Editor's Note: The excerpt below is sourced from an engagement of the book originally published in Halo Halo Review.
Whispers of hauntings always bring back stories of near-forgotten suffering, trauma buried deep into a community’s collective memory. Jean Vengua’s chapbook, Marcelina: A Meditation on the Murder of Cecilia “Celing” Navarro,” is the vessel of remembering for a new generation of Filipino-Americans to revisit an agonizing chapter in our history.
In 1932, Marcelina Navarro was 26 years old when she was brutally murdered – reportedly buried alive – by fellow Filipinos for the alleged crime of adultery. Celine’s murder was sensationalized by local and national media, with white journalists frothing at the mouth to depict the barbaric “voodoo rites” of a primitive Brown people living and working in the San Joaquin River Delta.
Cecile, Celina, Celing, Marcelina: she went by many names, perhaps an indication of dehumanization. In Vengua’s poem, the story of Celine’s life and death is told in a soul-stirring mood, as the poem mixes personal reflections, news clips and Celing’s voice to depict an atmosphere of hazy yet steady revelation of facts, memory and imagination. Vengua brings together divergent narratives to tell a story of betrayal, jealousy, and suffering. While dates are listed, the news accounts are not displayed chronologically to create a rigid timeline. Vengua pieces together time, place and occurrences, as she infuses observations of color, of smells, of how the valley feels. In doing so, she evolves the tactics of archive-sleuthing to uncover the desires and frustrations of a homesick Filipina, living among a community of migrant workers.
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| Jean Vengua |
Whispers of hauntings always bring back stories of near-forgotten suffering, trauma buried deep into a community’s collective memory. Jean Vengua’s chapbook, Marcelina: A Meditation on the Murder of Cecilia “Celing” Navarro,” is the vessel of remembering for a new generation of Filipino-Americans to revisit an agonizing chapter in our history.
In 1932, Marcelina Navarro was 26 years old when she was brutally murdered – reportedly buried alive – by fellow Filipinos for the alleged crime of adultery. Celine’s murder was sensationalized by local and national media, with white journalists frothing at the mouth to depict the barbaric “voodoo rites” of a primitive Brown people living and working in the San Joaquin River Delta.
Cecile, Celina, Celing, Marcelina: she went by many names, perhaps an indication of dehumanization. In Vengua’s poem, the story of Celine’s life and death is told in a soul-stirring mood, as the poem mixes personal reflections, news clips and Celing’s voice to depict an atmosphere of hazy yet steady revelation of facts, memory and imagination. Vengua brings together divergent narratives to tell a story of betrayal, jealousy, and suffering. While dates are listed, the news accounts are not displayed chronologically to create a rigid timeline. Vengua pieces together time, place and occurrences, as she infuses observations of color, of smells, of how the valley feels. In doing so, she evolves the tactics of archive-sleuthing to uncover the desires and frustrations of a homesick Filipina, living among a community of migrant workers.
Read the full review
