Dr. Farrales waves a fist as she is called to receive her diploma. (Facebook)
Vancouver,B.C.
Two women graduates
By Ted Alcuitas
Dr. May Farrales, Ph.D. in Geography
Her PhD dissertation takes the research she conducted for her Masters’ thesis, which explored the geographies of Filipino-Canadian youths’ educational experiences, in a new direction.
“This new direction includes thinking through how sexualities articulate at the nexus of the gendered, classed and racialized subjectivities of Filipino-Canadians in the context of the specificities of the Philippine diaspora in Canada and its ever-evolving progressive politics.”
May earned her BA in Geography at Simon Fraser University and her MA in Geography at the University of British Columbia.
Dr. Farrales with Dr.JP Catungal,Professor at the Institute for Gender, Racism, Sexuality and Social Justice at UBC.
Karla Lenina Comanda, Master of Fine Arts (MFA) in Creative Writing
Born and raised in the Philippines, Comanda left for Canada in the middle of a Journalism course at the Unviersity of Santo Tomas.
She obtained a degree in Comparative Literature, with a minor in Creative Writing (with distinction) from the University of Alberta.
Comanda has been featured in LitFest: Edmonton’s Nonfiction Festival. Her works have appeared in Contemporary Verse 2: Poetry Lives Here, Glass Buffalo, and Paragon.
She is the Literary Fiction editor for Ricepaper, a publication of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop (ACWW) which sponsors the Jim Wong Chu Emerging Writers Award.
Comanda won this year’s award for poetry.
In an interview with ROOM Magazine she says: “…ultimately, I think that art is a vessel of protest that people can articulate themselves with, whether it’s through their own work or others’. The internet and social media have really changed the landscape of how art is produced and received, and I am looking forward to the many possibilities of art disrupting these systems of oppression. ”