The books are far more plentiful than the paintings, of course. It was, in fact, my discovery of an issue of Story magazine from the early 1930s some 30 years ago, when I was a graduate student in the American Midwest, that fired up this enthusiasm for retrieval and repatriation. That issue contained the Baguio-based Sinai Hamada’s iconic story “Tanabata’s Wife,” and I had the pleasure of presenting his family with that copy years later. I would stumble on the odd book about Dewey and his exploits at antique malls for 50 cents, and bring that home. Like Filipinos themselves — the Ulysses of this age, global wanderers who inevitably come home — these pieces best belong where they are loved.

Source: Philippine Star June 23, 2019 16:05 UTC