{m}aganda magazine | Issue #25 - BROKE by {m}aganda magazine

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BROKE

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(verb): the past tense of break; a separation, a coming apart (adjective): penniless (?): ? Nasira. Broken (unable to function). Nabali. Broken (in pieces). Salat. Destitute; poor. What is broke to us and the world around us? How do we really define it? Is it the aftermath? A state of being? The current state of affairs? Is it in your wallet or in your chest? A heart? Your heart? Someone else’s heart? Is it a starting point? A pit stop? A destination? Or is it a perpetual cycle? How long do you stay in “broke”? In a society of social unrest, a struggling economy, and dissatisfaction with the governmental institutions at hand, it is easy to diagnose current times as in a state of broke. It is easy to focus on the negative applications of broke. Yet, broke does not have to be a permanent state of severance, nor is it solely impoverishment. Broke can be a means for innovation. You can break boundaries, break expectations, break molds, break the ice. Broke can be the beginning of improvement, a new start -- a transcendence.

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Dear Community,

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Welcome to {m}agandá Magazine. This year’s theme, “Broke,” originated from a discussion during {m}agandá’s annual retreat held at a staff member’s boyfriend’s studio apartment in Berkeley. In past years, our staff retreats had been held in cozy cabins located in some idyllic nature scene or haunted hotels in San Francisco. But this past year, we kept our retreat close to home. Going beyond city limits was too expensive--we were all too broke. Coming off the tail-end--maybe--of the worst recession since the Great Depression, “Broke” felt like an almost-too-apt theme for {m}agandá’s 25th issue. The numbers are scary. The unemployment rate for college graduates hovered above 12 percent. The gap between the rich and the poor in the U.S. widened by 20 percent since the mid-1980s. The threat of budget cuts lead to a proposal for an 81% increase in tuition for UCs. We have inherited a broken economy, a broken system, a broken country, and it hurts. In many ways, we are broken too. {m}25 chose the theme of “Broke” because we wanted to evoke the zeitgeist of the current time. But {m}agandá also chose “Broke” because of its potential for hope thing better. “Broke” does not only describe hearts and bank accounts. “Broke” can change, our world can change. What is broken can only be rebuilt or cast aside in exchange for something better. We hope that this issue of {m}agandá inspires you to pick up the broken pieces in your life and create something beautiful. In this organization’s 21st year, we proudly present to you {m}agandá Magazine, Issue 25: Broke. With Our Love, Christine Fukushima and Kathleen Limon Editors-in-Chief

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by Janice Sapigao 03

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19-Gun I A Filipino General – former Secretary of Energy, former Secretary of Environment and Natural Resources, former Secretary of Interior and Local and Government, former Secretary of Defense, former Chief of Staff of the Armed Forces – shot himself through the chest in front of his mother’s grave. It had been a week after he was accused of corruption during his service as AFP Chief. II If we assume a causal relation between (2.1.1) the corruption charges and (2.1.2) the suicide, then we confront two among other derivations. Either (2.2.1) the allegations were true or cut too close to the truth, or (2.2.2) the lies took their toll on the man. But not both. Citizens of this rational, purposive country must only assume that 2.1.1 led to 2.1.2. Corollary: Whether true or false, are we to assume that the allegations weakened him, and ought we go so far as to say that he was perfectly defeated by same? Or did he die for the sake of peace. If so, whose? (2.3.1) His? (2.3.2) Ours? Both 2.3.1 and 2.3.2? One or more of the available subsets of 2.3.2 (2.3.2.1, 2.3.2.2, 2.3.3, and so forth)?

by Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo

IV Walking down the highway lookWalking down the highway looking for a whore! Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t

was sore and thin! Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t put it in!

all about! Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t put it out!

III Peace? Shh– Rubbish! That’s rubbish, in fact a more poignant, cutting, and less syllabic word than rubbish exists for that sort of rubbish, but I won’t use it (it rhymes with “it” as well as with

red and sore!

of respect for the departed.

Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t f--- no more!

Goddam son of a gun I couldn’t

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bro ke V What a sad day for our noble country we lost a noble man from a noble institution a man who if he had ambitions nurtured them in dignity and silence as if in an ancestral cave and who if he had sins oh those sins must have been lofty Forgive me I consider it a wonder that the sky did not fall

VI A child sitting on the curb outside the Memorial Park heard the shot and saw the moment when the unspeakable emotion overwhelmed the faces and bodies of the man’s two sons. He saw it as a “fuss” and wondered what the fuss was about. Three adults on the scene failed to answer the child’s questions. The 1st Adult-on-the-scene thought that the child was better off not knowing. The 2nd Adult-on-the-scene thought that the child would be no better and no worse either way, i.e., Knowing or Not-knowing, and decided that in a purely Christian world – all things considered, all things being equal – any given human being, faced with both the complexity of Knowing and the spotlessness of Notknowing, should always choose the more blessed state of cleanliness. Thus, the 2nd Adult-on-the-scene, after soundly ignoring the child, turned to the 3rd Adult-on-the-scene who came from up front, that is, the direction of the scene, who knew something of What Happened along with something of What It Meant, but who was also on the way to but also not a thing to take lightly because it was, for the 3rd Adult-onthe-scene, the thing that was supposed to be done at the moment.

VII After assessing the obstructions of the sidewalk, the 3rd Adult-on-the-scene left the scene, ignoring or nothearing the child and the 2nd Adult-on-the-scene both of whom instantly proved themselves to him as obstructions of the sidewalk akin to the roots of trees, the garbage bins, the open doors of parked vehicles, and the sons overwhelmed by the unspeakable emotion.

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VIII The General Call is thereby issued. The General Call calls for Reverence. The General Call would rather hoot, whistle, conspire, cajole for Reverence, but the General Call has been unanimously reduced by the Standing Committees to “calling,” the verb that the Preamble and the succeeding relevant Articles and Sub-articles suggested as strictly associated with the General Clause’s nature, an asing Committees and locked forever in place with the Clause of Exclusivity. The General Call thus calls for Reverence, Reverence including all species of Sobriety, Sobriety from all Parties Concerned except if in fact you belong to the Immediate Family and/or the Most Loyal Circle of Allies in which case a period of intoxication is allowed, but only with other of the aforementioned Family and/or Allies, and only within closed quarters with its windows shut, its curtains at half-drape, its undisclosed location found outside a 3-mile radius from the Casket. Available by request from the Committees: One (1) glass per member of Family or Circle. Eight (8) buckets of hi-grade ice.

brok e IX I want to say I respect this. Against the wishes of my friends, I respect this. With or without the necessary clearance, I respect this. Although I would never be one to say I believe you, you or the things you said before and after you defected like a sidearm leaving one presidential hip for another presidential hip. Still, let me say what I came here to say. Please. I don’t care for the morale of the troops, and anyway, this democracy forbids me the audacity of feeling that they are “my” troops, even if I’m a taxpayer many times over, that is, you know, an annual coin in the wishing well that is the military budget, although if I were different, say, if I were a woman of some estimable allure and well-kept reserves of willingness, then them boys would whistle a whole ‘nother tune: I’m Yours Baby. Well, I came here to say something about that thing you did, that gesture of yours, if it can be called that: gesture. I can’t get it out of my mind, see. Some nights, it’s a spike against sleep. if you did it for family or God or town or country. It’s just that you did it, you know. Bang, just like that: you did it. So let me say that I believe in the palpability of your act, believe deeply in it, despite the fact that my belief would have no purpose as opposed to the beliefs peddled and bought in the hallowed halls of legislature, often the executive, and recently the judiciary front where beliefs are cut-and-paste, plagiarized convictions, intangible symbol-systems imbued with much the same purposiveness as black markets. There. Finally, what can I say? You shot through the heart, General. The heart. And a maggot inside me has been whispering, “you should be thankful.” With all due respect, sir. I believe in the maggot.

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br oke X Regarding membership in the Most Loyal Circle of Allies, the Standing Committees put forth the ff: 10.1) If you think you are of the circle, then you are not of it. 10.2) If you feel you are of the circle, then you are not of it. 10.3) If at one moment In All This, your entire person wrings itself in agony around the fact of your person being counted among the General’s most trusted, then and only then shall you be considered a full and valid member of the Circle.

XI God help me, look. Let me run this to you once more. It’s not even “walking down the highway” at all, it’s jogging around the barracks in unison. The sort of thing where you keep up or push up (Give Me 30!), a panting yet concerted effort at non-condescencing self-deprecation… So no, nobody’s “looking for a whore.” We’re going for fortitude here, character, and in the off-chance some recognition. A little recognition won’t hurt. Spread it around and you’ve got morale. Spread it around long enough, then – voila! – it’s esprit de corps. But if there’s none of that for the packing, then okay okay. This country has trained us to live on spare rations. As long as there’s a house half-way decent, a family of the appropriate number each member taking the most appropriate foods and drugs, all wholly legal and only occasionally exciting, the occasion being a summer getaway, every now and then, you know, travel light, because likewise our families do not overstep their bounds…

XII abroad, offshore accounts, or taxpayer’s money. This line might allude to the Devil (as in, the Whore of Babylon, hence grand but disease-ridden and not to other names, the One Who Receives All Coins and Makes No Babies). See? Your reading is off the minute it becomes literal… Far from it…

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{m} XIII The General Call calls for Reverence. The Order of the Day is a sub-call attached by virtue of protocol to the General Call. The Order of the Day deals with various forms of Irreverence across social strata. Irreverence could be classed either as In Poor Taste or Ill-Mannered by virtue of the Irreverent Persons – critics, poets, and foreigners – who have no resources for Reverence available inside the counCommittees to undergo at least one of the ff: (13.1) Exit from country, (13.2) Quest for psychiatric help, are Irreverent by the playing of any instrument/s of choice under water.

XIV “Goddam,” “son of a gun,” and “I couldn’t put it in” all speak for themselves, except perhaps the latter where a how we as an institution likewise could. However, we exercise temperance, we maintain restraint, you can count on us. We derive such internal strength from hours of regular jogging, duck-walk, war-face, spelunking, and various sports. We forge camaraderie from doing all the foregoing activities together, to a pre-selected beat informed by years of tradition, the entirety of which is effectively hinted at and hidden Finally, we gain our reliability from the loud but measured exhalations of our most sacrosanct desires expressed in popular, humorous, albeit vulgar forms such as that found in Moral lesson: While such hilarity is commonplace, our valor is not. Notice how the remaining lines may well be subjected to like brary compound of the National Defense College. Civilians Curiosity, et cetera in the left-hand side of the open access area.

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b roke XV My dear countrymen his dear countrymen this death is to be respected not because of the publicity no not because of the undeniable nobility of the murderer/victim nor even because of such words inseparable from this man words of responsibility and honor such as ENERGY NATIONAL LOCAL GOV’T NATURAL TENOR DEFENSE and TRANSPORT no not the medals earned from campaign after successful campaign against Muslims and co-Christians not the gifts too many to mention nevertheless rendered unto his person with gratitude and admiration the stream of compliments running forever at allegro listen This death is to be revered because it is a death in our midst a death perhaps unlike any other this death his death I mean excuse me

XVI Understand this: there’s no place in this discourse for that C-word. soever! No, no it’s not Cancer! there’s an R, penultimate letter, tioned, in fact. Now, I see in your eyes that you get it, but don’t you Yes, there’s a D. Neither of us will say it, neither of us will write it down anywhere, not even on the sands of this our country. His country. What do you mean try is 7 letters. For crying out loud, I thought you were getting Yes, there’s an O, but don’t provoke me.

XVII The allegations, whether true or false, would have been forgotten when the other allegations that time and politics will cook up come to light. Or word more apt: limelight. By then, archives of the allegations would have been lost or archived beneath other archives Time, politics. But came the morning when the man cared for neither.

XVIII suicide. Or to assume that this country is both purposive and rational Suppose it’s a country of lies and liars. Assume that this death is the type of thing that happens when a person cares too much. Too much say, for words such as ENVIRONMENT SECURITY RESOURCE MOTHER and INTERIOR

XIX The guns are done. Like all days prior, this day won’t be the day for the sky to fall.

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Understanding by Erum Khan

“Will you just listen to me for a second?” “How can I when you have nothing to say that’s worth listening to?” I bit my lip to keep from sobbing, turning away from my husband in an attempt to distract myself with the trees and clouds rolling by on the busy highway. I heard him sigh behind the wheel. “I’m sorry,” he exhaled with some effort, reaching out to touch me. But I had heard that before, and leaned deliberately away from his reach. “Damn it, Marie!” David exploded yet again. “I try to apologize and you push me aside! This is exactly what I was talking about.” I felt a cool trail of moisture glide slowly down my cheek and wiped at it hastily, not wanting him to think me even weaker than he already did. “You can’t simply take back the things you’ve said to me, David,” I answered softly, trying desperately to keep my voice from cracking. “I can’t be held accountable for anything I say when I’m mad. You know that,” he spat at me. I shook my head, and a few tendrils of my knotted brown hair fell loose from its ponytail. I stroked the thin strands distantly, ignoring the waves of rage emanating from David. He was always angry with me nowadays. Disagreeing about the kids, barely communicating at the dinner table, refusing to sleep in the same bed, it was all part of our daily lives. Perhaps he didn’t feel the same connection with me as he once did back when we were newlyweds. Back when I still looked young and like the ray of sunshine he had once dubbed me. Maybe he thought I didn’t give him enough freedom. Maybe he felt trapped in our marriage and was mad at himself for having chosen such a needy and confusing wife. There were a thousand different possibilities, and I had no idea which one to choose from. “Talk to me, Marie! You complain about me not listening to you, and then when I do you have nothing to say.” His outburst broke my reverie. But I couldn’t look at him. I couldn’t face him. All I could do was glance behind me at the back seat of the car, where Joey sat listening to his iPod, a tiny frown on his fair face. Alice lay strewn across his small lap, her eyes closed tranquilly as she napped. They looked so much like David though, his light face disguised in every feature, that I couldn’t even gaze at them for long. I looked back at my husband. “At least lower your voice for the kids.” He laughed mirthlessly. “We don’t need to protect them from anything. I’m I gaped at him incredulously. What was wrong with him? Where was the man I had married, the man I fell in love with? Did he still love me? Did he still love his children? God, how I wished I could know what he was thinking. ***

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gnidnatsrednU

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continued

“How can I when you have nothing to say that’s worth listening to?” I ground my teeth together in frustration. This woman was being impossible. None of her complaints or arguments made sense to me, and by this time I had ceased trying to decipher her gibberish. I sighed heavily, chiding myself internally. Despite all that, Marie was still my wife, and it was wrong to be this cruel to her when she was so obviously in pain. “I’m sorry,” I breathed, reaching over to stroke her hair as I used to when she needed comforting, back when we were still young and falling in love. But she pulled away from me. The old rage returned at her rejection of my sensitivity. “Damn it, Marie! I try to apologize and you push me aside! This is exactly what I was talking about.” unappreciated, and she constantly failed to notice my gestures through her tears. I hated it when she cried, not because I thought her weak or aggravating, but because the sight of her, broken and vulnerable, her pain falling visibly from her eyes, hurt me far more than she could ever fathom. I couldn’t handle seeing her like that, or knowing she that was the expression she wore at night when she thought I was sleeping. I couldn’t handle being helpless, knowing that, these days, there was nothing I could do to soothe her. Nothing I could do to banish her pain. “You can’t simply take back the things you’ve said to me, David.” “I can’t be held accountable for anything I say when I’m mad,” I virtually shouted at Marie. “You know that!” I felt like a cad these days, but our arguments aggravated me to the point where I had no control over myself. It was hard to rewife! She should know that I love her, and that I would never say anything to purinsinuations of my becoming distant due to her looks…they were inconceivable! How shallow did she think I was to let our marriage fall apart because of that? “Talk to me, Marie! You complain about me not listening to you and then when I agree to you have nothing to say.” I laughed scathingly. “We don’t need to protect them from anything. I’m Where was the woman I loved? Where had all that feeling and affection gone? It seemed the story-book concept of soul mates we’d grown up with and pictured just wasn’t enough to save us. I looked at my son and daughter in the rear-view mirror. Did they know what was happening to our family? ***

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gnidnatsrednU continued

Shouting from the front seat of the car woke me up from my nap. Were

***

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Understanding

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“Damn it, Marie!” I turned the volume of my iPod up, hoping to drown out the everyday sounds that had become my life with the more welcome melodies of The Fray. But I could still hear them. I could always hear them. “You can’t simply take back the things you’ve said to me, David.” I felt Alice shift in my lap. She was listening too. “I can’t be held accountable for anything I say when I’m mad.” I snorted lightly. Of course he couldn’t be. Alice moved again. Why did they have to do this in front of her? I was different. I was older. Thirteen was mature enough to take care of oneself. But my hide behind the staircase with her Teddy, trying in vain to block the tears streaming down her rosy, China doll cheeks. I would always have to hug her and carry her back to her bedroom, give her a kiss, and tell her I loved her and that everything would be alright in the end. That shouldn’t have been my job. “Talk to me, Marie!” Yes, talk. Don’t yell. Don’t scream. Don’t accuse. Don’t insult. Just talk. “At least lower your voice for the kids.” I suppressed a wry laugh. It was too late for that now. Did they really think we were that dense, that stupid? “We don’t need to protect them from anything. I’m sure they know all about Oh, yes. I sighed. I wish they would just get divorced already. That’s where they were heading anyway.

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when the trouble comes

when trouble splits us open when boulevards stutter and home convulses when trouble splits us down the middle on which side do you surface trembling, hushed broken, bitter the quaking the opening up of earth ground sky cracked wide like a frozen howl and when trouble comes and cracks the pavement when home is ruptured and lungs sucked hollow empty spaces to swallow, bonds ripped apart at the seams when the trouble splits us down the middle which side are you left on with whom can you dream when towers topple when the ground beneath us shakes when a pipe ruptures when a levy breaks like swarms of locusts, like plagues of old like rains that unfold the sobbing of saints whose insurance will pay whose news will be reported whose fears will be fanned whose dead will be counted who is it that throws money at the tattered terrain who is surprised when the anger riots and crashes through storefronts god or each other? when the trouble comes and hardens us and makes mockery of hoping

by Noelle de la Paz

into whose arms do you fall swinging, grasping, breaking open

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Not Again

Forgotten Anakaren Munoz

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by Justin Sayarath

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lambanog I climb high for the coconut sap. Itâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s dangerous, a process more trapeze act than distillation. The flowers sweat out the toxin, before becoming fruit, as I swing on a promise. Some, when they receive it like a blessing, they will temper it with young buko, sweeten it with mango puree. Stir it in their cocktails. But for: the men and the women Who like it pure; a singular burn on the throat, a slow drip to melt first your shoulders, then your spine, a settling in your gut; the young ones that drink to create love; the old ones that drink to forget it; the coconut sap, I (mangagarit) collect. No one has money, Not to spare on hedonism, partake tagayan, but the price for the poison I pour is cheap enough

Reena Flores

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The Grind

By Bel Pablador

Rena’s clunky, non-slip shoes, caked with old food and other miscellaneous gunk, hit the pavement with an urgent thud thud thud, her breath frantic. The light on the crosswalk counted 5...4...3...2...1 with Rena dashing across the intersection on the 3. She saw the bus pull up to the stop, and a passenger stepped up the stairs with the doors closing behind him. tention. “Wait!” The 38 Geary bus pulled away, the vehicle’s multi-sectioned body snaking away from the curb, and she was leftin its wake on Market Street. At 11:30 p.m. On a Thursday night. “Fuuucckkk!” she yelled, her voice drew out the short “u” sound while her hands shook the air in front of her madly. the pavement and her shoulders slumped in defeat. This late on a weekday night meant that the buses came at least half an hour apart, and she still had a 30-minute bus ride before she reached her Clement Street apartment that she shared with her friends. “Hello, Rena,” said a man pushing a shopping cart full of cans and bottles. She looked at him looking at her chest before realizing that she still had her nametag pinned to her shirt. Her eyes widened in discomfort as she sidestepped slowly towards a well-lit area of the bus stop. With a sigh, she unpinned her name from the bright orange shirt that announced, “We’re gonna have a boatload of shrimpin’ fun!” There in the cold San Francisco night, she thought about how her job at the nationwide chain restaurant, Seafood Sensa-

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her B.A. in English at UCLA and moved up north. After graduation, she foolishly thought she had so much promise. She had interned at E! Entertainment and had worked at CNN Entertainment for two summers and then part-time during her fourth year. A week before she’d moved, CNN offered her a full-time position, which, unbeknownst to her parents, she’d turned down. Rena had lived in Los Angeles her whole life, and she’d been aching to get out. Although she knew it was a huge risk, she wanted to leave the city she’d grown up in to explore how another city breathed. Her Filipino parents, while supportive of her desire to become a writer, wanted her to stay close by and would never have understood her rejection of stable employment to move to a city in which she had no job at the ready. In fact, Rena herself hadn’t really understood her own decision, but there was something inside of her that had yearned for escape. And so with her green VW Beetle packed to the brim with her belongings, she drove to San Francisco with a little bit of savings and a lot of hope. But two months after moving, she was still jobless and trylived in Hayward had graciously offered their guest room to her while she got on her feet. She was getting by, more or less, but she couldn’t help but feel that she was being separated from San Francisco, the city that had come to symbolize independence and freeFilled with a desperation she had never felt before, any employment that might allow her to make money was seen as a godsend. She even sent her resume to be an assistant in a senior citizens’ home. Whent he hiring manager called her and explained -

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tion barely computed. Rena didnt’ hear “You’ll mainly be washing dishes.” All she heard were those precious words of “$10 an hour.” It took her remaining ounce of dignity to decline the job, with the mantra of “I’m a UCLA graduate, I shouldn’t be washing dishes,” being her only light in the dark. So when she got a call from Seafood Sensationz about her to smile down upon her. After working at a small local sushi restaurant in Westwood, she’d come to see serving as an underrated dance between chefs, cooks, busboys, and servers. food Sensationz. “So are you going to school right now?” The server who asked Rena was a short, Asian girl with a good amount of sarmor, Rena though she might be a future freind. “Oh no, I graduated already,” Rena said as she went to the line to pick up some fresh-from-the-freezer fried shrimp. “Cool, where from?” “Oh, from UCLA,” Rena responded as she balanced three trays in her arms. Rena was taken aback when the girl replied with a brutish laugh of, “Wow! Uh, ‘Hi, I graduated from UCLA, and now I work at Seafood Sensationz!’” Then, more cackling. A lot more. Getting-to-know-you chitchat was really just a way for young adults to judge each other. But as much as Seafood Sensationz destroyed Rena, she hated to admit that it also nourished her. Meager nourishment, but

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nourishment nonetheless. Employees got a discount on the food, and so for $2.50, Rena would eat her meals off of the kids’ menu-her order of fried shrimp, French fries, and jello balanced in a little Other jobs came and went--times when she had two jobs and worked twelve hour days--but there she was, over a year later, and Seafood Sensationz was still there by her side, her loyal partner. Even if it had kept her ridiculously late and left her standing at a bus stop at midnight in San Francisco’s misty rain. braced herself for the long ride home. The bus rides back to the Richmond district were a mixture of bar and restaurant workers like herself, and then the usual 38 Geary odd birds. She plunked down next to a guy she’d seen in the past who always smelled strongly of Indian food. As she glanced around the bus, she couldn’t help but think, “Ah yes, these are my people.” Rena felt an odd sense of community with the late-night passengers, and yet when her stop came she bolted from her seat because the smell of Indian food mixed with her own pungent odor of fried shrimp was only bearable for so long. Rena woke up the next morning to a reminder on her phone vibrating gently and ominously-Rent due next week! The dreaded message cut through her sleephaze, and she sat up in bed. She signed on to Bank of America’s website and braced herself.

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Account

Available Balance TOTAL CHECKING $243.74 SAVINGS $13.05

Present Balance $243.74 $13.05

“Shit,” Rena muttered as the numbers seared their way through her eyes into her resistant brain. She took out her tip box and counted out what she had made in the past week. She had been working extra shifts recently, but the small paychecks and slow restaurant season tips weren’t much. She did some basic math on the back of an old timesheet, her writer’s mind working over the numbers with disdain and horror. Rent: $600 Checking: $223 Tips: $114 Total: $337 Need: $263 “Mrehh,” Rena bleated helplessly into the air--a sound she made when she felt at her most frazzled and nervous. They were for only two shifts--Tuesday and Wednesday nights. It was midJanuary. There was no way she’d make $263 with only a couple weeknight shifts during slow season. She closed her eyes and exhaled slowly, attempting to gather some serenity before she made the dreaded phone calls. She took the server contact list from her backpack, throwing her Shrimp

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she started to dial numbers and beg for shifts. “Hey, Ray, I’m calling because I was wondering if I could please, please, please have your evening shift tonight. I know it’s a Friday night, but I’m really short on rent, and I’d really appreciate the help. Call or text me back as soon as you can. I’ll try coming into the restaurant anyway just in case someone does want to leave so if you change your mind last minute, that’d totally work, too. Call me, or I can text you later if I don’t hear from you in case you’re busy. Or whatever works best for you. Um, THANKS SO MUCH, HAVE A GOOD NIGHT, CALL ME, THANKS AGAIN!” Rena hung up the phone, cringing. She was going to have to tone down the desperation a bit. It was rather unbecoming. The next communication was a text: To: Shannon Seafood Sensationz Hey Shannon! It’s Rena fr Seafood Sensationz. Just wondering if I could have your Saturday evening shift? Let me know whenver. If not, no worries at all. Thx! She continued this desparate accumulation for work until she’d wrangled in two people to surrender their shifts for the week. One Monday night shift and a Thursday daytime shift, but they were better than nothing. tuned her resume yet again, hoping that the re-wording and minor embellishments would work in her favor, and applied to jobs with her fervent faith buoying emails through the Internet. By the time Monday rolled around, Rena was somehow still exhausted.

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They started off with the usual pre-shift meeting, which was mainly a time for the servers and managers to chain-smoke like made before they started work. “We pride ourselves on having the freshest ingredients,” seafood delivered to us from Thailand--” Rena couldn’t help but interrupt. “Wait, we get our shirmp from Thailand?” she asked, incredullous. “Yo, Rena. That’s why our shirmp is so superior,” Mark boasted. Rena wished he’d stop saying “yo.” They’d been friends ed, the power had gone to his head. “But...we live in California, and we have the ocean right here. I though our shrimp was at least from California. How is that even fresh?” She looked around at the other servers, but most of them were playing on their phones. “No, Rena, it makes more sense for us to get our shrimp from Thailand where they have way better shrimp than us and can sell it at a wholesale price. You wouldn’t understand.” And with that, Mark hit the rim of her Seafood Sensationz hat over her eyes as he smoothed his button down shirt. Everyone laughed as Rena readjusted her hat and tried to speak above the din. “Ah, working at a chain restaurant is so complex and corrupt, eh?” Only Mark heard her, and he lowered his voice as he leaned in closely. “Rena, we’re friends, so I’m not going to write you up for that. But you better quit mouthing off.” Then, in a yell, “Alright! Go have some fun and make some dolla dolla bills, yo!”

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launched into her spiel. “Hi, how are you doing tonight? Have you ever been to Seafood Sensationz before?” Heads shook. “Well, you see that sign -

friend, Ray, asked if he was allowed to accept an eighth of weed have enough for tip. As he showed Rena the weed in his apron

Right as things started to slow down for the night, a large

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would really help. Everything went smoothly, and once they left Rena glanced to bus the table, clean up her section, and count her cash. Knowing that she didn’t have enough time to do her end of the night

plained. and then someone else will have to clean your tables, or you could What a fucking prick “Rena, I can’t do that; the night is basically done. And I gave you the big grat table because I was trying to be nice--I could’ve me to do. Unless...you forgot

understanding me, Rena. If you forgot to break, then all I’d have to do is put it into the system for you forgot. Either that, or you can let someone your at her pointedly.

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Rena knew exactly what he was saying, of course, but she was so pissed she couldn’t think straight. Either she continued working for an hour and let a popular chain restaurant take advantage of her, or she could let friends do her work and take advantage of them. Defeated, she said a silent Fuck you, Mark that preceded her actual response of, “Whatever. Yeah, I guess I forgot.” Mark gave her a huge, open-mouthed smile and exaggerated get at. Rena realized that in a battle of morals against a corporate company, while a gal might win in the moral department, she would ultimately always lose in other areas like money and dignity. Tuesday night’s shift started off easily enough. “Now who’s ready for some seafood sea-prises?!” Rena asked as she instinctively made jazz hands before taking the family’s order. As the family nodded their heads in excitement, Rena mused at how she could talk to a table, take their orders, and zone out at the same time. her adieu with a not-at-all-annoying, “Just Keep Swimmin’!” With a smile so big her cheeks hurt she walked quickly to the computer to enter in their orders. “If I hear that stupid fucking phrase one more time, I swear to god--” muttered Rena before her train of thought was cut off. “Oh, there’s a server! Stop, Swimmin’!” Rena ignored

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the snaps and waves of a group of teenage girls who probably wouldn’t even tip their server 10% and breezed right past them to the kitchen. Without thinking, Rena went down the line and grabbed a Seafood Sin-sation in each hand. A brief lesson in Seafood Sensato oily perfection. It was an obscene amount of food for one perRena wasn’t terribly out of shape, though really the only pseudo-exercise she did was running after buses. As she walked, she started to realize that the dishes were far too heavy for her to carry on her own. Rena saw the dishes as they sagged lower inch-by-inch. Yet for some reason, instead of putting them down, she tried to balance out the lowering of the dishes in her arms by also lowering her body. This of course made no sense. coached herself, You got this, Rena. You don’t need to ask anyone for help. The table is just down those steps and to the right. No big deal. Totally doable. Just a few more steps. But all the amount of positive thinking that swirled through her head was useless. Soon she was walking awkwardly in a deformed, bent-knee, crouched position until, much to her dismay, the weight of the plates couldn’t be fought any longer. Rena slowly and inexplicably walked herself into the ground

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She ended up in a dejected heap on her knees, body slumped and head hung in shame, surrounded by large mounds of fried food. “What the fuck. Rena! Were those for my table?” asked Adam, one of the senior servers. nodded her head. “Shit I’m so sorry, Adam.” That was totally my fault. I’m really sorry.” Adam shook his head in irritation and sighed. “Fuck. It’s quickly to a POS system. As Rena slowly started to clean up the fallen food with a broom and dustpan that a host had left next to her, she noticed she was right by the table of teenage girls that she’d ignored earlier. Giggling and pointing, they took pictures on their iPhones as they drank soda from their souvenir cups. On Wednesday, Rena received a call from Seafood Sensationz. “Yo, Rena! It’s Mark. It just started raining. You don’t have to come in tonight. It’s gonna be pretty dead.” “Mark, you don’t understand. I really need this shift. I have to make rent in two days.” She hated begging, but it had to be done. “Sorry, Rena. We only have the four team leaders on the And with that he hung up. Thursday: Rent was due the next day, and Rena was deter-

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mined to make shit happen. She had made $143 from the past two shifts, so she had to make at least $120 during this daytime shift. When she got to work, Rena just wanted to think about doing her job well. This focused approach seemed to be working. She was even more excited when she was seated with a table of eight people. This of course meant: automatic gratuity. Rena chatted it up with the family from Canada, brought crayons for the kids, and served her heart out. But when the bill came, the dad glanced at it and asked her to take off the gratuity. Rena was confused. “I’m sorry, but did I do something wrong?” one tips me at my job, why should other people get tipped? Am I Stunned, she walked over to Mark and explained the situation, expecting him to go and talk to the table. Instaed, he shrugged his shoulders and took her tip off the bill with the mere press of a button. Rena’s jaw dropped, she couldn’t speak. If there was no gratuity at all, this meant that the mandatory tipping out of the hosts and back of house staff that came out of every table, she had actually paid money to serve this group of 8. All of the pressure and anxiety and unfairness of it all was more than she could stand. “Shitfuckballsfuckingshift...” “Rena, did you say something?” Mark asked, distracted. “You know what? Maybe that prick asshole should have left himself and his big fucking family at home in fucking Canada if he didn’t believe in fucking tipping. Go to a goddamned McDon-

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understand. I need this money oh shit I really need this money. I graduated from college from fucking UCLA which I thought meant I could at least get a job that didn’t require me to wear an apron and I’ve been busting my ass here for over a year so that assholes can stiff me and I can’t fucking do this anymore every month busting my ass just to pay my rent and bills I cannot I just-” Rena’s breakdown was cut short when she realzed Mark was looking at her like she was insane. Quickly wiping at the tears that were running down her face, she muttered, “I think I’ll just take a moment in the supplies closet.” “Yeah. You do that, Rena. I’ll have someone watch your tables for a few minutes.” With her head down, Rena walked to the supplies closet and closed the door behind her. There was only 45 minutes left in her shift. There was no way she’d make the rest of the money that she needed. She wordlessly slumped to the ground, and surrounded by what her life had become--a bulk supply of ketchup, mustard, and to-go boxes--she cried like a newborn babe. Suppressing her sobs, Rena took her cell phone out of her apron pocket. She had tried her best to avoid this, but she didn’t see a way out. Dialing the well-known number, she cleared her throat and tried to sound put-together. There was an answer on the third ring. “Hi, Mom, it’s me. Yeah, I’m doing ok, but ... I kinda need your help. I’m really, really sorry, but I need to borrow $100. I’m short on rent this month ... Yeah, I hope this is the last time, too.”

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When the Hurricane Broke

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by Eduardo Zermeno

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The Night Before

The Morning After

Untitled

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Mabaw Ug Kutipot By Justine Villanueva

Renato stares at his haggard face on the bathroom mirror and sighs. He doesn’t know why he bothers to make it to his appointments with his psychiatrist. “Remember he’s suffering from depression and anxiety,” he overhears his psychiatrist tell his wife. “He needs all the love you can give and all the support he can get. Here’s the new prescription.” Renato winces at the mention of a new prescription. The psychiatrist has changed the prescription several times. Each change caused new effects: he stuttered, itched, heard random ringing, vomited. His insomnia, however, remained. Every night for the last year he could not sleep and his mind raced from one inconsequential thought to the next: what is the Russian word for box? who was that girl in his second grade class with no teeth? how does the electoral college work? “I want this to end,” he told his wife a month ago. She rolled her eyes and asked, “Let’s be clear. You mean you want to die?” “Yes,” he said and meant it. “What is the point of living like this?” “Ok,” she said, “let me get you a knife.” When he didn’t say any more, she sneered, “You’re weak, mabaw imong kutipot. Maybe it is better you die. You’re useless, anyway.” She was right. No one in his family needed him anymore, least of all his four daughters who had all grown up and left home. In fact, since his retirement a year before, he had to rely on them for money. He hated asking her daughters for money to help buy his medicine or pay for rent but he had to. He wished he could go back to his hometown in the Philippines and live in the mountains where he would no longer be a burden to them.

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but you will never really know her, or Gibor, or Amy. Not the same way You know the people you know Because They are just chips and shards Of other peopleâ&#x20AC;&#x201D;hell, Of other moments. So when I came away from New York City, Rushed to Brooklyn on the L, Burrowed out to Queens on the E, the F, the alphabet, I felt like these must be the places I lucky pennies. I get off some days at Union Square, and This particular day Raheem waves at me at his usual spot by Madame Grand, a fortune teller In a german shepherd costume. His hands Are on the buttons of his sax, so and put a nickel and three dimes into the red velvet-lined case, open at his feet. Madame Grand on his instrument. Raheem always tells me strange stories about childhood, coming from homes that bend rather than fragment, he calls home, but he winks at me, gives me the sense that whatever it is it is adequate.

Of Other People/

If you die in New York City, you are doomed To wander it tirelessly like A devil in need of a good smoke. If you roam, Maybe you will meet Amy Poehler, maybe Gibor Basri As a young child, before he defected To Berkeley admin. You will see Nicki Minaj on stage at a Good Morning America Summer Stage show,

people

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b roke EPITHALAMION nec mirum, penitus quae tota mente laborant -Catullus What sort of crank would write a song for his bride after the divorce? No, it’s about me, not you. Said the poet, who, from now on, would always refer to himself in the third person, because that’s how his life had become. A mysterious omniscient narrative voice forcing him to wiggle his toes or scratch his left armpit— not unlike Malte Laurids Brigge feeling gespenstisch. Or is it more like Gregor Samsa in Die Verwandlung being alienated in a Sartrean sense? Holy Crap! There he goes again, making me search Google after every seven or eight lines. This dude really needs to get a life. Hey, is our professor torturing us by assigning this book? I bet he’ll give the class another pop quiz with sneaky questions like “Who is the true speaker in the poem Epithalamion?” Not funny, Carbó, you’re getting all these voices confused in my head!—penetrating my skull like those parasitic Cordyceps Fungi that attack ant brains and shoot out a stem from their heads to mature and spread more deadly mushrooms. The poet took another drag from his cheap British cigarette, made sure his line breaks were not limp. He got spooked when he heard a woman’s voice on the radio “love life, love music” announce the easy listening station tag line. He thought, momentarily, that it was his ex-wife haunting him for leaving her. The next day he stumbled onto Johann Pachelbel’s Canon in D Major while surfing the web and he was reacquainted with an instinct, no, emotion that got all this poetry writing started. Divorce is not the end of love. It’s a process of starting to fall out of love, its miserable grip. This was the piece he picked to be played at his wedding as his bride came down the aisle. Okay, Carbó, that’s one hell of a caesura you gave me. I listened to your reference and pictured the bride walking in tune with the music. I thought you’d never get to the intent of the Epithalamion. The poet opened his pack of cigarettes, pressed replay. He noticed the warning sign in large letters “Smoking kills.” What do you think he did next?

by Nick Carbó

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bro ke “It’s about the novel as a form that processes the part of a scene that doesn’t function as an image, but as the depleted, yet still livid mixture of materials that a race riot is made from. Think of the sky.” – Bhanu Kapil Think of a beautiful woman. There are many. Lola told me beauty would get me far. That is why she is angry with me when I fail to thread my eyebrows. She says, “This is how you should look.” But I say: my eyebrows are yours, pointed at the tips. Lola frowns. “Look at your cousin,” she says, “The mulatto. She only needs to be fair and lovely with simple thinking.” I think of a beautiful woman, my mulatto cousin, her legs arrayed I drink her mulatto silence, smells like rage. I drink an ocean. Lola holds my face, tells me to stop. “Do not trust the poet,” she says. She tells me my mulatto cousin’s story: a child out of wedlock her mother pregnant, her father rich she bears my mulatto cousin for money. Every Sunday at mass, my lola recites to me my mulatto cousin’s story. She reminds me not to drink the mulatto silence. She cannot make out the cries, whispers, shouts, songs on paper. She says marry a very educated bachelor son. Or have his child. “And then,” lola frowns, “You may drink an ocean.” Melissa Sipin

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By Jennifer Huang

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Here's to new friends Here's to old friends Here's to keeping things the same Here's to beauty Here's to sorrow Here's to Breathing In And Then Exhaling The Pain Here's to lovers Here's to falling out Here's to Going Insane Here's to Not Knowing Here's to Constantly Growing Here's to the railroad lain out before us Here's to safety belts In this bullet fast train Here's to the stillness Here's to the silence In which I remain Just blood, guts and veins Wrapped in the skin that I find myself in Just a pretty face with a pretty name And a hideous, malicious game It's been years and still I remain.

As true as the gravity that pulled me to you As everlasting as our young love As strong as our shackles and our chains I remain. Like a prisoner Deprived of humanity Like a neurotic Losing Her Sanity Like a princess Enamored with her own Vanity I remain. Through the enslavement and grief Through the false hopes and beliefs Through the violent and jealous mischief In vain, I did remain. And when these monsters creep up on me When these demons try and strangle me I will remain. When I'm barely scraping by When I'm just trying to survive When there's no one left to blame It is Me Who Will Stay Alive It is Me Who Will Remain. So. Here's to Me. Cheers.

Tishiana Mann

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{m} At the Open Mic Jude Paul Dizon

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dark room lit by a single lamp your 3-D silhouette stands before me face half shadowed you speak words weaving succulent sounds through the curves of my ears earth beneath me trembles as you take one step forward breathing in the still air to dance with your dragon fire exhaling words like flames licking my skin I gaze transfixed on your body rockin to the rhythm of your moving mouth my eyes magnetized on your curved supple lips spittin lines of rhymes n reasons to rebel

my heart beats out your name as you speak love into the air love for the activists salvaged by death love for the smeared face of a young woman in between your words I find myself in pieces broken as the activists’ bodies are broken as the woman’s face is broken broken

stumbling earlier in front of 106 Wheeler Hall never guessed I’d be falling into step with a brother breathing the same air as me speaking a history I thought belonged to no one

and as I search for my scattered fragments I catch hold of the thread of your voice sew each found piece of myself as I follow the sounds connecting me across the room to you

But with you I cry laban! for the slain Filipino activists raise my fist n voice hala bira! against US soldiers raping an Olongapo woman—silenced by two governments the Philippines and the United States

uttering your final word my ears hold onto the quivering sound waves diving off your tongue through the dim light in between restless bodies I stretch out my hand so you find me whole at last

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{m} brok e She knocks on my door and says, “Open up.” By Melissa Sipin I tell her, “I won’t pretend I’m good at forgiving.” I find out you kissed her in the blue walking lanes at Berkeley four years ago. I cry for hours when she tells me. She recounts the secret dates to Disneyland, the secret trips from LA to Cal, the secret you’ve kept with her when we were apart. I hear my voice scurry, all nerve gone. I am full of malice, spite, and I swear to myself: fuck, please, don’t kill her. I throw her a Milwaukee beer and we sit on the couch to talk. “He told me he liked me,” she says. “I lied to you for him.” She tells me she wanted my yellow skin, my black hair, my breasts, my arms. “I needed him to want me how he wanted you.” She takes my hands and holds it against the plastered wall. I see her dark skin enveloping mine. I tell her I wanted her trust. Her friendship. Her face becomes convoluted, scrunching into a small, small ball. She says, “We could have never been friends.” I clasp her hands in mine and turn my head away from her. I tell her the same things she told me: I wanted her dark skin, her still countenance, her silence, her control. I say, “I wanted to be what I couldn’t be for him.” I let her hold my hands as if they were air, like a memory. Our mouths are closed and we don’t say anything. I let the silence fill me: I am a cup full of water. I tell her you love me. She jots down on a piece of paper all the things she was: a toy dolphin, a wooden hook, flower-shaped dots on a white dress, sand in a bottle, postcards, all items you sent her and me. She said these were all gifts from Hawaii, the things she has kept, what she held dear, her memories of you. The room becomes larger. I show her my engagement ring with sapphires at the ends, still saying you love me. “Four years ago,” she repeats again. “One day, I had hoped he would tell you about us.” She throws the paper in the air and it falls gently, swaying as if there were wind in the room. I tell her we are married. Her face is now flesh without such violence, and she takes her hands away from me, letting them lay flatly against her chest. She stands up, her back hunched like a bent tree, and cries under a white, fluorescent sky. She leaves without a word, and I become slow, slow, saying this trick: I am diminished and all right.

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Walls Made by History Pamela Kim Katigbak

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Passing On With eyes dry, I strive to clean up. The family stirs: A friend breaching their lolaâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s horde and haven turned sacred by lifeâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s quickfatal blow. This orphaned space ravaged by a high sun chilling in its regular route yet laves light on a broken radio an armless mug chipped dentures lolling in a watery grave. Almost divested, the room turns into a hand folding around a memento: Strands of silver hair wound around a comb

by Eva B. Gubat 59

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Pagkaraan ng mahigit isang dekada ng pagpasok at pag-aaral sa eskwela, kaalaman at karunungan ang nakuha sa kinabukasan namin ay paghahanda pagbasa, pagsulat, pagkwenta ang simula matematika, wika at literatura kasaysayan, sibika at heograpiya taun-taon ay may bagong asignatura makabago na ang pag-aaral ng Syensya sa Biolohiya, Kemistri at Pisika pagsasaliksik, eksperimento at saka pagkuha ng datos sa labas ng eskwela mga baytang sa kolehiyoâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;y paghahanda at sa magiging buhay natin sa pagtanda kaya nga patuloy pa tayong magtiyaga nang ang kinabukasan ay maging sagana

Sean Go

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o sa y d S a mga l umad Ni NATALIE PARDO

Pitak ng lupa na lamang ang mga sakahan na dating lunduyan ng tuwa at paliparan ng mga guryon. Tuluyan nang yumukod ang noo’y ginagapas na mga palay. Wala ng nakakamalas sa paglipad ng mga langay-langayan maliban sa mga pitak ng lupa at nakayukod na mga palay. Nagsimula ang lahat ng iyon nang parang kabute nilang pinalibutan ang tribu upang mamugot ng mga ulo. *”Ethnocide” in English, which pertains to the deliberate and systematic destruction of culture of an ethnic group. This is a plight which the lumads in Mindanao continuously battle.

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Edgar & Amy Imee Cuison

Edgar and Amy are in the midst of an all out war. Their bickering can be heard throughout the house. Little Amy is beside herself that one of her chocolates is missing. Her tantrum annoys her big brother, Edgar, who ate the chocolate, but did not think she would get so upset. “They are mine!” Amy squeals. Their father infuriated by his children’s bickering simply ignores them. He would soon be going out to sea again on a submarine. He moves about his children with a clenched jaw and narrowed eyebrows. He says nothing to them. His wife has already left for her evening shift in the hospital, and he can’t be bothered with his squabbling kids. The kids are still screaming when he is all packed and ready to go. He gets in his van and drives away. The children hear their father’s van back out of the driveway. They rush out just in time to see him drive away. Their father does not wave to them. He does not turn to look at them. Their father just drives away. “Come back, Daddy! Come back!” Amy wails, but her father is gone. Amy’s tantrum intensifies until she feels she will burst. She stands at the end of the driveway hoping to see her father’s brown van again. Hoping he will come back and jump out to tell her how much he loves her. Her brother tells her to come inside, but Amy can’t will herself to go. She waits alone on the driveway crying herself into a fever. She is only five and has not yet mastered the concept of time. Events to her only feel like a “long time” or a “short time.” She knows that her father will be out to sea for a long time. She has been able to gather from T.V. that bad things can happen to daddies that go out to sea. These thoughts make her heart churn into shreds. Sweat trickles down into her long black pigtails. This will be Amy’s first anxiety attack.

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ATE,

But only her number 2 pencil would know that

They threatened to kick her out Threatened They didnâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t really

The blood on the pencil

SAVE ME

Johann Christine Alcaraz Jude Paul Dizon

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KALENDARYO Ang hamak na taga-gawa ng munting kalendaryo Walang karapatang tumibok ang puso Sa isang dalagang taun-taon ay kumukuha Ng kalendaryong di mo man alam ay ako’ng gumagawa Handog ko sa iyo nang una kang masilayan Kapus man ang pag-ibig, kamay mo lang ay madaanan Sa pag-abot ng aking kalendaryong likha Madikit lang ang mga kamay, kahit hindi na ang mukha Ilang taon na ang binilang at ika’y bumabalik parin Sa aking pagawaan ng kalendaryo at pagtingin Taun-taon man ang tiis at parang walang wakas Puso ko ‘ni minsa’y hindi ninais kumalas Takot ko lang sa nagsabing gugunaw na ang mundo Bali-balita’y huling taon ‘to na para sa mga tao Hindi ko iniisip ang trabahong mawawala Ang inaalala ko’y baka maagang matapos ang tula Pagka’t hindi na magtatagpo paglipas ng paputok Wala na akong hihintayin paghupa ng usok Oo, tayo nga ay magkikita pa sa langit Ngunit kung wala nang kalendaryo, paano ipipilit? Mangyari mang magwakas ang buhay sa mundo, Hindi ako mapapagod sa paggawa ng kalendaryo Wala mang oras sa langit, pakiki-usapan ang Diyos Pausuhin ang petsa upang kalendaryo nati’y di malaos

MARCO LORENZ FERRER

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Para Mi Familia Anakaren Munoz

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Dennis Andrew S. Aguinaldo. Teaches literature to UPLB students. Awarded fellowdennisaguinaldo@gmail.com. Nick Carb贸. ncarbo@aol.com. Imee Cuison.

imeetwelve@gmail.com.

Tony Daquipa. mrt916@yahoo.com. Jude Paul Dizon. jpm.dizon@gmail.com. Marco Lorenzo Ferrer.

marcolorenzoferrer@gmail.com. Reena Joy Flores.

Isobel Francisco. isobelfrancisco@gmail.com.

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Evangeline Belaro Gubat. Writes for magazines and for television among other -

evalunagubat@gmail.com. Sean Go seanrsgo@berkeley.edu. Pamela Kim Katigbak. Big fan of his country. pamelakatigbak@gmail.com. Erum Khan

Anakaren Mu帽oz.

anakarenmunoz.akm@gmail.com. M贸nica Teresa Ortiz.

walkintotheocean@gmail.com. Natalie Pardo pardonatalie72886@gmail.com. Lorenzo Perillo.

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Bel Poblador. Los Angeles native and UCLA graduate. Lived and loved in San Francisco for four years until 2011, when she returned to L.A. Is currently pursuing her MFA in Writing at CalArts, but she still dreams of San Francisco fog. bel.poblador@gmail.com. Tony Robles. Co-Editor of POOR Magazine, a revolutionary poor-people led media organization reporting on issues affecting poor communities and communities of color. For information, go to www.poormagazine.org. Nominated for Pushcart Prize 2011 for story, “In My Country”. Poems/Stories published in various antholgies. tonyrobles1964@hotmail.com. Janice Sapigao. Pinay poet and writer born and raised in San Jose, CA. Completed a writing residency with author M. Evelina Galang at UC Berkeley for the 2011 Voices of Our Nation (VONA) writers’ conference. Received her B.A. with Honors in Ethnic Studies from UC San Diego where she was a Ronald E. McNair scholar. Is currently working on her M.F.A. in Critical Studies Writing at CalArts. Teaches creative writing to youth of all ages in the Los Angeles area. Enjoys playing with stuffed animals, drinking green tea, running and cooking. janicesapigao@gmail.com. Melissa Sipin. Writer from Carson, California. Has been nominated for a Pushcart Prize in 2012 and her writing has been published or is forthcoming in Kweli Journal, Tidal Basin Review, and Kartika Review, among other publications. Is currently pursuing melissa.sipin@gmail.com. Sonia B. SyGaco. Obsessed with mirrors, labyrinth, and hour glass, Sonia B. SyGaco loves weaving phenomenal events. She holds an M.A. in Creative Writing from Silliman University in the Philippines. ssygaco@gmail.com. Reya Mari Veloso. Graduated BA Communication Arts Major in Writing at University of the Philippines Los Banos on 2011. Most of her literary pieces are published in the Sunday Times Magazine. reyamarisveloso@gmail.com. Justine Villanueva. Born in Malaybalay, Bukidnon. Came to the United States when she was 17. Her writing focuses on Filipino identity, especially through the lenses of gender, age, and immigration. Currently runs her own law practice and lives in El Cerrito, CA with her husband and two sons. JustineVillanueva@hotmail.com. Eduardo Zermeno. Graduate of Cal Poly Pomona, Eduardo holds a BA in Fine Art with a Minor in Philosophy. Lives and works in Southern California. Their work explores ezermeno@csupomona.edu.

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Co-Editor In Chief Although “Broke” has the potential to evoke hopelessness, it can also point to the possibility for positive transformation.

CHRISTINE FUKUSHIMA Co-Editor In Chief To me, “broke” means ready to

JOHANN CHRISTINE ALCARAZ

Archivist In my life, BROKE presents an opportunity to be mended. It is the necessary struggle that strengthens that which is broken which, in most cases, is me. But most importantly, because I am broken, it is a reminder of the saving grace and precious gift given to me by my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.

MARIE JOYCE ARTAP

Literary Editor/Finance Coordinator Broke is separation and creation all at once.

TISHIANA MANN

Consultant Broke means when something doesn’t work anymore-- when the life span of something has reached its end. It’s hard to accept when yourself into idealistically believing that things will never fall apart. But having things break is just a part of reality. So bask in the knowledge that all things are temporary, and enjoy them before they go. After destruction, new things can grow.

JOHN W DOMINGO

Community Project Organizer Broke. 1. n. A determined spirit in spite

EARNEST DELGADO Co-External Public Relations

HAZEL ANNE ESCUSA

When the world seems incomplete.

BI O G

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JORELLE JAVIER

Co-Layout Editor To be “broke” creates an opportunity for one to

DANA TINIO

Co-Layout Editor

broke offers a sense of renewal.

REENA JOY FLORES

Webmistress Broke: means healing.

ALYSSA ABLAO Co-External Relations

or that you are not enough. Being broke is born out of the

LORENZ GONZALES

Media Editor Broke is the essence of loss. But, within that loss is an

ROCHELLE RAMIREZ

Events Coordinator/ Human Resources “broke” is my bank account after four

RAYMOND SAPIDA Consultant

it means being broken as a person. Someone greatest lessons.

MARIA VALLARTA

Consultant I like to think of “broke” as a moment time to turn something that was once

that picture turns out.

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