Title: Where is my Home? Subordinate Storylines in Narratives of Water- and Forest- Themed Filipino/Thai/Bahasa Storybooks and Discourses of Exile
Speaker: Dr. Cheeno Marlo Sayuno, Postdoctoral Research Associate at University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign and Associate Professor at the University of the Philippines in Los Baños
Schedule: April 21, 2025; 5 to 6:30 pm
Venue: CGIS South S020 Belfer Case Study Room
Overview: Both bodies of water and the forests are reminiscent of many kinds of life’s journeys—those of searching, finding, wandering, longing, and living among others. This is why they have become a fictional element in storybooks for children that want to show the affinity of places and the search for home, such as Charming Cha-cherng-sao by Kancahala Navanugraha from Thailand; Can We Drink the Ocean by Gidget Jimenez and Isabel Roxas, and Lauan, the Seed That Wanted to Fly (Si Lauan, Ang Butong Nais Makalipad) by Rhandee Garlitos and Hubert Balonso Fucio from the Philippines; and Where is My Home? (Di Mana Rumah Saya?) by Nur-El-Hudaa Jaffar and Lim Leei Leei from Singapore (with Bahasa translation). Meanwhile, the experience is similar for expatriates who are entangled between the back-and-forths and the cultural negotiation between the two aforementioned countries. In this lecture, the narratives of water- and forest-themed storybooks are analyzed vis-à-vis the discourses of exile among selected Filipinos, Thai, and Indonesian citizens who have been staying long term in other countries. Using White’s (2005) subordinate storylines as indicators, the goal is to explore how the characters and the citizens negotiate their concepts of home and how they find refuge in a foreign land across the waters.
