Interview with Brian Ascalon Roley
By Kathryn Olney

Posted: July 2003

Filipino American author Brian Ascalon Roley didn't set out to write a teen novel when he penned his Kiriyama nominee, American Son. But it's a tale any young person could relate to. The story is told by 15 year-old, half-Filipino Gabe, who slowly drifts toward gang membership, a lure that has already ensnared his older brother. Like so many teenagers, the boy struggles inside, while overtly rejecting his family's values. "I wanted to explore the difficulties faced by 'Hapas,' people of half-Asian, half-Caucasian ancestry," explains Roley. "I thought an adolescent hero would exemplify the identity questions that loom so large for mixed-race Americans." Gabe is not just going through an adolescent-born identity crisis: he feels invisible as a Filipino too. Few Americans around him know much about the country — or its people.

Roley is a Hapa too. The soft-spoken and erudite thirty-six year-old appears more like a thoughtful English professor than a chronicler of Los Angeles gang behavior. Roley wasn't expecting to be a professional writer, nor did he dream of a life in academia. Even though he wrote a novel as a child, and a play as a teen, he didn't really begin to write seriously until law school, when he desperately needed some "right brain activity" to balance out what turned out to be the disappointing reality of law school. "I was a philosophy major in college," he says, "and I figured law school would be more of the same, debating the different sides of an issue." But he found law school all about sophistry, picking a side and just defending it.

By the time he finished law school the Rodney King riots of 1992 were dividing blacks and whites in Los Angeles and across the country. The riots reawakened his musings on race, and it became race, not the law, that vied hard for his attention. He decided to continue with his writing, and started studying creative writing at Cornell University.

Roley's mother, who is Filipino, immigrated to Los Angeles to study social work, and there she met his father, a Caucasian accountant and businessman. "Our household was more Filipino; we had this extended family living with us" says Roley. "But every day I went to school in a nearly all-white student body." He adds that while he was growing up, his parents didn't seem to have much trouble melding their two cultures. But he watched as his cousin's adopted the dress and mannerisms of Latino gang culture. By high school, Roley was becoming more and more aware of his own "invisibility."

"We are different from other Asian Americans because we are easily absorbed into U.S. culture," notes Roley "We are often just barely seen as generic Asians. I remember standing around in a group in high school, and even though everyone knew I was Filipino, they would still tell racist jokes. I guess the good thing about being invisible is that I never heard any racist jokes about Filipinos… but it still felt terrible."

Roley thinks that fewer and fewer young Americans are aware of the U.S. acquisition of the Philippines, and of how president McKinley's decision to govern the country marked the entrance of America on to the world stage as a colonialist power. He says that Americans are not even familiar enough with their former territory to form any stereotype at all about it. "Ironically, some stereotypes raise the awareness about the positive things that an ethnic or racial group brings to the country — such as Chinese or Thai food, or Japanese design. Filipinos' devotion to their families, especially children and the elderly, is not well known, nor is the complex nature of Filipino Catholicism, which is far more animistic than the American version. I meet people with advanced degrees that aren't even aware of our history with the Philippines."

Filipinos are the second largest Asian group in the United States, but it's hard to tell, even in Los Angeles. Some have argued that because so many professional and skilled Filipinos come to the country, they blend seamlessly into the local workforce. Roley also thinks America's colonial influence has permeated every large city in the Philippines, so Filipinos are for the most part enamoured with American culture, and are often just as happy to seamlessly adopt it when they arrive in the USA.

Colonization is another major theme in American Son. "The colonialized attitudes of my characters affect how they assimilate into American culture," explains Roley. " I found inspiration in post-colonial works by non-American writers such as V.S. Naipaul. Colonization is a subtext in my new book as well." The tragicomedy, which is still in the works, follows members of Gabe's family as they continue to spread out and assimilate, and bicker over who will get stuck caring for the matriarch. (They would have been bickering for the opposite reason in the Philippines — over who would get to take care of her.) "I love Greek and Shakespearian tragicomedy. I sometimes think straight comedy can create too much of an emotional distance. I'm very aware of what tragic structure can bring to a story."

American Son ends on its own bleak note. Roley says he always envisioned that the brother's disconnection from their roots would be their tragic flaw. "Racism, in a way, is its own character in the novel. Attitudes jump about from point to point. The younger brother is tempted by the same attitudes that are used against him. I suppose those choices are his tragic errors."

Roley says that a few Filipinos and Filipino Americans apparently took offense at American Son. They felt that Filipino values are too strong to ever allow such tragedy to happen. Roley argues that such thinking denies the real problems that some Filipino Americans face: "Showing only the positive side of any racial community is a manipulation that ultimately hurts that same community," he argues. Besides, he adds, "In that sort of restricted atmosphere good writing that the Filipinos can be proud of will never flourish."

Roley is quick to point out that he sees glimmers of hope for Filipino Americans. Some college professors have used American Son as part of their curriculum. On California campuses especially, there seems to be more interest in activisim, unity and "Pino Pride" than ever before. The obsession with Latino American gang culture in American Son not only reflects the changing demographics in California, according to Roley, "it also reflects our fascination with Latino and African American culture. Filipinos look up to them because of their success in raising awareness about their culture in American society."

He plans to continue to raise awareness about Filipino culture in his own household. "I want to expose my son to plenty of new and established Filipino Americans, he says resolutely. "I don't want that side of his heritage to be lost."

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