and trumpeting loudly, are the Amerikanos and
the Japanese as they fight. And our Philippines
Islands? We are the small chickens” (3). It is this
sense of national and collective vulnerability that
Holthe communicates through the stories and
interactions of the family, friends, and villagers
who are huddling together in the cellar beneath
Alejandro Karanglan’s parents’ house, after their
own houses have been destroyed or taken over by
the Japanese.
Alejandro, the primary narrator of the novel,
begins with his description of life in the cellar and
ends with his recollections of how his family and
friends survived the occupation and returned to
their shelter in the Karanglan household with the
aid of the American army. In between, readers are
introduced to the traumatic horrors of war. Ale-
jandro is suspended by his thumbs from a wire in
the fence, while his sister, Isabelle Karanglan, who
narrates the second section of the novel, is taken
to Manila, along with other women, to be used as
a “comfort woman,” a military sex slave. Another
character, Domingo Matapang, leads a band of
guerrillas and narrates the third segment of the
novel. Juxtaposed against the contemporary ex-
periences of Alejandro, Isabelle, and Domingo are
the five stories of the community elders—stories
that provide fascinating glimpses into the social,
cultural, and political history of the Philippines,
beginning with Spanish colonialism.
Resisting the temptation of turning her novel
into a sociological treatise, Holthe instead explores
individual human follies, pains, aspirations, and
survival. These stories are rooted in social histories
and realities but are never reduced to mere socio-
logical or historical explanations. In this respect,
Holthe follows in the footsteps of a specific tradi-
tion of women’s writings in Asian-American liter-
ature which begins with MAXINE HONG KINGSTON
and continues through writers such as LAN CAO
and RUTHANNE LUM MCCUNN. These writers use
folkloric narratives and cultural memory to desta-
bilize mainstream ideas of racial, national, and his-
torical identities. In Holthe’s case, this is especially
evident in the concluding chapter of the novel.
Alejandro informs us, “I have my own thoughts.
I keep remembering Domingo’s words. He said it
is up to Roderick and me to build and teach the
other children that it is better to stand together
than to let other nations divide us” (368).
The novel depicts a clearly identifiable nation-
alist sensibility. This is not surprising given its
historic context—the Philippines attained its inde-
pendence in 1946, just after the events depicted in
the novel. The stories, tales, and legends narrated
within the novel depict a Filipino national culture
that can sustain the unity of the nation even in face
of foreign imperialist intervention.Bibliography
Holthe, Tess Uriza. When the Elephants Dance. New
York: Crown, 2002.
Nandini DharHomebase Shawn Wong (1979)
Called a “novel” on the title page, Homebase can be
seen as a collection of six interconnected short sto-
ries—the chapters that have appeared as separate
stories in various anthologies. Rebelling against
literary traditions, SHAWN WONG has experimented
in various degrees of formal innovation. Homebase
crosses the boundaries between memory, fantasy,
and dream to offer a bittersweet view of Chinese-
American life. He blends into the narrative real
and imagined letters, essays, poetry, dialogues, and
journal entries. Moreover, the settings shift con-
stantly, defying a logical or chronological sequence
of incidents. The “novel” lyrically interweaves the
past and the present to chronicle the history of
Chinese America.
The novel opens with the story of Rainsford,
a fourth-generation Chinese American who ex-
presses the pains of growing up as a homeless
Chinese American. Orphaned at age 15, he ap-
pears restless and rootless. His family has been in
America for 125 years, but he feels alienated and
outcast. After the deaths of his parents, Rainsford
starts a search for his identity as a Chinese-Ameri-
can man by way of imaginary identification with
his male ancestors. He feels obliged to tell the sto-
ries about his ancestors, for the meaning of his
existence lies in reconstructing the family history.10 8 Homebase