Filipino News 168

BUHAY
NZ
06 ISSUE 168 MAGANDANG BALITA | www.filipinonews.nz | email: filipinonews@xtra.co.nz | MOB: 027 495 8477
www.filipinoheroes.nz : Over a 120 Filipino Kiwi Heroes have been recognised over the years by Filipino News NZ.
‘Joy in turning pages,
rather than just
looking at a screen.’
By Ricky Matthew
AUCKLAND – In the last
ten years there has been a
seismic shift in the reading
habits of children and adults.
People are spending much
more time fixated on a
screen searching for information
and have less time to
get stuck into reading books.
The good old days when
the whole family used to
troop into a library to borrow
a stack of books to read are
fast disappearing. So much
so that Auckland Libraries
has taken a step to encourage
reading by eliminating the
penalties imposed for late
return of books.
Migrant News sought the
views of three Filipino book
distributors and a supportive
parent on whether the reading
culture is diminishing in
their community.
Ezra Paz, Kiwi Nanay,
facebook.com/kiwinanay,
kiwinany@gmail.com, 021
0477373.
What is your view on the
opinion that Filipinos
don’t read?
I beg to disagree. I love
books. Growing up, I did not
have access to many books.
However, when I did have a
book, I would read it over
and over.
Being able to come to
New Zealand has given me
the opportunity to go to the
library. I really love it. Being
able to pass that onto my
children is a real joy.
I have also brought my
collection of Filipino books
from home.
My aunty is a children’s
book illustrator. She illustrated
some of the books we
are selling, such as ‘All
About the Philippines’. I
grew up with her giving me
books.
When I got married she
continued to send me the
books that she illustrated or
wrote. That gave us a collection
of Filipino books in
New Zealand.
Other mums were asking
for Filipino books and I said,
“you can borrow mine”.
They responded, “why don’t
you sell some”. That’s how it
all started.
I am also selling some art
prints that are also made by
my aunty. They bring me
back home as they are very
nostalgic. I want to pass that
onto my children.
I want to show children
and families that there is a
joy in turning pages, rather
than just looking at a screen.
Jade-Ceres Munoz, The
Filipino Children’s Library,
https://www.facebook.com/filipinochildrenslibrary.
I’ve always been into literature,
because I grew up
with books and both my parents
are writers.
When I moved to New
Zealand it was very difficult
to find Filipino books and
books in general.
My daughter is the one
who inspired me to sell
books.
Over the years I started
importing books to New
Zealand from the
Philippines. I was working
with the embassy at the time.
Then Covid happened and
the Filipino children’s
library started. I wanted to
digitize the stories and make
them available to children
who were looking for
Filipino stories, but didn’t
have access to them.
How have Filipinos
reacted to having access to
these books?
People are looking for
books. However, they don’t
always use books to teach
their children. This is reintroducing
them to the concept
that reading is such a
good experience for kids to
grow up with.
It takes one step at a time
to get people to be more
involved with reading.
Donna Dacuno, Matatas
Bookstore, www.matatas.
co.nz.
Why did you open your
bookstore?
Matatas means fluent in
Filipino. We have established
this bookstore to give
resources to parents, friends
and homecare providers to
allow them to facilitate the
teaching of Tagalog, English
and regional languages as
|Donna Dacuno
well.
We offer bilingual
Tagalog-English children’s
books. We also offer Bisaya-
English and Chavacano-
English.
We know that in New
Zealand almost 50% of
Filipinos are non-Tagalog
speakers. If we go to
Facebook groups, then there
are lots of Bisaya speaking
people.
What we are trying to do is
to provide resources to their
kids to learn their own languages.
We are not just focusing
on the stories, but on how
they are constructing their
sentences.
For now we focus on providing
picture books,
because they are better for
introductory purposes for
the children based here in
New Zealand. It will help
them to associate
the
word with the
picture. There
are no big
sentences,
just phrases
that they can
easily grasp.
What is
your target
age group?
At the
moment it is
0-9 years old.
The next step
is 9 plus. We
are trying to
move up to
higher ages,
because we
also have
other bookstores
that are offering age
0+.
We are engaging with
schools about offering books
because we have lots of new
migrants that would like to
continue learning Filipino
languages.
What are you doing to
encourage reading in the
community?
We want to promote the
concept of incorporating a
Saturday program in
libraries. This would attract
more Filipinos to the library.
It would be an area that
Filipinos can go on a
Saturday with the family.
We first did this at the
Auckland City Central
Library on April 1st. We
want this to be picked up by
other libraries.
Our next step was at the
Batang Pinoy event on 15th
April, where we had a storytelling
of ‘The Monkey and
the Turtle’ by Jose Rizal.
Hopefully we will have
more of this.
Would you say
that Filipinos in the
Philippines and
Filipinos here are
different in terms of
their interest in
reading?
For the 1.5 generation,
the ones that are
brought here at an
early age and don’t
have much access to
Filipino materials,
there is a difference.
When they move
here they want to
assimilate and integrate
with the Englishspeaking
New Zealanders.
In that process they lose
some of their knowledge
from the homeland.
Books from the
Philippines are no longer
relatable here in New
Zealand. The Philippines is
so far away and it's almost
‘mystical’ already. That is
what we want to change.
I have a half-Filipino son
|Carl Chua, Supportive Parent.
and I want his friends or
future friends to be able to
speak Filipino together. It
may be through interacting
with books or activities.
I’m based in West
Auckland, but we ship to the
whole of New Zealand, to
Australia and to the Islands.
Carl Chua, Supportive
Parent.
We bought a book called
'The Adventures of Gabby
Ghas' (a story about the journey
of a grain of rice from
the farm to a hungry boy’s
plate). My son picked it out.
It looks interesting to him.
I also saw that the subheadings
were quite interesting.
'Palay, bigas, kanin'.
(Sidenote: all three words
mean rice. Palay refers to
unmilled rice, bigas refers to
milled uncooked rice, kanin
refers to cooked rice.)
Can he read Filipino?
No, but we are teaching
him how to.
He loves reading books.
Find information about Filipino and Asian
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