In the short story “The Blossoming of Bongbong,” the main character, Bongbong, moves to America with big hopes to reshape his life and achieve success. This vague notion of the American dream leads to Bongbong’s desire for the quintessential, yet...

In Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters, stories of characters from diverse socioeconomic backgrounds give readers a taste of life in 1950s Manila, Philippines under a dictatorship. For much of the text, it seems that Hagedorn’s female characters are able...

Jessica Hagedorn’s Dogeaters is an intricately written novel that weaves multiple threads of narrative through the Philippines of the 1950s. Within its depiction of the disarrayed postcolonial country, various literary devices are used to enhance...