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When I was a young activist writer in the Bay Area, I thought I had all the answers. Sometimes I was right, and a lot of times I was just plain ignor… - Jessica Hagedorn
" "When I was a young activist writer in the Bay Area, I thought I had all the answers. Sometimes I was right, and a lot of times I was just plain ignorant and wrong. There were a few positive things that came from my impatience, energy and anger: I dared to do things with my artistic comrades that hadn’t been done before. We came together in writing collectives to make books because most writers of color were not being published at the time. We didn’t know how to publish, but we learned how to do it guerrilla-style. We organized readings, performances and concerts, made posters and came out to support each other big-time. We brought the noise. And got it done. It all boils down to that old cliche: believe in yourself. Trust in your creative vision and the power of your distinct writer’s voice. (2022)
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About Jessica Hagedorn
Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn (born 1949) is a Filipino playwright, writer, poet, and multimedia performance artist.
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Jessica Tarahata Hagedorn
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Additional quotes by Jessica Hagedorn
My leaving was not of my doing; that was because of my parents’ breakup. But I was fortunate to be living in San Francisco. There was so much activity, so many activists, so many Filipinos fleeing, coming over. It was the perfect time for me to grow as an artist. I mean, we came in the ’60s—can you imagine? We hit the Summer of Love. There were all these political movements that opened my eyes. I met all these amazing young Filipino American poets who became my teachers. They were going to demonstrations, and I got involved. I was reading up on it, making connections. My God, my brain was vibrating! There was a coup d’état in Chile. There was war in El Salvador. People were making alliances, making connections, and I came to understand: It wasn’t just about us. It was about all these colonies—former colonies—that had the same people running shit, who were probably engineering all these coups. It was a harsh awakening for me and a lot of people like me. (2020)
(KASJ: What kinds of real-life events are useful for fiction?) JH: All of it is useful. It's very personal what will move one artist and what will move another. I think you can find [art] in both the smallest thing and in the most horrific catastrophe. It could be something as simple as the mystery of seeing someone enter a room, down to a major historical event like the Tasaday controversy or the Vietnam War. Everything is fodder. (The Women's Review of Books, March 2004)
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Philippine literature—just like the Philippines itself—is complicated, and can’t be easily described or pinned down. Over 7000 islands make up the Philippines, and over a hundred languages and dialects are spoken!...(What common elements and themes do you see in Philippine writing? And what do you see in the pieces here?) JH: Yearning, and melancholy. Mordant humor, a certain kind of fatalism, love of the macabre and supernatural. A love of puns and a sense of irony. A reckoning with history and the colonial past. (2019)
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