The Beverly Rogers, Carol C. Harter Black Mountain Institute (BMI) will host a reading and conversation with the writer Grace Talusan at 7 p.m. on Tuesday, Dec. 3 in the UNLV Rogers Literature & Law Building Room 101. The reading will be followed by a conversation with BMI 2024-25 Shearing Fellow Monica Macansantos. The event is free with RSVP and open to the public.

Grace Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing and the Massachusetts Book Award in Nonfiction. Her work has been supported by the National Endowment for the Arts, Fulbright, US Artists, the Brother Thomas Fund, and the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as with artist residencies, most recently at MASS MoCA and Vermont Studio Center. She teaches writing at Brown University and is on the board of the National Book Critics Circle. She was born in the Philippines, raised in New England, and currently lives outside of Boston.

This event is part of the Kwentuhan at Chikahan: Las Vegas Filipino Book Club series. The goal of the series is to read and respond to the works of critically acclaimed Filipino authors, towards finding meaning in everyday struggles and triumphs.

Talusan discussed her life and work with JM Huck, an MFA student in the UNLV Creative Writing International Program. The conversation was edited for length and clarity.

Huck: I feel like oftentimes children of immigrant parents are really encouraged to pursue STEM or health care professions. Was that a consideration for you, or were you set on pursuing writing?

Talusan: The only people I knew growing up were doctors. All the Filipino friends that my parents had were doctors, and my parents never said directly or explicitly that I should study sciences. I had dinner with my parents a couple of hours ago, and my nephew, who is in high school, said, “you know, I think I want to study engineering when I go to college.” And then my dad was like, “not medicine?” So it's like a joke. 

I tried to pursue it, because I tried to be a good girl, and I wasn't good at it. I would go and shadow doctors and spend my summers in the hospital trying to do research work. I took all the sciences for pre-med through senior year. I was only one or two classes short of the major, but by then I decided to not pursue that route anymore.

I've met people who've said their parents will not pay for college unless they study nursing, and that wasn't what happened with me. I've met people whose families had The New Yorker and The Atlantic and The Paris Review coming to their house. We didn't, you know, so I didn't know what a life in academia or literary culture looked like at all. And so it was really scary for me to try something different, to not know what the path was, except to just keep following it.

I don't know if this number is still correct, but I think Filipino Americans have some of the lower college graduation rates, and there's probably a lot of different reasons for that, but at least anecdotally, some of the people I've met gave up on college because they were in the wrong field. 

Huck: What was it like having so many siblings? I’m picturing Party of Five, the TV show. What was your relationship like with your siblings?

Talusan: I was #2, and it's almost like growing up in different families, because my family's life changed during the course of the five children. My older sister and I were both born in the Philippines, and we were immigrants as children. And, then the other three kids were born in the U.S. My parents were too busy working seven days a week that we were just by ourselves. I can't speak for my siblings, but I think all of us were pushing hard to figure out what we wanted in life and how to get it. 

Huck: When you said your parents were busy with their jobs, would you say that you and the older sibling were parenting in a way?

Talusan: Very much. My older sister got it more than any of us as the oldest girl. She was definitely a parentified child doing things that we would be shocked that a child was taking on that responsibility. Maybe it was just it was the ‘80s and we were raised differently than people later on, even in my own family.

Huck: My favorite moments in The Body Papers are moments of what I’d call “embodied agency.” For me, that would be the very clear moment when you pushed away your grandfather. And secondly, after you had your mastectomy, the fury that you felt towards that particular doctor. Can you think of other ways that you or others have acted as agents in charge of their own bodies?

Talusan: I think about my parents taking their bodies and moving to go somewhere else, even though it would be much easier to stay. They didn't have much information then. And yet they took their bodies and moved, and they took our bodies and moved us, too. They were feeling that it was unsafe and things were getting hard, so they moved us. 

Then I think of this conversation that I've had with the niblings in my life and one thing that came up was about the “free the nipple” thing and their desires to not wear bras. On the one hand, I'm like, it is your body like you're right to choose what to wear. You can express yourself. Also I have to tell them, you're 16, and you're going to the mall in this suburb, and I don't know if that's the right place. You will probably get a certain kind of attention, and you have to think about whether you want to deal with that right now. 

Of course, then they're confused and wonder, “Why can't I just wear whatever I want?” I tell them they’re right. But I also tell them, here's what you might experience, too. So, it feels complicated even though it sounds really simple. I think it’s important for people to decide. 

Huck: The book mentions your balikbayan visit to the Philippines. How else might people in diaspora reconnect with “home”?

Talusan: In college, I had the opportunity to connect with Filipino history, Filipino American literature, and Asian American literature. I didn't have the opportunities to do that in my high school or at home by myself. This is anecdotal, but I've been talking with people in Filipino clubs in colleges, and for some reason there seems to be a divide between the Filipino Americans and the Filipino international students. I want to help bridge that divide. I am also active in a Filipino American book club where we get together once a month. It’s fun having this shared experience and shared space to talk about things. 

Huck: I saw in your acknowledgments you mentioned some of the books by authors of color that were inspirational to you. Nowadays, what are some books by authors of color, Filipino, Asian, or BIPOC, that you put into your students' hands?

Talusan: Ross Gay’s The Book of Delights and Aimee Nezhukumatathil’s World of Wonders. They’re part of a particular reading list when I teach this class called Writing Wonder, Joy, and Awe. Also, The Undercommons by Fred Moten and Stefano Harney. Jessica Hoppe’s First In The Family… or my student’s books. I’m thrilled and excited for those students of color that I worked with or mentored in some capacity, and I try to support their books coming out in the world. It makes me really happy.

About Black Mountain Institute

Black Mountain Institute at UNLV champions writers and storytellers through programs, fellowships and community engagement. From the brightest spot on the planet, BMI amplifies writing and artistic expression to connect us to each other in the Las Vegas Valley, the Southwest, and beyond.