“Reuniting with Strangers”: stunning debut novel by Filipina Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio

A five year old Filipino boy wakes up in a stranger’s apartment in Toronto after a long flight from the Philippines—next to a woman he doesn’t know, but who calls herself his “Mama”.

In Montreal, a Filipina who grew up in Canada tries to whitewash her looks, her home, and her children, straining to fit in and blend in, erasing her culture in the process.

She hires her cousin from the Philippines to care for her children. Her cousin observes everything with a truthful eye, sneaking purple ube treats to the children who have been instructed by their mother to eat a local, organic, 100-mile diet, and the cousin finds out there’s a very thin line between family and employee.

These varying accounts of Filipinos in Canada and the Philippines make up the characters in a stunning debut novel by Filipina author Jennilee Austria-Bonifacio.

“Reuniting with Strangers” is sure to tug at every Filipino’s heartstrings as it encapsulates what happens when families are separated, reunited or relocate to a different country.

Moving chapter by chapter from the frigid city of Iqaluit to the smokestacks of Sarnia, or from a bustling city in Taguig, Philippines to an apartment in Toronto, the novel introduces new characters with each chapter, but with one common thread: a small boy named Monolith.

Monolith, still unable to speak at five, is the constant heartbeat of the novel, felt in the background at all times and in the reader’s mind as they grapple with the question: Why is he mute?

Is he rendered voiceless by the constant upheaval, the comings and goings of loved ones?

He lashes out at his mother once they reunite in Toronto—after all, she is a stranger to him. He was a baby when she left him in the Philippines.

At turns put in a straitjacket, filmed and sedated with pills, what thoughts swirl in Monolith’s young mind?

We see glimpses of him all throughout the book from different vantage points—slapping his mother in a public place, sleepy in the arms of a therapist, propped up on a bed with an equally mute lolo (grandfather).

A unique style of writing with each chapter

From a chapter filled with email exchanges between two sisters on opposite sides of the world to a chapter filled with kundiman songs reminiscent of poems scattered throughout The Hobbit, Austria-Bonifacio’s novel presents stories through varied writing styles.

The book poses a number of thought-provoking questions:

• How does an aunt react when her nieces—whom she’s raised since they were babies—are taken to a faraway land by their biological mom?
• How do you give up your “children” to someone else?
• What desperate acts will you do to keep them in your care?
• How does a father feel when left behind in the Philippines by his family?

Bayan Ko: My Homeland

The kundiman chapter, with its “Bayan Ko” reference—arguably the Philippines’ most revered and patriotic song—is a tearjerker.

The song’s lyrics tug at the grief, the longing of each Filipino to be free of outside influences, to be free from conquerors, to be released from being caged.

Just as Monolith is put into a straitjacket, we Filipinos are citizens of a country constrained by an economic plight so severe that family members have to go to a different country to be able to afford to live.

The price we pay as families get torn apart and reunited is at the crux of this novel: an examination of relationships and emotions fraying under the strain of separation, and the consequences of immigration.

Ibon mang may layang lumipad, kulungin mo at umiiyak. Bayan pa kayang sakdal dilag, ang di magnasang makaalpas?

(A bird who’s free to fly will cry when caged. Would a country so magnificent not yearn to break free?)

Will Monolith find his voice?

Can families who have undergone such traumatic circumstances ever be whole again and find happiness in a foreign land?

This is a thought-provoking, blatantly honest, raw novel that brings to mind the experiences we Filipinos have undergone as we settled in places far from our motherland.

Beautifully captured in Austria-Bonifacio’s book, it is a homecoming of sorts, a recognition of our struggles, our triumphs, and our culture.