A Conversation with C. E. Gatchalian

Q: What have been your biggest professional challenges?

I’m pretty confident when it comes to actually practicing my art… but I think where I have stumbled has been in the industry-related stuff and learning to trust myself, trust my own power. Learning to assert myself and to articulate what my needs are. Being from multiple marginalized communities, being a brown queer person, it has taken a long time for me to understand the implications of my positionality, a person who is of Filipino ancestry in a white dominated, heteronormative world.

Q: What has been the highlight of the last couple years for you professionally?

This year, in honor of the Queen, the BC Lieutenant Governor’s office offered a number of arts and music awards for BC-based artists who have made significant contributions to the arts. I was one of 11 individual recipients. That was a really great honor. It came with money… I don’t have much saved up–it has just not been possible for me [and it’s] certainly one of the risk factors of pursuing a career in the arts. Especially if you’re a racialized person, a person from a marginalized background, to choose a career in the arts as an artist, it just further marginalizes you. So it was great to get this recognition even though the context of it, the fact that it’s attached to the Queen, is problematic.

“Especially if you’re a racialized person, a person from a marginalized background, to choose a career in the arts as an artist, it just further marginalizes you.”

I have three artistic projects that I’m currently working on. First, I’m co-editing an anthology of Filipino Canadian writing. There has never before been an anthology of Filipino Canadian writing published by a mainstream publisher, so this is a landmark event, and I’m honoured and privileged to be  a part of it. The book is coming out later this year from Cormorant Books. Second, I am working on my first novel, the details of which I’ll keep under wraps for now. Finally, I am developing a new version of my play Falling in Time with a couple of theatre companies in Toronto.

Q: Why did you want to participate in the EDI Scholars-in-Residence program?

It’s going to take a lot for me to say no to something that involves equity, diversity, inclusion. Those are core issues for me personally, and I feel like I do have a lot to share on [these] issues. Allan Cho was the person who invited me, and I’ve known Allan for years in his capacity as head of the Asian Canadian Writers Workshop. And, of course, the opportunity to share my ideas with other thoughtful people, including the other two Scholars-in-Residence. For all those reasons it was an easy yes for me.

Q: In your consultation sessions with UBC faculty, staff or students, what topics would you love to discuss or what questions would you love to get?

So many! But I think the issue that I’m really wrestling with right now, and that I want to know more about, is inherited or intergenerational trauma, specifically colonial inherited trauma. As a Filipino person, I come from a people that have been colonized left, right and centre, and  I’ve just barely scratched the surface of that reality…. Another issue that I’m very interested in is lateral violence, meaning violence between marginalized groups, and why that happens.

“It’s going to take a lot for me to say no to something that involves equity, diversity, inclusion.”

I can certainly speak about things having to do with appropriation and art. I am particularly interested in talking with creatives who are dealing with  issues having to do with work around communities they’re not personally part of. How do you navigate that? What are the protocols? These are things I’ve given a lot of thought to and would be happy to give advice about, with the caveat that I don’t consider myself an “expert” on these things, and that I’m still on the learning curve, just like everyone.

Q: Are there any resources at the library that you’re hoping to access while you’re here?

Anything to do with intergenerational trauma—any books [or other materials] at the library that I can access related to that, I will definitely try to get my hands on. I’m in an “indigenizing” period in my life right now–meaning that I’ve become very interested in ways of knowing and being that pre-existed Western colonial capitalism, especially indigenous pre-colonial Filipino culture.

I’ve realized fairly recently that decolonizing is not the same as indigenizing. Decolonizing is a negative. It’s questioning what you’ve been taught. Indigenizing is a positive–it’s about rediscovering “new” ways of knowing and being that aren’t new at all, but that were simply suppressed, repressed and oppressed by capitalism and white supremacy. And I’m just coming to terms with the reality of not knowing very much at all about my own heritage, how and why that was allowed to happen, and how and why I was completely complicit in it. It has caused me a lot of pain. I’m hopeful that this residency will be part of my path back to wholeness.