Reuniting with Strangers: A Novel by Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio
I started reading this book on the train, on my commute to campus, and & I finished it that same day on my commute home. The TTC was a silent witness to the overwhelming feeling of being seen. Grief for the emotional upheavals that couldn’t be shared in language, verbal or physical. Joy for families that made it back together after decades of separation. Relief for the characters who met each other with loving generosity and the recognition that this was something new, making room for things which were not expected. And most of all, I was steeped in that sense of liminality that many of us in the Filipino diaspora are intimately familiar with: which way is “here,” and which way is “there”? I lost myself in the novel & came up for air every few stops or so, half-emerging from my dazed state to make sure I hadn’t gone past where I was supposed to get off. I cried at Wilson Station when Lolo Bayani and Monolith met at the bahay-na-bato, cried again at St. Patrick station later that day when Lolo Bayani sang for Monolith, & when Jermayne and Monolith met in Toronto. It felt apt to be reading about the experiences of migration on the train; I kept thinking about how home is always a place we leave behind, and also a place we are building in the present. Migrants always seem to be homeward bound.
From the first page where Jennilee asks, “Why do we call it ‘the motherland’ when it isn’t where our mothers are,” this book felt like a song I knew the chorus to. Even the places I’ve not been to, like Sarnia and Iqaluit, or experiences I never had, like Jermayne’s conversation with their father — it all felt like I knew the characters. I have met them fleetingly in these pages, but I will be carrying them with me in my heart for a long time. As a daughter who experienced echoes of some of the things reflected in the book, I am in awe at how Jennilee wrote us into these pages with such gentleness & truth. What a tender exploration of what it means to be Filipino-Canadian. What gorgeous stories about us, by us.
Maraming salamat for such a gift, Jennilee. So much love for you!
Dani Magsumbol 