Love, Dance & Egg Rolls

by Jason Tanamor

Overview

Filipino folk dancing is a huge part of Jamie's life, but so is high school and his two best friends. When these two worlds collide, Jamie must decide who he truly wants to be.

Jamie Santiago is just an ordinary high school teenager—he has a huge crush on a girl from school, he watches a ton of sitcoms, and he is constantly trying to keep his dad from feeding egg rolls to his white friends. Not to mention he also aspires to be the next Tinikling folk dance master. Okay, maybe he’s not so ordinary.

It's hard enough balancing the demands of high school, but when the last ever Asian Folk Festival falls on the same day as Homecoming, it feels like Jamie's world comes crashing down. He is forced to make an important decision between honoring his heritage and salvaging what's left of his social life. With a racist bully at school and rising protests in Portland, Jamie sometimes wonders if it would be easier to forget his Filipino side entirely instead of trying to embrace it.

[Play the catchy sitcom music]

[Cue the laugh track to numb the serious stuff]

If only life were so perfect.

Tensions will rise in Love, Dance & Egg Rolls as Jamie decides whether it's more important to remain hidden in plain sight or step directly into the spotlight. Jamie will not only come face-to-face with a bully, but also with this thing called cultural identity.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781947845343
Publisher:	Ooligan Press
Publication date:	05/10/2022
Pages:	288
Sales rank:	1,083,209
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.40(h) x 0.70(d)
Age Range:	13 - 18 Years

About the Author

Jason Tanamor currently lives and works in the Portland, Oregon area. He is the critically acclaimed author of Vampires of Portlandia, Anonymous, and Drama Dolls. His writings have appeared in more than two hundred and fifty publications, including several Filipino journals and magazines. Ranker.com voted him Favorite Filipino and Filipino-American author. Tanamor's parents immigrated to the US from the Philippines, and he often writes about his experiences as a Filipino-American. Growing up, he did not see many Filipinos in books and wants young readers to be able to "see themselves" when they read, so he has made it his personal mission to write characters that aren't "faceless" or "white."

Editorial Reviews

"A true celebration of Filipino-American life . . . Tanamor's book will dance its way into readers' hearts." — Erin Entrada Kelly, New York Times bestselling author of Hello, Universe, winner of the 2018 Newbery Medal

"Amazing dances, delicious food and the strength and closeness of our families . . . hope shines throughout this heartfelt novel." — Bren Bataclan, author and illustrator of Fe: A Traumatized Son’s Graphic Memoir

"Pulling from his own Filipino-American heritage, Tanamor shows Jamie as someone who feels stuck in the middle—not quite Filipino, but not the ideal American either. Tanamor balances the serious subject matter with keen humor . . . making this book both impactful and fun." — Booklist

From the Publisher

2022-03-29
Jamie Santiago is devastated that, due to a lack of funding, this year’s Folk Festival will be the last one ever held.

At 16, Filipino American Jamie has been dancing in the local Folk Festival, which is sponsored by various Asian ethnic associations, since he was 6, and it is the one source of happiness for him. Sadly, shame over his heritage causes him to hide his love of Filipino dance from Walter and Dennis, his football-obsessed White best friends. In fact, he struggles to find common ground with Walter, particularly around the subjects of race and Jamie’s goth girl crush, Bethany. Jamie is the only non-White student at his school in Milwaukie, a small Oregon city near Portland, even though there must be a substantial enough community to create the local Filipino American association that his parents have been involved with for years. Unfortunately, this book lacks a clear plot; it reads more like a vehicle to describe Filipino culture, dishes, and mannerisms, all of which are presented in a way that explicitly explains them for a non-Filipino readership rather than having them emerge organically from the story and characterization. Tagalog words and expressions such as tsinelas and ay nako are woven throughout the text, making the choice to use the term egg rolls for lumpia, one of the most beloved and well-known Filipino foods, baffling. Though the book takes place sometime after the 2016 presidential election, the pop-culture references and slang feel dated.

Falls flat despite good intentions. (Fiction. 13-18)

Kirkus Reviews