Myra Garces-Bacsal here.

It’s Monday, What are You Reading is a meme hosted by Kellee and Ricki from Unleashing Readers (new host of Monday reading: Kathryn T at Book Date).

Last week, I shared the books that found me during the recently concluded Emirates Airline Festival of Literature with the Magrudy’s bookshop providing a delectable array of books on display (see here for my book haul).

In keeping with the comic theme which I shared during my Monday reading last week, here are two more comic books written and illustrated by two international guest speakers who were invited for the Festival a few weeks back: Malaka Gharib who is Filipina-Egyptian-American and Candy Gourlay, Filipina-British. Here were some of their sessions during the festival:

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I Was Their American Dream: A Graphic Memoir

Created by: Malaka Gharib Published by: Clarkson Potter (2019) ISBN: 9780525575115 (ISBN10: 0525575111). Award: Arab American Book Award for Children’s/Young Adult (2020) Bought a copy of the book. Book photos taken by me. 

Malaka has always been instructed by her Filipina mother (an immigrant who lives in Cerritos, California with her siblings and parents who all immigrated from the Philippines) that she has to be “better than us” – which includes Malaka’s Egyptian father who also moved to the United States to chase the great big American dream. It became clearer as the story progresses, from Malaka’s mixed-race childhood to her adolescent years then later on to her time at the university and at work, what being “better” entailed and the price she had to pay to get it.

Reading this story reminded me of another graphic novel with a similar theme, Duran Duran, Imelda Marcos, and Me by Lorina Mapa (see my review here) whose Filipino family moved to Canada during the time of the EDSA revolution (also around the same time that Malaka’s middle-class, relatively-affluent Filipino family moved from Manila to the United States).

True enough, Malaka’s mother had to work two jobs to provide for her family and ostensibly to maintain the lifestyle that they have been accustomed to. I chuckled at some of the distinctly Filipino-American references given how most of my husband’s extended family members also live in the Bay Area. For example, this notion that young people can only pursue certain types of careers in order for them to be financially self sufficient is so achingly true:

What struck me the most, however, was Malaka’s thoughtful examination of what it means to be Filipina and Egyptian and also American. I love how she is able to navigate these cultural ideations, parallelisms, and divergences with humor, grace, and kindness. It was clear how much her parents’ approval meant to her, notwithstanding their divorce and the fact that her father eventually moved back to Egypt and remarried. 

The entire graphic novel was written with such light-heartedness and warmth – without necessarily denying the challenges inherent in growing up with two religions (Islam and Catholicism), varying cultural values and norms, keeping up with multiple families across California and Egypt and the Philippines, and finding her way through all this in a sea of White-centric society which became ever more apparent when Malaka started working, and was made to play the part of the ‘diverse employee’ in her company, a tokenistic representation that barely scratched the surface of all the other microaggressions that she needed to endure in order to move up in the world and be “better” than her parents. One of my favorite parts of the graphic novel is the “microaggressions bingo” below – as any person of color who has lived in countries different from their countries of birth will be able to attest.

This graphic novel has elucidated with such compassion and thoughtfulness what intersectionality means; the fluidity of our cultural influences and resulting identities; and the many ways through which our multi-layered identities are challenged by the larger society, by our own family members, and ultimately even by our own selves as we attempt to carve a space in the world as transnational human beings.

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This Is Not Work

Created by: Candy Gourlay Published by: Tail Wags Dog ISBN: 978-1-7384103-0-9. Book was gifted to me by the comic book creator. Book photos taken by me. 

Candy Gourlay is best known for her middle grade and young adult novels which has won multiple acclaim over the years (see here for my review of her first novel Tall Story, and my interview with her). In fact, she was invited to speak at the Emirates Lit Festival mainly to discuss her latest novel Wild Song, a sequel to Bone Talk.

This Is Not Work is her first published graphic memoir collection, even though she has been doodling and making cartoons for a very long time. In fact, Candy shared how she has attempted multiple times over the years to publish stories that she has illustrated herself (including comics) to no avail. It was in 2023 when her talent, skill, and hard work in making comics eventually paid off, with her comic strip Safe Passage becoming a runner up for the Faber/Observer/Comica graphic short story competition. Safe Passage is also included in this collection.

Similar to Malaka’s I Was Their American Dream, Candy’s This Is Not Work also referenced the People Power Revolution in Manila, where she, as a journalist, met her foreign correspondent British husband, Richard. This serendipitous meeting proved to be pivotal in her eventual decision to move to the United Kingdom and raise a family there.

What entertained me the most about this collection of illustrated comic stories is how Candy’s effervescent personality and her sense of humor (which can be delightfully self-disparaging, most times) shone through in every page. Anyone who has heard her speak at conventions and literary festivals would be able to attest to her dynamism and vibrance and capacity to move and inspire the audience.

Her comic strips which draw from her own life: being married to a White British guy, raising multi-racial children (who are now all grown and such beautiful human beings), and being away from family members and loved ones who live in the Philippines had been captured with so much tenderness and loving care here (see below):

Candy has the capacity to distil tragedy with humor and pathos, even as her heart I am sure must be breaking as she created the below about her elderly mother who suffered from Alzheimer’s finding everything so strange and unfamiliar in the hospital during COVID:

I loved how she described making comics as “pure joy” – which I believe should make us reflect on why we do what we do in our too-short lives. It is not surprising, then, that as a reader, I also experienced “pure joy” in reading what she creates.

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About Malaka Gharib, Author of I Was Their American Dream (author bio sourced from here):

About Candy Gourlay, Author of This Is Not Work (author bio sourced from here):

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#UAEReads strives to be reflective of the diverse demographic population that makes up the country of the United Arab Emirates (see Global Media Insight source of demographics as of 2024). Hence, we will be featuring literature coming from the major nationalities comprising the entire country: Emiratis, Pakistanis, Indians, Filipinos (comprising 5.56% of the population), Egyptians (4.23% of the population) – and other nationalities who have made UAE their home.

About the Guest Editor/Curator for March 2024 [#UAEReads]:

Myra Garces-Bacsal has served as a teacher educator for 15 years and has led several research projects on reading and social emotional learning, diverse picturebooks and teacher practices, psychology of high creatives and exceptional people, culturally responsive and inclusive education. She is a quintessential lover and creator of booklists (see her Social and Emotional Learning bookshelf here and other publications below). Myra serves as the Assistant Dean for Research and Graduate Studies with the College of Education, UAE University. She is a self-proclaimed nerd who lives and breathes books and enjoys organizing events and festivals where fellow nerds converge and attempt to joyfully change the world.

Publications on booklists:

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Tupas, R. (2023). A diverse social and emotional learning booklist for gifted learners and advanced readers. Roeper Review, 45(1), 25-36. https://doi.org/10.1080/02783193.2022.2145397

Garces-Bacsal, R. M., Alhosani, N. M., Elhoweris, H., Al Ghufli, H. T., AlOwais, N. M., Baja, E. S., & Tupas, R. (2022). Using diverse picturebooks for inclusive practices and transformative pedagogies. In M. Efstratopoulou (Ed.), Rethinking Inclusion and Transformation in Special Education (pp. 72-92). IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-6684-4680-5.ch005

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2021). Of grit and gumption, sass and verve: What gifted students can learn from multicultural picture book biographies. In S. R. Smith’s Handbook of giftedness and talent development in Australasian Pacific (pp. 431-453). Singapore: Springer International Handbooks of Education. https://link.springer.com/referenceworkentry/10.1007/978-981-13-3041-4_18

Garces-Bacsal, R. M. (2020). Diverse books for diverse children: Building an early childhood diverse booklist for social and emotional learning. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 22(1), 66-95. https://doi.org/10.1177/146879842090185