M.Evelina Galang Silenced Stories

by | May 23, 2016 | Wordsmiths

 

In Angel De La Luna Evelina Galang weaves a narrative of an untold story about a 14 year old Filipino girl. Galang wrote this story because “I want them to see that for Angel, she is finding her voice and learning that her voice matters.  We don’t have to stay silent, we can make our thoughts known and in this way we can help create change, we can, as the great master Ghandi says, Be the change.”

Evelina Galang is an author, educator, and speaker. She wrote her young adult story Angel De La Luna and the 5th Glorious Mystery. She writes to “recognize the voices of the girls and women who have been traditionally silenced.” In Angel De La Luna, Angel is grieving for her father, and is working through her relationship with her mother. She is also discovering the history of her Filipino people, the colonization of the Spanish conquistadors, and discovering the meaning of the American dream. This story ties in profound messages for the reader to discover Angel’s personal story as well as Angel’s community.
Being silenced is a strong theme in Angel De La Luna. Galang wrote, “So I bang on the drums and the silences between them grow. First the silence comes from their bedroom. Then silence appears at the dinner table. And then in the car. Silence invades the house and quiets everything. The words have left the house. The voices go low.” Galang wrote Angel so more voices that have been silenced to be heard. She wants issues of love, hate, history, and justice to be heard.

Galang stated that, this particular story is about Angel and the relationship between her and her mother, and the silences between them. Mothers and daughters have a famous love-hate relationship going on until they work it out. You will find stories of people who were of Filipino ancestry, and about people who were born in the Philippines. But you did not get that story of the Filipino youth growing up here or the Filipino youth that were born in the United States. So stories of Filipinos youth growing up in the U.S. were missing, and those were the stories that I was looking for as a young reader.

It was important for Evelina to write these stories about the young woman so that stories from the present were represented and stories from the past were represented. One story that was important for Galang to share was the relationship between Angel and her mother. “When I began to write about Angel, I knew the beginning and I knew the end. I wanted to write about what it would take to get Angel and her mom back together again. She was really angry with her mom throughout the story. So that is one kind of silence I wanted to explore.”

“Another silence I wanted to explore were the female characters in the book. Such as I wrote stories about the comfort women. I did a lot of research, and I met women several women from WWII who were comfort women. They were silent for at least 50 years, and they never had a chance to tell their story. These women were exposed to being in slave camps when they were 14 years old or Angel’s age. For 50 years these women didn’t tell their stories because they were afraid of being ostracized from their families. So when those stories started to break, I was really committed to helping the women tell their stories, in an effort, for it to never happen again. That’s another aspect of stories of women who have been silenced.”

I come from a big family of storytellers and readers. I write stories that aren’t heard. People of color have been positioned to not be heard, to be raised up with a wall, and to be invisible. So I love language, I love stories.  It’s what I love to do, that’s why I write so stories of silenced women and so people of color can be heard.

The American Dream

The American Dream is taught to children all across the world. For some this dream is attainable and for others, it is not. For many immigrants the American Dream is just a dream and impossible to obtain. For Angel she has no desire to obtain the American Dream. She wants to fight for her people. The reason for Angel fighting for her own culture was because the story takes place in 2000 and 2002. “After the Spanish and the U.S. came and occupied the Philippines, the formal education in the Philippines was in English. So there you are, you can’t get to speak your native tongue, because it had to be in English. The girls in Angel were going to a progressive school where they were encouraged to speak Togalo, which is the national language. So Angel has this advantage that she is polygloattan. She can preserve her own culture and will not worry about speaking just American English.”

“This story is really about how Angel the personal choices that Angel’s mother made for her children. It’s important to recognize in this story that love motivates us to do things for one another and it’s not always apparent.  But once you hear one another’s stories, you start to see how strong love is, can be, can work in favor of family.  So maybe the message has to do with hearing one another, listening, and knowing our stories.  Once you know your family’s story, you can see how the choices are made out of love.”

Please click here to learn more about Evelina Galang

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Lacey T. and Meherrin Uncovering a Youth’s Death

Lacey T. and Meherrin Uncovering a Youth’s Death

by | Mar 5, 2016 | Wordsmiths

51wiPxjrBfL._SX331_BO1204203200_

Lacey T The Murder Mystery of Jason Blackwell

Meherrin (muh-hair-ren), a tenacious and fashionable teen has her life disrupted with violence. Community members who lost their lives in the Trenches were assumed to be “at the wrong place at the wrong time.” However, Meherrin could not accept this assumption as the fate of Jason Blackwell or any other lost teens. Author Lacey T. brings in concepts about history from long ago and history that affects our society today. This book was written for teens so they can seek out truths that affect their lives dearly. “If we only knew how innately strong, smart and beautiful we really were, we’d risk our freedom every second to preserve our lives as well as those around us!” explained author Lacey T. Meherrin uncovered the truth behind Jason’s death, and was determined and resilient.

Meherrin and the Murder Mystery of Jason Blackwell

Lacey believes that all youth have the ability to change their community, because teens are discovering who they are and can adapt more readily in their lives. Lacey T’s first year as an English teacher was in southern California. There she saw teens raising money for a friend’s funeral. She listened to their stories, and uncovered their experiences and real world experiences in her book. “For me, it was a culture shock. When I started teaching in LA, students were going from classroom to classroom looking for funds to bury  their deceased friends. In school, there were riots and fights between people living in certain hoods, and certain cliques. As a teacher, it was pretty disappointing and a lot of this stemmed from a problem with the adults and the community itself. It borderlined a battle zone where someone would end up mourning and grieving. The youth had their way of expressing grief but very rarely in the healthiest of ways. The community itself felt powerless and did not know their own power. The tone of powerlessness took violent turns “I will shoot up their hood, “or vice versa. You can turn a blind eye to the community, but mostly I would say the powerlessness or the economic powerlessness to get out of the community was crippling. The community suffered a lack of beneficial projects for kids, leaders and healthy functioning family units,”

Homicide is one of the top three leading causes of death in teens. The kids who are surviving those traumatic events do not gain the proper counseling nor learn the best coping skills to deal with these traumatic events. Meherrin and the Murder Mystery of Jason Blackwell brings the voices of those young people to light in order to inspire readers to think about what happens in their own community.

Lacey T writes to give a voice to the youth. When she became a teacher, not only did the violence affect her, but the number of books that her students could relate to was a concern of hers. She recognized that her students lacked reading and vocabulary skills to achieve at their current grade level. She also recognized that there were not enough stories that reflected the community that her students lived in. ”I write for youth to see themselves in literature and to make them think about the surrounding around them. My writing also challenges their vocabulary. I noticed that a lot of my students, particularly minority students, were not reading up to their grade level and lacked an interest in reading. As an English teacher, it was frustrating to me that my students were not interested in reading. So I wanted to insert myself into the independent market, and to hook them into and interesting drama, but to challenge them with the plot, language, and characters.

Lacey is looking to work with more libraries and schools so she can help minority students and all children face the challenges in their community. She is currently working on her second book, and her readers keep asking her when the next one is coming. Teachers and children who have read it are finding an interest in her book. She said that parents noticed that their children are more engaged to read her book when they were not as engaged to read other books. Books that inspired her as an author include Toni Morrison’s The Bluest Eye, George Orwell’s Animal Farm and Zora Neale Hurston’s Their Eyes Were Watching God to name a few.

You can find more information about Lacey T at https://meherrinmysteryseries.com/ in addition to the Meherrin and the Murder Mystery of Jason Blackwell custom curriculum, vocabulary activity guide and audiobook.