Eric's ability fascinates scientists not only because of its oddness but because they are not able to compartmentalize Eric. He does not fall into a category such as black, white, or yellow, and therefore disturbs the public at large. As with many things that cannot be compartmentalized or simulated, those in power and those seeking conformity and homogeneity seek to destroy Eric.

Lara Stapleton takes the reverse angle of Gamalinda's in her story "Until It Comes to You," in which the protagonist is a Filipino-American girl who goes to the Philippines after breaking up with her boyfriend. Although her looks mark her as Filipino, her inability to speak a Filipino language marks her as an outsider; therefore, she is unable to find her niche in America or the Philippines.

Each author also contributes an essay explaining the stories contained in the novel. For the most part, each essay concerns itself with race and how the issue of race influences each author's works. These essays are useful in explaining the writers' perceptions of their own works, but the essays might also hinder the reading experience of those unfamiliar with Filipino or Filipino-American writing because they nearly tell the reader how the stories and excerpts should be read rather than allow the reader to make his or her own judgments.

Style-wise, each writer brings something unique to the table. The excerpt from Apostol's experimental novel, The Revolution According to Raymundo Mata, is an interesting work because it uses footnotes to challenge the authority of national history. Within the footnotes of Raymundo Mata's diary, the editor and the translator continuously bicker and give alternate readings of the book, thereby giving the reader three different viewpoints of the same event and revealing the questionable nature of the written word. Gamalinda's use of fantasy and Stapleton's more traditional literary style flesh out the thin collection, making The Thirdest World an interesting book on race, culture, and perspective.

(January, 2008)