Filipino-Canadian Book Festival comes to Vancouver for the first time

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The inaugural “Filipino-Canadian Book Festival” is coming to Vancouver from July 12 to 14, featuring author panels, workshops, and performances to celebrate Filipino literature at the Collingwood Neighbourhood House and Massy Arts Gallery. 

Writer and digital designer Nathalie De Los Santos, along with author Maria Bolaños and Massy Books manager Dani Alcalde-Sidloski, decided to launch the festival after attending similar festivals in other cities. Their goal is to bring Filipino authors and the community together for people to learn more about their history and heritage.

“We want to highlight voices, legacy, heritage, [and] impact,” De Los Santos says. “It’s about that documentation, that history, and how we represent our community.” 

Some of the author panels include “World-building and Cultural Research for Storytelling,” at 10:15 am, “Writing Between the Lines” at 11:30 am, and “The Poetry Prism: Shaping Realities” at 12:45 pm, all on July 13, among others.

The keynote speaker of the event is award-winning author Catherine Hernandez who will receive the “CanDila Award” for her contributions to the Filipino community, which include creating visibility and opportunities. 

The festival will also feature a youth-led open mic to showcase work from Filipino youth that “might not necessarily be traditionally published,” De Los Santos says, a “Cross-Coast Talk” where the Filipino Canadian Book Festival on the West Coast will virtually connect with Salaysay, an East Coast literary festival that took place earlier in Toronto, and a “Map of Wholeness” event to celebrate and bring community members together.

“‘Map of Wholeness’ is an interactive community discussion because we thought it would be really great to have authors and the community speak to one another about what it’s like to live in the diaspora and be Filipino in Canada,” De Los Santos says. 

Stephanie Sy is one of the authors that will present her children’s book A Roof!, which will be published in fall, at the event.

“It’s a story about a little girl who finds a roof that lands in her backyard after a storm,” Sy says. “On the roof, it says, ‘If found, please return to,’ so she and her father go on a journey to return the roof to the owners.’ 

The story is set in the Philippines where typhoons are a common occurrence, and after which community members help one another rebuild their homes. 

“This part of Asian life — having typhoons, which are very destructive, and communities coming together — this is so common, but perhaps, not a story or an experience that is familiar in the rest of the world,” Sy says.

The story reflects the Filipino philosophy bayanihan, which is about “people working together for the greater good of a community,” Sy says, adding that another theme is kindness and how “one gesture … can really grow into something very impactful.”

“In my book, the houses are on stilts, and that is a traditional way of constructing a home [in the Philippines],” she says. “It allows the home to be lifted by a group of people and move the house to wherever they need to .… So that idea of coming together to help [the] family is an example of bayanihan.” 

The book includes illustrations of different landscapes in the Philippines to highlight the country’s diversity, in addition to introducing some Tagalog words. 

Sy says she is happy to be part of the festival, meet other writers in-person, and be able to promote the Filipino narrative and experience, adding that it is important for immigrants living in North America to learn more about their identity and their roots.

“There’s so many Filipinos in North America and they are making such huge sacrifices. So, for them to be able to see there’s a Filipino community that’s coming together and sharing their stories is so important.”

For more details about the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival, visit filcanbookfest.squarespace.com/.