Sketch: Two Stories by Bienvenido Santos, with the theme, "The Immigrant as a Permanent Exile"
According to Rocio Davis (1996), "Filipinos writing in the U.S. have constantly dealt with the themes central to all Asian American literatures: the pain of immigration, homesickness, the cruelty of racism and the creation of a new identity." Using this description as framework, I will emphasize what I take to be major elements in Santos's "The Door" and "Scent of Apples": contradiction and paradox, tension, and irony. The pain of immigration in "The Door" America as embodied on the one hand by Mildred, who repeatedly makes a cuckold of her husband Delfin, and the perverted love of Delfin for his wife and on the other hand, America is also embodied by Mildre's daughters, Anne and Esther, who have a tender and caring love for Ambo (and calls him "Uncle"). We see the irony and tension in these two relationships, on the one hand, a love that resembles having a disease (which he compares to being s...