[Note: I am not linking to Arkipelago Books's website because it's apparently got malicious software installed.]

As many of you know, before Poeta en San Francisco and Diwata, my very hard to find first book, Gravities of Center, was published by SF-based, Filipino American owned Arkipelago Books, in 2003. Gravities of Center is a collection of what I can best describe as juvenalia, as many poets’ first books are. What I remember most about my first book’s impending and actual publication was the tremendous energy, support, and even love, I felt the local community gave me. So much support, so much effervescent, “you did so good, sister!” or “way to go, little sister!”

I bring this up now, because while I am sure that had to do with the accomplishment of first book, I am now more certain this had to do with who published my first book, far beyond the margins of the American poetry industry. Having grown up in the Bay Area Filipino American community, I believed in Arkipelago’s importance to our community. We know whom they are there to serve; that’s us. Nowhere else in the country is there a Filipino American owned bookstore and independent press invested in, directed specifically toward the local community. Hence, the importance of my first book for the local community (addendum: and the host of local Filipino American educators so enthusiastic about teaching my work). And now, I don’t think I will ever feel that sense of energy and support from the local community again, given my publishing trajectory outward and elsewhere, despite my continued insistence — since my very first DIY chapbook and even before this as a Maganda editor — upon multilingual, politicized, Filipina-centric poetics.

This makes me sad, even while I am tremendously grateful for the publication and wider distribution of Poeta en San Francisco and Diwata. But with these two subsequent books, I’ve entered into a publishing arena that has historically ignored or objectified Filipino American authors. While I don’t feel particularly ignored or objectified, I know the larger publishing industry isn’t invested in forwarding my community’s stories. And this is precisely why all kinds of independent publishers are born; specific communities’ needs are overlooked, or ignored, or simply inconceivable to the mainstream.

Since I am supposed to be thinking on diversity and publishing, I am thinking now on what it is my specific local community’s needs and demands are. One major factor is maintaining control over the means of production and distribution. Determining what is to be published, what aesthetics, what and whose stories to promote, not waiting for the permission or acceptance of others. Ultimately, there is the need to be independent of the larger, mainstream (USA) American publication industry standards, whether this be profit-driven, dumbed down, politically defanged, or “white-washed.”

I have blogged about this before, asking for whose benefit we strive for diversity in American publishing. Is it for us marginalized folks, to experience the benevolence and political correctness of mainstream publishing bodies? Or for mainstream publishers to feel good about themselves for their acts of benevolence and political correctness? Does my community particularly care whether one of “us” get published in CV-worthy, prestigious journals or achieve successes within this MFA Industrial Complex? I don’t believe they do. I have been questioning why I choose to remain in this industry, and contradict myself by staying. I’ve recently discussed this contradiction with a local, emerging Pinoy artist; I’ve talked about about the importance of trying to inhabit both. But I’m not so convinced myself.

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