Rebecca Mabanglo-Mayor

As a Filipino American writer and performance storyteller, my art is based on the impact of heritage on shaping and informing personal experience and the importance of self-expression as a method of healing. I view my writing and performing as subversive acts against invisibility and silence in a society where women of color are often viewed through an objectifying, exoticizing lens. Raised in a family focused on assimilation, I grew up sheltered from the Vietnam War and the Marcos dictatorship by a shield of language. Becoming a socially aware cultural activist has been a process of understanding the impact of the American Dream trope on my family and upbringing. As a result, I have connected with diverse ethnic groups who also value art as a method of self-expression and an act of compassion. A desire for wholeness drives my art which seeks to weave past and present, folktale with fact, subjectivity with objectivity into works which entertain and enliven others.