FilAm nominated for literary Pushcart Prize
SAN FRANCISCO, California, United States—Filipino American Tony Robles, revolutionary poet, nephew and son of many disaporas, was nominated at the esteemed Pushcart Prize for his short story, In My Country, published in Mythium magazine (http://www.mythiumlitmag.com/).
The Pushcart Prize winners are to be announced in May 2011.
Robles is a deeply rooted community story-teller and poet of the people who follows in the footsteps of his uncle, the late Manilatown poet and historian Al Robles. His short story was nominated by Mythium editor Crystal Wilkinson (www.crystalwilkinson.com) for the Pushcart Prize.
From being a tenant organizer for elders in poverty in the Tenderloin, Mission, and Manilatown districts of San Francisco to being the co-editor and contributor of one of the most revolutionary media organizations in the nation, Poor Magazine/Prensa Pobre, Tony has never compromised his values, his community, or the voices of his multi-racial family of Filipino- and African-descended resistance fighters based in the increasingly gentrified San Francisco Bay Area.
This dedication to community, ethics, and resistance began as a young child with the teaching he received from his family of brilliant, conscious artists, and organic revolutionaries who, like himself, supported their families with work in the janitorial or service industry. Throughout his life of work and in the last two years, Robles has worked as a security guard. Through his own lens this "revolutionary worker scholar," as is the title of his Poor Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork column, has penned a series of brilliant narrative essays and short stories about workers, workplace injustices, and people struggling with poverty, homelessness, and racism in the US.
“In My Country was inspired by poverty and migrant scholar Jose Sermeno of the Apollo hotel located in San Francisco's Mission District," Robles said as he described his connection to the protagonist. He went on to point out that Jose was a tenant representative and worked with other migrants in poverty like himself who were working as day laborers.
In addition to working as a tenant advocate and community journalist, Robles authored two bilingual (English and Tagalog) children's books, published on Children's Book Press: Lakas and the Manilatown Fish and Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel. As well, Tony is a teacher and playwright who authored a play, Hotel Voices, which he co-produced with his wife, Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, co-founder and co-editor of Poor Magazine.
Hotel Voices is an innovative theater production which took place in the Single Room Occupancy Hotels of San Francisco and included a 20 week script-writing and performance workshop and was performed to sold-out audiences across the Bay Area in 2009.
The phrase "In my country", according to Robles, means in my heart, and with his heart, the protagonist of the story, like himself, brings his country, his heart, and his humanity into the struggle for place, home, memory, and justice into the increasingly cold and bereft land where all of us poor workers, migrants, elders, and families struggle to dwell.
Robles is a deeply rooted community story-teller and poet of the people who follows in the footsteps of his uncle, the late Manilatown poet and historian Al Robles. His short story was nominated by Mythium editor Crystal Wilkinson (www.crystalwilkinson.com) for the Pushcart Prize.
From being a tenant organizer for elders in poverty in the Tenderloin, Mission, and Manilatown districts of San Francisco to being the co-editor and contributor of one of the most revolutionary media organizations in the nation, Poor Magazine/Prensa Pobre, Tony has never compromised his values, his community, or the voices of his multi-racial family of Filipino- and African-descended resistance fighters based in the increasingly gentrified San Francisco Bay Area.
This dedication to community, ethics, and resistance began as a young child with the teaching he received from his family of brilliant, conscious artists, and organic revolutionaries who, like himself, supported their families with work in the janitorial or service industry. Throughout his life of work and in the last two years, Robles has worked as a security guard. Through his own lens this "revolutionary worker scholar," as is the title of his Poor Magazine/PoorNewsNetwork column, has penned a series of brilliant narrative essays and short stories about workers, workplace injustices, and people struggling with poverty, homelessness, and racism in the US.
“In My Country was inspired by poverty and migrant scholar Jose Sermeno of the Apollo hotel located in San Francisco's Mission District," Robles said as he described his connection to the protagonist. He went on to point out that Jose was a tenant representative and worked with other migrants in poverty like himself who were working as day laborers.
In addition to working as a tenant advocate and community journalist, Robles authored two bilingual (English and Tagalog) children's books, published on Children's Book Press: Lakas and the Manilatown Fish and Lakas and the Makibaka Hotel. As well, Tony is a teacher and playwright who authored a play, Hotel Voices, which he co-produced with his wife, Lisa "Tiny" Gray-Garcia, co-founder and co-editor of Poor Magazine.
Hotel Voices is an innovative theater production which took place in the Single Room Occupancy Hotels of San Francisco and included a 20 week script-writing and performance workshop and was performed to sold-out audiences across the Bay Area in 2009.
The phrase "In my country", according to Robles, means in my heart, and with his heart, the protagonist of the story, like himself, brings his country, his heart, and his humanity into the struggle for place, home, memory, and justice into the increasingly cold and bereft land where all of us poor workers, migrants, elders, and families struggle to dwell.
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