QUERIDA: Jose Rizal’s family isn’t pleased. Arriving in Manila by steamer in April of 1895, bearing a polite and rather nervous letter of introduction from him, Josephine is put up at his sister Narcisa’s home.
The Rizals, the brisk and efficient father, the tiny and autocratic mother, the gaggle of sisters as perceptive and proud as the parents—grow impatient at their own mistakes. “They will always hate me now”, Josephine realizes with growing horror. “I make them look stupid. My French is of no importance to them—and I labored so long over those damned verbs. They dislike English even worse, you can see that at once. The way they comport themselves, you’d think they were a family of mandarins, they care nothing for Hong Kong, for foreign countries—the universe revolves around Manila!”
— Josephine Bracken: Hero or whore? by Lakambini A. Sitoy
Excerpted from the book QUERIDA, An Anthology: Caroline S. Hau, Katrina Tuvera and Isabelita O. Reyes / Editors.
Lopez Museum & Library 