![]() “My Asian identity has grown significantly,” he said.īertumen, 17 years younger than her brother, grew up in Salt Lake City and went to Catholic school. At his 20th class reunion, he hung out with the Filipinos, rather than his popular white friends. In high school, though, he disassociated himself from his heritage, even ignoring asister in the school hallways. Reyes grew up in a Filipino neighborhood in Los Angeles. “We’re a humble people, we don’t want to stick out,” said Reyes. Expatriates send money home and have found success in the medical profession and software and computer fields. Filipino-Americans are the second largest Asian group in the United States (after Chinese). People are one of the Philippines’ greatest exports. to sync up with American time zones.Īt the same time, there is entrenched poverty and a government that is elected more on popularity, money and advertising. Reyes said that on a trip back home (he was born there) he was amazed that large numbers of middle-class workers celebrated happy hour in the morning because they work shifts that begin at 9 p.m. The large number of English speakers has created a call-center boom in metropolitan Manila and Quezon City. ![]() We sing, drink, eat, get outside on the beaches because we’re an island.”Īctually, 7,000 islands, with more than 92 million people - most of whom speak English (the second official language along with Tagalog). “We’re like the Jamaica of the Asian world. “Spain brought Catholicism and America brought democracy to a place that I don’t think should have either,” said Reyes. When the United States steamed into Manila in 1898, Americans took control of the seventh-most-populous nation in Asia. Distinct from other Asian countries, the Philippines (named for Spanish King Philip II) was converted to Catholicism. For more than three centuries, legions from Spain occupied the island nation and intermarried with the local population. “The Pearl of the Orient Sea,” as it has been known poetically, is largely defined by its Spanish colonial past. The Philippines occupy a specific role in the East Asian landscape. She died in 2007, so this is Sumangil’s eulogy for her. Sumangil wrote the play as an homage to the Filipino generation that told him when he was young, “You’ll appreciate this when you get older.” His godmother, a character in the play, was the first chair of the ball in 1978 and continued to organize and choreograph the dance through the late 1990s. His sister, Stephanie Bertumen, plays the central character of Ana, who struggles to find the balance between assimilating into white Minnesota culture and retaining her traditions. ![]() Reyes is artistic director of Mu Performing Arts and a fellow Filipino-American. Randy Reyes directs Sumangil’s play, “The Debutante’s Ball,” which opens Saturday at History Theatre in St. Jeric Basilio and Stephanie Bertumen rehearsed “The Debutante’s Ball.”
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