by Patricia Suarez
Throughout October, we have been celebrating Filipino-American History Month by focusing on our Queer Filipino-American history makers, both on GLAAD and on our social media. Today, we take a step back and talk to two Queer Filipino-American authors who have published their books this year. In these two novels, we see worlds based on our culture, representing our experience and written by fellow Filipino-Americans. These two are very different, with one set in a fantasy Manila and the other focusing on the diaspora experience. Both are equally important to the diverse representation of Filipino-Americans in another media form: the written word.
Joining us are Gabriella Buba (she/her) and K.M. Enright (he/him).
Patricia: Thank you so much for joining us! When it comes to our Filipino American identity, the aspect of our queer identity is only becoming widely talked about. How has this unique intersection of being Filipino, American, and being part of the LGBTQ+ community shaped you and the worlds that you write?
K.M.: Being a queer Filipino American–and specifically raised Catholic–has greatly informed both how I write and how I live my life. My Filipino-ness has been with me from the very beginning, but my queerness is something I had to grow into. As a biracial kid from rural PA in the 90’s, I didn’t have a ton of role models for what being queer could be like. And that is not even touching on religion, which could be a whole essay of its own. But as I found my way into writing, I was able to mine new facets of myself that I had kept long hidden, out of both ignorance and a need for safety. And with that new knowledge, I realized that I wanted–no, needed–to write stories that I know would have been helpful for the kid I once was. Not just Filipino, in a sea of fantasy books that were all the same shades of white and European, but gay and trans as well. Examples of what is possible, when I had never dared to imagine it.
Gabriella: The old writing adage is that you can only write what you know. But I started out doing something different, and it’s something I think many writers from marginalized backgrounds do. And that is, we write white straight stories. It’s easy to do when you learn writing from reading, and your reading material is curated from a church school library in Texas. But I am the mixed bi eldest daughter of a multi-generational Filipino household in the American South. The moment when I came into my own as a writer was the moment I was finally willing to accept all these varied identities within myself. That was a hard thing too, as I often felt these identities were at war within me, that the part of me that was a dutiful Filipino daughter of immigrants, a caretaker to my grandparents and then later my parents, couldn’t also be queer, at least not when my family was around. I often felt like I had to wear masks and only present the parts of me that fit to each audience in my life. Writing helped me to build bridges between the different versions of myself. And finally, when I found the confidence to lean wholeheartedly into writing what I know, and writing myself, my culture, and our shared history into my stories, that’s when I realized I was finally writing stories that mattered, and that’s because they had at their heart something true.
Patricia: I love how daring to imagine worlds where our identities are represented is equally tied to what seems like a moment of triumph, as Gabriella put it, in the war within us. And because our identities are so intricate and varied, it’s also equally as important to have the same complexity shown. We aren’t one people, and thus we have a wide range of stories.
For K.M.: The world of your debut novel, Mistress of Lies, has a diverse population ripe with allegory and imagery of class divides and racial differences. Our main character is Shan, who is very much a representation of the diaspora and being half-Filipino. There is also trans representation in one of the three main characters, Isaac.
K.M., as a trans Filipino-American, how did this intersection of identity influence your writing of Isaac de la Cruz?
K.M.: Isaac is a particularly interesting character to write, because he has the most of me in him. He and Shan share that core, internal struggle of being a person of color in a cohort of mostly white fellows, as the Blood Workers of their status are predominately white. It’s a lot like a dance, actually, the subtle cues of expectation, keeping strictly to the beat that is laid out for you because if you misstep even once you’ll prove that you don’t belong. Then, on top of that, Isaac is quite literally a self-made man, finding his own footing as someone who needs to claim his own name and masculinity in ways that most men do not.
So for Isaac, he’s spending so much of book one knowing that his acceptance in society is entirely tied up in playing to the expectations of others—having to be perfect in every way. He has to be the smartest, the most entertaining, the most charming in order to gain access to the kind of life he feels he deserves. But the question quickly becomes are you sacrificing to get that, and if the mask you wear is becoming the person that you are.
I’m not going to lie, I suffered through a lot of what both Isaac and Shan struggle with. It can be very hard to find a place where you can authentically and wholly be yourself in a room with no-one else like you. I learned what and who I was expected to be at a young age, and it became this mask that I did not feel comfortable peeling off until I was out on my own in the world. Luckily for me, that unmasking process wasn’t as difficult or disastrous as it is for my characters, and they are still finding themselves in ways that are very messy.
But, if I am being honest, that’s what makes them so fun.
For Gabriella: The world of Saints of Storm and Sorrow is the opposite of Mistress of Lies in that the world is inspired by the Spanish Colonial period of Manila, highlighting the oppression and tensions between the colonizers and the colonized.
Catalina and Lunurin have an intense relationship, one that is both founded on being queer and Filipino. Why did you choose to show their relationship the way that you did, especially when contrasted with Lunurin and Alon?
Gabriella: Lunurin and Catalina’s relationship is reflective of those bonds of trauma that you forge with those who’ve been beside you in the darkest, most closeted parts of your life. Anyone who’s been bullied for being queer or Filipino may see themselves in the way Lunurin and Catalina lean into each other. As Lunurin says no one else cares what happens to lost mestiza girls.
The schism happens when Lunurin is forced out of the proverbial closet. Lunurin can no longer stay in the relatively safe space that living outwardly as devout nuns provided them, due to accusations of witchcraft.
But Cat isn’t ready to give up the safety and sense of purpose the church provides her. She wants Lunurin to try harder to stay in the closet and in the church and refuses to recognize when that’s become impossible for Lunurin. This is as much about survival for Cat as leaving is for Lunurin. Because Catalina comes from a less privileged position. She lacks the family connections, and the strong ties to her culture that Alon and Lunurin both have. Her way of surviving has been by embracing the religion and mentality of their colonizers, by making herself the perfect nun. She doesn’t have Alon’s wealth (and gender), or Lunurin’s power as a fallback and so she is trapped in the church, and her path even when it begins to do grievous harm to her loved ones.
Meanwhile Alon and Lunurin’s relationship is a reflection of the bonds that you form with people who are willing and able to heal and grow with you, who see you and don’t ask you to make yourself less because they are afraid. Alon also begins the book believing that collaboration with their colonizers is the best way to protect Aynila, but Alon is able to recognize when that will no longer work for Lunurin. He takes the leap into the unknown with her that Catalina is too afraid to make.
Their different relationships are as much about love as they are about navigating out of toxic closeted self-hating and colonial mentalities.
Patricia: Loving that you both highlight two aspects that the diaspora often have have to deal with! I definitely think these aspects are what makes your characters in both of your novels so unique–they are representations that we often don’t get to see. There’s Isaac and the fragile dance of playing to expectations for survival; then there’s Catalina as the reflection of self-hatred and colonial mentalities that happens when one is adrift without a cultural tie.
We’ve spoken about how important it was to show your Filipino-American identity in your debut novels, and you both have somewhat touched upon this, but I’d like to expand just a tad bit more. How did it come to fruition in your process, specifically the creation of your characters and the narrative arcs they take on?
K.M.: For me, it was the moment when my writing stopped being mediocre and started being good. I spent years writing books, intentional trunk novels, to gain the skills I would need to succeed in publishing. I studied the novels I read and liked and were doing well, and I tried to write like that.
And I’m going to be honest, I knew from the start that those books were missing something, but it took me a long time to really pin down what. All those books featured white, cis-het characters. And that’s not bad, in and of itself, but I never really thought about including the things that make me who I am in my stories. But then I saw the landscape of publishing start to shift, and as more stories by queer and BIPOC writers get picked up and do well.
So, I asked myself, why don’t I do that? Why don’t I make a story about a Filipina? About a queer person? And, as I learned more about my gender, about a trans man? It was adding these authentic pieces that are wholly me that allowed me to fully engross myself in a story. I believe that the truest joy of writing is finding the stories that only you can tell, and for me that lies at the intersection of my experience as both a Filipino-American and queer man.
For Shan, that meant drawing on the well of experience I had growing up caught between two cultures and parents who could not meet anywhere in the middle. For Isaac, it meant exploring how difficult it can be to exist in the expectations of others, as a man of color. And I’m excited for the other parts of me that will manifest in future characters, the seeds of me that will grow into their own unique and probably a little messed-up people.
Gabriella: I’ve touched quite a bit on how my stories also didn’t come into their own until I started to write my own identities into them. For me the process for Saints characters and narrative was a sudden light bulb moment. For years I’d been doing research into the Spanish colonial period in the Philippines, especially during the pandemic when a lot of libraries opened up virtual access, I would go down research holes you wouldn’t believe.
It was during that time I stumbled across an article analyzing the potential origin of the oldest extant black madonna in the philippines. The wooden Mother Mary statue was originally a pagan idol the Spanish discovered being worshiped by natives near Manila in 1571. She was moved into the Manila Cathedral and then the Ermita Church and renamed Mother Mary. And while the article did analyze a bunch of different pre-colonial anito deities, and even potential eastern asian goddesses she might be, we don’t actually know who she was or what her name was. As soon as I read about her I immediately realized this was the central figure around which my story of a failed child chosen one must revolve. Lunurin, and her struggle to come to terms with the wrath of her vengeful forgotten goddess, was a reflection of how much loss and anger I still feel towards how much of philippine pre-colonial history is unknown or known only in pieces through the lens of Spanish colonizers.
From that point I wrote the entire first draft of Saints in 30 days all 131,000 words in a mad rush of inspiration. It was something I don’t know that I’d recommend, or could ever do again, and it took years to turn the extravagant mess of a story I’d put to paper into something readable. But the experience absolutely taught me to lean with wild abandon into the unique cultural stories and moments in history that resonate with me and spark inspiration.
Patricia: Final question! October is also the month that GLAAD celebrates #SpiritDay, the world’s most visible anti-bullying movement inspiring LGBTQ youth, especially transgender and nonbinary youth to live their lives in their truth and authenticity.
In that vein, what is something you wish someone had told you as a young, queer Filipino-American?
K.M.: Hmm, I’m not sure this is what you’re looking for, but I didn’t really need to be told anything – I needed to be shown. I needed to know that it was possible to exist as a queer Filipino American, I needed to see others like me living and thriving out there. For me, it was all about accepting what was possible. I know we’re in a very different world situation than it was when I was growing up, and I’m so thankful that today’s youth have a greater understanding about the breadth and variety of queer lived experience. You don’t have to fit exactly into one mold of existence – you can be your true, authentic self and survive.
Will it be easy? Not necessarily. Will it be painless? Surely not. But you will find your people – your community and your elders. Trust in that, when everything else feels out of your control. And as for everyone else who tries to deny your truth? Sincerely and genuinely – cut them out of your life. You do not need them.
Gabriella: I absolutely love your energy Koren. For me, being raised, and still living in Texas, I think I have a slightly more pessimistic view on the situation being that much different from the one I was raised in especially given the waves of book banns, closing of libraries carrying queer and bipoc books, rising xenophobia and asian-american hate crimes, anti-trans legislation, etc. I less needed to be told something, than to be allowed a space where I could exist without judgment, harassment, and bullying from my peers as well as the adults in my life.
But it brings me hope that I can see the ways our community is rallying to build safe spaces in books, online, and in-real-life where kids have a chance to breathe, even when the larger society doesn’t want that to happen. For me that has always meant championing for and supporting sanctuary libraries. Because I found my first safe haven in libraries.
So I’d encourage kids to prioritize people and spaces that put their safety and happiness first. I’d tell them to trust themselves and their instincts. I’d want to be told that it gets better, that with age we gain autonomy and greater understanding of our social circles, environments, and ourselves. And that you don’t have to have it all figured out now.
Gabriella Buba is a mixed Filipina-Czech author and chemical engineer based in Texas who likes to keep explosive pyrophoric materials safely contained in pressure vessels or between the covers of her books. She writes for bold, bi, brown women who deserve to see their stories centered. Her debut SAINTS OF STORM AND SORROW is a Filipino-inspired epic fantasy out with Titan Books. DAUGHTERS OF FLOOD AND FURY to be released July 2025. She has a Filipino Fantasy short stories in the anthologies Strange Religion: Speculative Fiction of Spirituality, Belief, & Practice & Of Stardust: A Queer Fantastical Anthology, Short stories placed with the Sci Phi Journal and PodCastle Fiction and essays on Filipino Identity in Prairie Fire Press and With Love: What We Wish We Knew About Being Queer and Filipino in America. Find more info about her work at her website gabriellabuba.com or follow her on social media @GabriellaBuba (twitter & instagram)
K.M. Enright is the Sunday Times’ Bestselling author of MISTRESS OF LIES. Find out more about his writing at kmenright.com or follow him on social media at @KM_Enright.