The POST chats with Toronto-based author Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio about her debut novel and how she’s helping pave the way for more Fil-Can writers.
Filipino diasporic writers have finally been getting the recognition they so richly deserve in the literary world. There’s The New Yorker staff writer Jia Tolentino, who is best known for her acclaimed collection of essays Trick Mirror. We also have award-winning Filipino-American writers Randy Ribay, Mia P. Manansala, Elaine Castillo, Albert Samaha, Erin Entrads Kelly among many others.
Not much, however, is known about Filipino-Canadian writers and their experiences.
But things are changing, especially through the efforts of Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio. The Toronto-based Fil-Can writer founded Filipino Talks— an initiative that builds bridges between Canadian educators and Filipino families.
Her work with Filipino Talks—teaching educators how to better support Filipino communities, and facilitating workshops for students and parents— inspired her to write her debut novel, Reuniting with Strangers. A collection of intertwined short stories, the novel puts the Filipino-Canadian experience front and center through Austria-Bonifacio’s deft writing.
Following its publication, Reuniting with Strangers became a finalist for the Jim Wong-Chu Emerging Authors Award; won silver for Multicultural Fiction at the Independent Publisher Book Awards; and was longlisted for the Toronto Book Awards and for Canada Reads 2024. The Canadian Broadcasting Corporation also featured it on their Best Books in Canada list.
The POST chats with the multi-hyphenate—journalist, settlement worker, researcher, and now published author—about how it is being a Filipino-Canadian writer, her writing journey, literary influences, and a few other things in between.
The POST: When did you first realize that you love to write? What is your earliest writing-related memory?
Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio: Although I grew up in Sarnia, a small city four hours outside of Toronto, my family was part of a strong Filipino community who gave me an incredible cultural foundation and taught me that being born into a diaspora doesn’t mean that we have to be removed from our heritage.
But while I had a strong connection to Filipino culture, in terms of writing, my biggest influence was my ate who was consistently at the top of her English classes. She was so brilliant that I always say that she was the first Filipino writer I’d ever met!
My favorite early creative writing memories involve typing out these epic, absolutely unhinged letters for her to read after she moved away for university, and hoping that she would laugh (and maybe a little bit impressed, too)!
TP: Who were your earliest writing influences?
JAB: The first time I ever saw a Filipino author’s work was when I spent a semester at Western Washington University, and my professor, Filipino-American poet Oliver de la Paz, announced that we would be reading Carlos Bulosan’s America is in the Heart.
I remember being shocked at hearing my class groan— although many of them were Fil-Ams—because they just saw this as another novel that they had to get through. Meanwhile, as someone coming from a Canadian background, I couldn’t believe it— here I was, in a real university, with my first Filipino professor, being assigned my first Filipino book!
This opened a door to a world that I’d always longed for.
TP: Who/What are your current influences/favorites?
JAB: For many Filipino writers in Canada, Catherine Hernandez has been a shining light in our community. Her immense success as an author and screenwriter has been so inspiring to me and many others. I remember watching her at the Toronto Book Awards in 2017 and being so proud that a Filipina could capture the hearts of our city so beautifully.
Also, as a school board consultant specializing in the Filipino community, I read many Filipino middle-grade and Young Adult novels so that I can recommend them to teachers, and I’ve loved many books by Mae Coiyuto, Candy Gourlay, Mae Respicio, and Tracy Badua.
TP: How is it being a writer of Filipino descent in Canada?
JAB: As a Filipino-Canadian writer, I am honored to use my art to educate people about our community and to help Filipinos feel seen. I’ve been invited to speak at numerous literary festivals and events, and I’ve been featured on TV, radio, and podcasts multiple times. Reuniting with Strangers has been getting a wonderful reception.
However, I will say that it can be overwhelming to be in an industry where you feel like you’re one of the first. The Filipino-Canadian diaspora hasn’t historically been known for literature, but I’m happy to report that things are changing swiftly!
I’m a founding member of a Toronto-based Filipino literary collective called Salaysay, and I’m so proud that in May, we held Canada’s first Filipino literary festival here in Toronto, and that wasn’t even the only Fil-Can literary event this year.
This July, community organizers in British Columbia and Quebec also made waves: there was the Filipino-Canadian Book Festival in Vancouver, and there was the Kagat Zine Fair which gathered Filipino zinesters, makers, and artists together in Montreal.
Not only are we taking our places on Canadian bookshelves, but we’re making our own spaces and celebrating each other’s stories. We’ve entered a very exciting new era for the Filipino-Canadian diaspora, and I’m delighted to be part of it.
TB: More and more Filipinos and Filipino members of the diaspora are being published and getting noticed on an international level. What do you think it says about the current state of publishing in general?
JAB: The publishing world is seeing a huge demand for stories that reflect their readers, and luckily, more and more Filipinos in the diaspora are buying books, writing reviews, showing up at literary festivals, creating social media posts, making Filipino-centric book clubs, and more. As long as this continues, I’m optimistic that we will see the publishing world shining spotlights on even more Filipino authors. Padayon!
And as a Toronto-based writer, I have been so lucky to meet many incredible Filipino and Filipino diasporic authors over the years, like Jose Dalisay, Rio Alma, Jessica Hagedorn, Gina Apostol, and R. Zamora Linmark. I love when authors come to Toronto as part of their book tour circuit, and I’d love to welcome even more to our city.
TP: What was your inspiration for Reuniting with Strangers?
JAB: At first, writing was a way to process everything that I’d been witnessing as a frontline worker who was focused on helping Filipino newcomers here in Canada. Many Filipino families are here because a mother came to Canada through our caregiver program and then sponsored her family. As many Filipinos know, after so many years apart, it’s very hard to connect again.
Reuniting with Strangers is a collection of linked short stories about Filipino-Canadian families and their experiences with reunification.
Since working with newly-reunited families can be emotionally heavy, on nights when I’d lie awake, worrying about the students as they struggled to adapt to a new school, a new home, a new country, and a new parent, I’d write about what was on my mind as a form of self-care.
That’s why my debut novel’s dedication is “For the 1200+ Filipino Talks students whose stories kept me awake at night” — Reuniting with Strangers is truly for my Pinoy students.
TP: What’s next for you, do you have an upcoming book in the works?
JAB: In Reuniting with Strangers, the crowd favorite chapter has been “The Legacy of Lolo Bayani.” In this story, we meet a lolo in Batangas who comes from a family of famous kundiman singers. But now that he is at the end of his life and his children have all moved to Canada, he believes this legacy will end.
I think that this chapter resonated with so many people in the diaspora because we often grow up with our grandparents, and we feel a sense of loss because we lack ties to the generations who came before us. Since I have gone back to the Philippines multiple times throughout my life, I wanted to take my readers to Batangas with me to share in our musical heritage, our cultural pride, and to reflect on the potential losses that can occur when younger generations are cut off from our families and our heritage.
So for my next project, I’m planning on exploring historical fiction and continuing this theme of cross-generational connections.
With the help of the Canada Council for the Arts, I recently went to Manila to do some archival research at UP Diliman, the Filipinas Heritage Library, and the National Library of the Philippines, and to connect with librarians, teachers, artists, historians, and podcasters. Best of all, I was finally able to retrace the steps that my lola would have taken as a girl growing up in Malate and visit my lolo‘s favorite restaurants! I’m excited to see where I can take my readers next.
