The Balikbayan Artist by Eileen R. Tabios

A tale of the artist’s role in troubled times set amid a dictatorship Farm-laborer-turned-artist Vance Igorta returns to the Philippines as a balikbayan after nearly fifty years in the United States. He is a member of the Manong generation, the largest diaspora of Filipinos who worked physically demanding jobs, mostly in California’s agricultural fields. The Balikbayan Artist—inspired by and dedicated to Venancio C. Igarta (1912–2000), the real-life leading artist of the Manong Generation—takes readers from the early twentieth century to the present day when Vance Igorta’s art is being discovered anew. Igorta’s legacy is validated for allowing his art to address the tensions of his time instead of keeping it solely entrenched in aesthetic concerns. The artist’s choice reflects what he learned as a voraciously self-educated person: that in circumstances where power corrupts, what makes anyone and everyone dangerous is love.