These photos were taken at the First Annual Filipino-American Visionary Awards held at the (Oscar venue!) Kodak Theater. It was a blast!! :)
With Christian Aubert, CEO, www.smartfrench.com. I almost did not hire a professional to do my make-up. Thank god I did. Ayayay! There were so many cameras flashing my lower lip started to shake. I had to do a sexy pout to stop it. Haha!
With Fritz Friedman, Sony’s Home Entertainment Senior VP of worldwide publicity and Christian Aubert
With Ramil Gonzales, CEO, NuVision Worldwide Media
With Christine aka Happy Slip and Christian Aubert. I love Happy Slip. She’s sooo cute! Check her out on youtube. She’s so funny!
With (center) Anna Maria Perez de Tagle (Hannah Montana)
With Brian McKnight. Had to take a photo with him. My sister Angeli is a fan :)
With Martin Nievera. My sisters and I used to watch his TV show in the Philippines. I was a huge fan :)
With Rudy Fernandez. He’s the Philippines’ top action star :)
I guess I’m supposed to know who he is :) He’s cute but a little too young for me. Haha!
There were so many people taking pictures. It was crazy!
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My niece works as an intern for a woman who designs handbags.
Here's a photo of her wearing one of the handbags.
A few weeks ago she and her dad visited a few art colleges here in Los Angeles. She's very smart. A straight A student. She'll graduate from high school next year.
Her sister goes to Hamilton College.
"Hamilton is a private, independent, highly selective liberal arts college located in Clinton, New York. In 2007, U.S. News & World Report ranked Hamilton the 17th best liberal arts college in the United States. The college is known for its emphasis on writing and speaking.
Hamilton is sometimes referred to as the "College on the Hill", due to the school's location on top of College Hill, just outside of downtown Clinton. Hamilton College considers itself one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country, and is considered one of the "Little Ivies."
I went to see the OBIE (Off Broadway Theater) award winning play, The Romance of Magno Rubio, last Saturday at The Los Angeles Theater. It was a very good production. I knew Jojo Gonzales from New York (he played the lead role) and Bernardo Bernardo (yes, that's his name!). He knows my dad from the Philippines. I haven't seen him act onstage in years. He's good. In fact, all of them were very good. I'm very happy to see that Ma-Yi Theater is doing very well! I can't wait for my next trip to New York City to see more plays.
Cast: Jojo Gonzales, Arthur Acuna, Paulo Montalban, Ramon De Ocampo, Bernardo Bernardo
The Romance of Magno Rubio is based on a short-story by the McCarthy-era blacklisted novelist Carlos Bulosan.
It "tells the tale of Magno, a short Filipino migrant worker who longs for love. Set in the central valleys of California in the 1930's, the play follows Magno's long-distance relationship via love letters exchanged with his pen pal Clarabelle, a woman from Arkansas whom Magno discovers through a lonely-hearts ad. Believing he has found the woman of his dreams, the young man fantasizes about their life together, only to soon realize that reality and dreams do not always align."
An Asian-American, Bulosan himself came to the U.S. as a Filipino immigrant worker, and went on to become a celebrated writer whose radical activism and writings about the horrendous conditions for migrant workers in the U.S. landed him on Senator Joseph McCarthy's notorious blacklist in the 50's.
In 2003, Ma-Yi Theater Company won 8 OBIE Awards for the creators, original cast and director of its original production of The Romance of Magno Rubio. The show, in various other productions around the country, received a Jeff Award Best Play nomination and OC Award Best Play and Best Ensemble nominations, as well as a ALIW Award for Best Play for its production in Manila.
Carlos Bulosan (1911-1956) was one of the most influential of Asian American writers of his time. A Filipino immigrant, he worked in the fish canneries of Alaska and on farms in Washington and California. He eventually became an activist in the labor movement. The horrendous working conditions of Filipino laborers were fictionalized in his best-known work "America Is in the Heart" (1946). President Franklin D. Roosevelt commissioned Bulosan to write the essay "Four Freedoms" in 1945. Because of his radical activism, Bulosan was blacklisted by Senator Joseph McCarthy during the anti-Communist movement of the 1950s. His books include "Poetry from America," "Chorus from America," "The Voice of Bataan," "The Cry and the Dedication," and "The Sound of Falling Light."
Ma-Yi Theater Company is described in press notes as "the leading company in the U.S. devoted to presenting work about the Asian-American experience."
My father received from Philippine President Arroyo and the New York Consul General office the Presidential Achievement of Merit medallion and a Tribute from the Philippine Consulate General's office for his work since 1958.
President Arroyo, Dad, Ma
CJ and Alexandria Cancio (of IN'ARTES Musical Theater Workshop)performed a stage reading of one of my father's one-act plays, "Oli Impan" (Holy Infant). "Oli Impan, set in 1958, is about two children caught in the middle of eviction 5 days before Christmas by Manila Mayor Antonio Villegas in a squatter area in Binondo in the Philippines.
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