Ninotchka Rosca

Ninotchka Rosca
Born (1946-12-17) 17 December 1946 (age 78)[1]
Third Philippine Republic
Nationality Philippines
Alma materUniversity of the Philippines Diliman
Occupation(s)Author, feminist, journalist, human right activist

Antonia Rosca-Peña[2] (born December 17, 1946), known by her pen name Ninotchka Rosca,[Note 1][3] is a Filipina feminist, author, journalist, owl expert, and human rights activist in the Philippines[4][5][6][7] best known for her 1988 novel State of War and for her activism, especially during the Martial Law dictatorship of former Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos.[8][9] Rosca has been described as "one of the major players in the saga of Filipina American writers."[10]

Rosca was a recipient of the American Book Award in 1993 for her novel Twice Blessed.[11]

She is active in AF3IRM [1], the Mariposa Center for Change,[12] Sisterhood is Global[13] and the initiating committee of the Mariposa Alliance (Ma-Al), a multi-racial, multi-ethnic women's activist center for understanding the intersectionality of class, race and gender oppression, toward a more comprehensive practice of women's liberation.[14]

Biography

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Education and early career

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Rosca received a Bachelor of Arts degree in English (Comparative Literature) at the University of the Philippines Diliman, and became a journalist working for various Philippine publications after she graduated. She was taking up Asian Studies (Khmer Civilization) for her graduate studies at the time she had to leave the Philippines because of the Marcos dictatorship.[1]

Imprisonment and exile during martial law

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Rosca was one of many Philippine journalists who became political prisoners under the dictatorial government of Ferdinand Marcos in the Philippines. She was detained for six months, and was interrogated several times before her release. On getting out of prison, she took a job with an investment company in Manila while raising funds to help people hide from Marcos' security forces. When she received a tip that she was about to be arrested a second time, she sought help from a cultural attache at the U.S. Embassy, who helped Rosca get out of the Philippines by getting her into an international writers program in the United States.[8]

While in exile, Rosca was designated as one of the 12 "Asian-American Women of Hope" by the Bread and Roses Cultural Project. These women were chosen by scholars and community leaders for their courage, compassion, and commitment in helping to shape society. They are considered role models for young people of color, who, in the words of Gloria Steinem, "have been denied the knowledge that greatness looks like them.[9]

In 1986, she returned to the Philippines to report on the final days of Marcos.[9]

Later activism

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Rosca has worked with Amnesty International and the PEN American Center. Rosca was also a founder and the first national chair of the GABNet, the largest and only US-Philippines women's solidarity mass organization, which has evolved into AF3IRM. She is the international spokesperson of GABNet's Purple Rose Campaign against the trafficking of women, with an emphasis on Filipinas.[citation needed]

She was at the United Nations' Fourth World Conference on Women which took place in Beijing, China, and at the UN's World Conference on Human Rights in Vienna, Austria. At the latter, she drafted the Survivors Statement, signed by four Nobel Prize winners and hundreds of former prisoners of conscience. This statement first applied the phrase "modern-day slavery" to the traffic of women. It was in Vienna as well where the slogan "women's rights are human rights" gained international prominence; Rosca had brought it from the Philippine women's movement and helped launch it internationally.[citation needed]

Rosca was press secretary of the Hague International Women's Tribunal on Japan's World War II Military Sex Slavery which convicted Japan's wartime era leadership for creating and using the Comfort Women. Rosca is particularly concerned with the origins of women's oppression and the interface between class, race, and gender exploitation so that women can move toward greater theory building and practice of a comprehensive genuine women's liberation. She often speaks on such issues as sex tourism, trafficking, the mail-order bride industry, and violence against women, and the labor export component of globalization under imperialism.[citation needed]

Personal life

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She lives in the neighborhood of Jackson Heights, Queens in New York City. Her lecture schedules are managed by Speak Out Now. A huge fan of science fiction, Rosca reads four books a week (three "light," one "heavy").

Works

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Novels

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Nonfiction

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  • Endgame: The Fall of Marcos (Franklin Watts, 1987)
  • Jose Maria Sison: At Home in the World—Portrait of a Revolutionary, co-authored with Jose Maria Sison (2004)
  • Folding Water: The Search for a Quantum Theory of Turbulence, co-authored with Amador Muriel (2009)

Story collections

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  • Stories of a Bitter Country (Anvil, 2019)[15]
  • Gang of Five (Independently Published, 2013)[16]
  • Sugar & Salt (2006)
  • The Monsoon Collection (Asian and Pacific Writing) (University of Queensland Press, 1983)[17]
  • Bitter Country and Other Stories (Malaya Books, 1970)

Reception and recognition

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Rosca's novel State of War is considered a classic account of ordinary people's dictatorship. Her second best-selling English language novel Twice Blessed won her the 1993 American Book Award for excellence in literature.[18]

Rosca is a classic short story writer. Her story "Epidemic" was included in the 1986 100 Short Stories in the United States by Raymond Carver and in the Missouri Review collection of their Best Published Stories in 25 Years, while "Sugar & Salt" was included in the Ms Magazine's Best Fiction in 30 Years.[18]

Notes

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  1. ^ Rosca claimed in 2004 that "Ninotchka" is her real name.

See also

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References

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  1. ^ a b "Twice Blessed A Novel | University of the Philippines Press". Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  2. ^ Monteclaro, Eddie (November 25, 1966). "Woman, recorder mar riot hearing". The Manila Times. The Manila Times Publishing Company, Inc. pp. 1, 20. Congress probers yesterday irksomely barred a Kabataang Makabayan women's bureau leader — Mrs. Antonia Rosca-Peña, 21 — from tape-recording their proceedings and questioned her for almost two hours on the witness stand.[...] Asked by [Salipada K.] Pendatun if Ninotchka was a Russian name, she said it was taken from a 'Greta Garbo movie.' The audience laughed.
  3. ^ Azarcon-dela Cruz, Pennie (August 22, 2004). "Who's Afraid of Ninotchka Rosca?". Sunday Inquirer Magazine. The Philippine Daily Inquirer, Inc. p. Q5. Retrieved January 23, 2025. When she [Rosca] was briefly detained in [Camp] Crame in 1972 at the onset of martial rule, Ninotchka (her real name) recalls being interrogated about her ties to the radical group, Kabataang Makabayan (KM).
  4. ^ Sipchen, Bob (July 8, 1998). "Novelist 'Celebrates' the Painful Absurdities of Life in Her Native Philippines". Los Angeles Times. Archived from the original on December 4, 2024. Retrieved December 4, 2024.
  5. ^ Nicolas, Jino (March 3, 2016). "Rosca on reading, writing, and revolution". Retrieved August 31, 2021.
  6. ^ De Vera, Ruel S. (April 19, 2020). "The dark geography of Ninotchka Rosca's 'Bitter Country'". Retrieved August 31, 2021.
  7. ^ http://www.philpost.com/0800pages/yuson0800.html "Ninotchka Rosca: I'm Still Very Filipino" by Alfred A. Yuson, Literature & Culture, Philippine Post Magazine
  8. ^ a b SIPCHEN, BOB (1998-07-08). "Novelist 'Celebrates' the Painful Absurdities of Life in Her Native Philippines". Los Angeles Times.
  9. ^ a b c Ninotchka Rosca Biography
  10. ^ Davis, Rocío G. (1999). "Postcolonial Visions and Immigrant Longings: Ninotchka Rosca's Versions of the Philippines". World Literature Today. 73 (1): 62–70. doi:10.2307/40154476. ISSN 0196-3570. JSTOR 40154476.
  11. ^ (...) "American Book Award winning novelist, Ninotchka Rosca" (...), Amazon
  12. ^ "Mariposa Center for Change". Archived from the original on March 21, 2011. Retrieved April 19, 2020.
  13. ^ [http: www.sigi.org]
  14. ^ from Ninotchka Rosca
  15. ^ Remoto, Danton (March 21, 2020). "Stories of a bitter country". The Philippine Star. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  16. ^ David, Joel (February 22, 2013). "High five for Ninotchka Rosca's new novel 'Gang of Five'". GMA News and Public Affairs. Retrieved September 2, 2021.
  17. ^ Domini, John (January 1, 1984). "Exile and Detention". The New York Times. Retrieved September 24, 2017.
  18. ^ a b ""Ninotchka Rosca: Women's Rights are Human Rights" Biography and Booking Information SpeakOutNow.org, date retrieved: 27 May 2007". Archived from the original on September 12, 2005. Retrieved January 14, 2006.
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