Writer and playwright Cherry Lou Sy chats with Zibby about LOVE CAN’T FEED YOU, a beautiful, tender, searing debut novel that follows a young woman who immigrates to the United States from the Philippines to reunite with her mother and finds herself adrift between familial expectations and her own burning desires. While discussing the themes of identity, sacrifice, and the disillusionment of the American dream, Cherry delves into her own immigration story. She also reflects emotionally on her father’s recent death and shares her excitement for a new writing project inspired by him.

Transcript:

Zibby: Welcome, Cherry. Thank you so much for coming on Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Love Can't Feed You.

Congratulations. 

Cherry: Thank you so much. 

Zibby: As we were just discussing, this novel is so, the first person voice and, I mean, it is a first person, right? 

Cherry: Yes. Yeah. 

Zibby: Oh my gosh, I'm like, why did I think this was true? But uh, it's so deep, feels so deeply personal and relatable to the main character that you feel you are completely a part of this person's life.

I could not stop reading. I just like wanted to consume more and more and see what happened, the, the horrors of her life, the, the violence against her. Dad, I mean, there's some really tricky parts of the story, but really, you're just rooting for her so much, for Queenie to be okay. Tell listeners, about the story and what it's about.

Let's start there. 

Cherry: Thank you so much again, uh, for having me here. I'm really excited to talk to you and about the book. It's something that is very close to my heart because it talks a lot about things that I had gone through as a person who is half Chinese and half Filipino. And maybe that's why some people think it's a memoir because of that, but the The core of the story is it's about Queenie, a 17 year old who immigrates to the United States with her father and her younger brother to reunite with her mother, who is an overseas nurse.

You know, she's from the Philippines. She came to the United States to work in the healthcare industry and They haven't seen each other for about five years and in that time, the mother has changed so much that she's unrecognizable to the family. So, essentially, the story is about this family through the eyes of the daughter, Queenie, and how They immigrate thinking that they're going to achieve the American dream, but actually they start experiencing the American nightmare, and that is of assimilation and what you are demanded to erase because of assimilation.

Zibby: So interesting. Oh my gosh. So when Queenie first gets to the States, they, her mother has spent, has like, had them come over, right, and she spent all this money. And so they are, the mother is convinced that everybody has to like earn the money back. And so she has to get this job as a caretaker for an elderly woman.

And meanwhile, the mother is a nurse. And then the father ends up having to get a job sort of cleaning up trash. And they're all basically You know, it's like a metaphor, right, of like where they feel their place in society might be. I feel like there's like a statement to that, but they're just like cleaning up other people and like not being allowed to shine for the brilliant people they are themselves or their own gifts, right?

But they're just like, you know, at one point someone was like, I'm not even a nurse, you know, I'm a, like. 

Cherry: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. 

Zibby: And Queenie often asks like other caretakers, like, are you happy? Aren't you tired? Like, how are you feeling about this station in life, essentially? So tell me a little bit about that, because I feel like that really sets the scene for some of the, just like the point of view, the unique point of view that this novel takes you into.

Cherry: Right. So, I mean, I know that as someone who also came here with a similar background, my mom is a nurse herself and she came with other Filipina nurses who were taken because they were nurses, you know, and actually I even, um, met, so I, I worked briefly at a hospital when I was, you know, in my 20s right after college because my mom, of course, of course, this is the story of every you know filipino american that you will meet they have someone who's a nurse in the family and they're expected to be doctors or nurses so I didn't want that for myself and I I ended up just working in a hospital to see if that was something that I I wanted to do, and I, I mean, God bless the people who can do that, because I cannot.

I was there for five years as a clerk, and I just saw things, heard things, and it's really heartbreaking at times, um, witnessing things just, you know, from both sides, from the, the patient point of view and then the caregiving point of view. And I thought that writing a novel that really asks what is caretakers give up for themselves in order to care for someone else, you know, because usually we don't think about who the people caring for us are in, in these settings, you know, but they have personal lives, they have personal dramas, they have families that they have given up, right, or deferred, let's say.

Let's put it that way, deferred to think about a better future and sometimes it's, it's not that way. You, you lose connection. You lose part of yourself, I guess, and caring for someone else as well. So that, that was something that I was really keen on, on exploring. 

Zibby: One of the most powerful relationships and the dynamics is between Queenie's parents.

So. Her mom had at one point been a dancer slash sex worker, whatever, and the father was a much older man who she marries, theoretically for money, but then finds out he doesn't really have much money, and their relationship when he comes to America, in particular, is so fraught. I mean, there's one scene where Queenie and her brother and her mother are, you know, Have just barely gotten behind the door and locked it where the dad is like brandishing a knife.

I mean, well, it was like so powerful and the frustration he had about her behavior and the frustration she had about what she thought with him. I mean, this whole mix of disappointment. And betrayal. And all of it. Just tell me a little more about the two of them. And then of course, Queenie has to witness all this as a model of, you know, behavior and relationships herself.

But this very toxic relationship is really, I feel like, at the heart of the story in some ways. 

Cherry: Yeah. I mean, One of the things that I thought about, obviously, I had parents who had a similar dynamic growing up because my dad is older, and he's Chinese, and my mom is Filipina, much younger. Okay, this is, this is where I tell people, okay, my mom was not a go go dancer in Olongapo City, okay?

But I did take part of that story. What I, what I did notice working at the hospital was that I was meeting a lot of people who were nurses and especially if they were women and then they had a male partner who basically didn't catch up with them economically or, you know, all, all of that. There seemed to be a lot of issues.

And it was something that I, I think I even read a study where the nursing, you know, the nurse basically leaves her partner because she, usually it's a woman, feels that her male partner has not, kept up with her and that she is growing and he is actually holding her back, you know? And so in this dynamic, because they are immigrants, it made me think, well, how many stories of people do I know where actually the nurses have come here and they have left their family?

I mean, I, I have known personally stories of people who have left their family and literally just. forgot about them or started living their own lives here. And so that was something that I, I started thinking about and then thinking, what does this do to the children? You know, from the child's point of view, when you see this, as you said, as the model for, What adult life is, what working life is and the transactions behind relationships, you know, I mean, how many articles, essays, videos have we seen where people talk about 50 50, whereas some cultures, you know, it's the man who's supposed to be taking care of the woman and what if they suddenly come into this American environment.

And that's not the case where, where they demand that you pull your weight. So what, what does that do? And for the male psyche, I, I find that there's a diminishment of who they are as people because they feel like, well, who, who am I? Because this American self that I'm supposed to be, I, I, I can't. manage it with who I was in the other country, you know, and so I don't know who's right because whose point of view are we privileging?

Of course, uh, women's rights in other countries, sometimes it's not, it's not where it should be, you know, because of patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera. But at the same time, I also think about it's complicated because what traditions and mores and, uh, mentalities do, do we kind of keep for ourselves from where, wherever, uh, our, you know, ethnic identities were from originally and then what becomes this American self, uh, for the immigrant for second, third, fourth, whatever generation, you know?

So that's something that I was contending with also in, in the book. Interesting. 

Zibby: Well, then we see what happens with some of her relationships. You know, she has this one moment with a boy where she sort of invokes like more of a violent sort of tone, more aggressive tone. And he's like, I thought you were this nice Filipino girl.

What are you doing? She's like, no. And then we watch as she sort of explores her own sort of sexual identity throughout the book. And at one point she's like, wait, What am I doing? I still like men. And the woman is like, I do too. Don't worry about it. And there's just a lot of exploration and identity searching, even sexual identity.

Can you speak to that a little bit? 

Cherry: Yeah. And for the listeners, just to give context, so there, there is a also because this is a coming of age story. I also wanted to deal with what happens with a young person's sexuality where they're experimenting or they're thinking, well, if this isn't. as great and what are the other options out there, you know, and so she does develop, uh, I don't know if it's, it's a healthy relationship either with, with an older woman.

And so, uh, I just keep thinking that that is life because, um, a lot of people that I also meet or, you know, also my experiences, again, not my experience, but just people that I've met, they talk about who are they, you know, um, especially when, when you're completely Upended in this world that you're trying to navigate and then nobody is telling you, or that's not exactly true.

People are telling you this is how it's supposed to be, but then you see that it's not working, right? So she sees the relationship, Queenie sees the relationship between her parents not working. She saw that she tried with this, boy who's half Greek, half Filipino that she met through work, you know, and is not working, you know?

And so there's a, there's this very exciting woman who comes in and tells her things and tries to educate her. And because she doesn't know what the, the norms are culturally, she thinks that, okay, um, maybe this is something that. I'll see what this is about, you know, so there's a lot of learning through experimentation learning through stories learning through just different experiences with Herself and then other people and then learning also from their points of view. 

Zibby: And her good friend Also, what's his name, San, San?

Cherry: Uh, Yan. 

Zibby: Yan. Yan. Sorry, Yan. Yan, who is a shoulder to cry on for her at many times, and then he ends up having a whole secret life of his own. Yeah. And you even talk about, you know, someone he's having a relationship with is someone who seems so masculine that you would never know, you know, in Filipino culture that this person would possibly, you know, I think it goes with this theme of like, things aren't necessarily what they seem, right?

Cherry: Yeah. . There's this biblical allusion. What does it say? Uh, all that all that sparkles doesn't shine. So something like all that's gold, all that's shine is not gold. Something, something to that, to that effect. Also, I just want to say that maybe it's my mom brain working out because I just gave birth, um, uh, last year, my daughter just turned one.

So, so I find that my brain has been like, ah,.. 

Zibby: My brain was like that for many, many years. Some days I'm still like, I don't even know. Yes, I, I totally understand. Not a good day. I can't pull up a, an expression. So, so tell me more about your life. You have an MFA in playwriting, right? Okay. I was like, what? So just take me back.

When did you decide to be an author? Like, what is your, where, like, what is your story? 

Cherry: Yeah, I guess I've always been So, originally, I wanted to be an actress, uh, I mean, I was writing, I mean, I, I think every teenager writes angsty poetry in their youth, you know, so, so I did that, and then I had met folks when I was at NYU, and, and then also in, in regular life, like I was at this, um, martial arts school, and I had this Italian teacher, uh, teachers, they, they were twins, and One of them was an actor, Stuntman, so I was always in that realm and he was saying, Yeah, you should be in, in film, TV or, or theater.

And so, so I was thinking, Okay, maybe I'll try this. But I didn't know what I was doing. I had no mentor. And then I did that for a little bit. I did get a scholarship from This gentleman to go to acting school for a year in a conservatory. I did that. And then I tried to audition. It was just really hard. I felt like, uh, just people saying no to me all the time was so hard.

And then always asking myself, am I good enough for this? Am I, so it was, it was just not computing. And then, then I worked in the hospital. Then I. I got married and then, uh, I don't know, I felt like life was just passing by and then suddenly I, uh, met Some people who kind of rekindled my acting. And then after that, I realized that, you know what, I think I like writing more.

So I started writing plays and then I got into an MFA program because I was also kind of writing fiction, but very experimental. I went to an MFA program at LIU for a semester, but I just didn't like it. I don't know, I felt like the environment was not for me, so I dropped out. I ended up applying at the MFA program at Brooklyn College.

They gave me a full ride, so I went there, and then I was still secretly trying to write prose. Um, and then when the pandemic happened, so I had graduated right before the pandemic, like in 2018, I was miserable, I had a knee injury, I couldn't walk, theater was closing down everywhere. And then I just thought, I don't know what I'm going to do, I'm just going to keep writing.

So I went to this novel generator at Catapult when they still had the school, took it with I had the first draft of this novel, and then it just, It just snowballed from there, you know, where I, I just kept plugging away just because I was so miserable. Also, my dad had passed, um, actually New Year's Eve, 2020.

And we did think in the beginning that he was, that something had happened to him because he was found at a bus stop in Coney Island. And it was such a, it was such a hard moment for me where I just questioned everything in life. And then we, we didn't know for a while what had happened to him. I think it wasn't until I was joining a lot of these online, um, like these, these Zoom calls with a lot of Asian American artists where there was this playwright, Julia Cho, when she heard my, my story about my dad, because I was so frustrated.

I didn't know. And then I described what had happened to my dad and how he looked. He had two black eyes, you know, he had a head fracture. And then she asked her, she's out in California. So she asked her husband, who is an room doctor about it. And he said that, oh, he fell because of the raccoon eyes. So I had never heard that.

And the doctors here didn't explain anything about. About that, you know, um, and it was weird because the, the. The people who were working at the hospital, they were whispering to me because these were people that I, I knew where it was the hospital where I used to work. And they would tell me things like, Oh, we think something like he was hit, you know?

And so I'm getting these conflicting things, information, and I was so upset. And then two months later, my dad, Passed, sorry, because I'm just remembering also the way how the doctor at the nursing home where we thought he was getting better Had broken the news to us that he had passed away and and that was that He died, and he gave us the wrong age, the wrong diagnosis.

So we were thinking, are you sure? And then, and then he just kept trying to call us to say, to pick up the body, you know? And, and it, it really, it was very difficult because then I had to divorce my, my father as a person and, and then reduce him to, oh, he's a body now, you know? And I think just working on the novel, I mean, that's why I dedicate this book to him.

Yay. He had said, you know, if you want to write, just keep writing, and he said that to me when I was a younger person, so, uh, he was very supportive, and, and I thought, you know, it's the least I could do that you had support, you know, like, giving me that support when, when I was younger, say, that encouragement.

If you think you can do it, do it, you know, so which is unusual for a lot of Asian parents because they tell you things like do something practical with your life, but my dad, he was the dreamer. So he said, No, if you want to chase after your dream, do it. You know, I'm just I'm so sorry that he was not able to make it.

So he did not meet his granddaughter and he did not live to know that I am publishing a book. 

Zibby: I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And that's such a complicated grief that the way that that all happened is so traumatic and I'm so sorry you went through that. That's just terrible. 

Cherry: I didn't know I would be talking about that because it was hard to talk about it before, like, I would just cry at everything, you know, and, um,.. 

Zibby: It's okay.

It's okay to cry about it. It's so sad. I mean, now the last scene, the last scenes of the book are about this. I mean, it's fictitiously, but it's the same, you know, the reader gets a preview of, of this feeling of, of loss and confusion and, you know, end of life, you know, the sort of degradation of someone you love so much and respect so much who becomes someone too.

Take care of and figure out what to do with and you know, it's just heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking and you wrote about it beautifully and I'm, I'm not surprised. It's coming from such a place of personal experience. I'm so sorry.

Cherry: I mean, I, I felt like I, you know, during the pandemic, nobody would go anywhere and I felt like I was just sort of making myself crazy.

Just churning all this over and over in my mind, and I, I felt like, well, I, I have to put it into something that makes sense, because otherwise, why, what was the purpose of anything, you know? Because I, I did feel like my, my dad was, uh, degraded towards the end. And I wish it wasn't that way, but yeah, that's how it turned out, you know, so, um, so I'm, I'm happy that I was able to, to use those emotions into something that makes sense in this, in this book, you know, and again, I'm very thankful I had a complicated relationship with him.

He wasn't a saint, but I'm grateful for the encouragement. That he had because, you know, being a writer and being an artist, choosing this, uh, this life, it's not easy, you know, very lonely and sometimes just a word of encouragement helps so much, you know, so, so I'm, I'm grateful and again, the book is dedicated to him and, um, I hope wherever he is that, that, that he is, uh, proud and, you know, happy.

Zibby: Oh, well, I am so sorry. And I had this close relationship with my grandmother, who is the biggest encourager of my own writing. And I would cry like when my first book came out that she wasn't there because like, I wanted to just be like, I did it. And like, you and I should be hugging right now. Like you should, I should show you that after all that it came, you know, the dreams came true.

And people would say to me, you know, I know that she knows. You know, so people have all different beliefs of what people know, but I like to believe that the people that we love and who have encouraged us on some level in the universe, I don't even know, somehow, know and sort of bless what is going on.

So I cling to that hope. Um, but of course it's unfair and terrible that they can't be here. And I'm just so sorry about your dad, but it's beautiful. How you beautiful the way the tribute to him. And this happens to so many people. I mean, healthcare, you know, is so horrific in this country. And, you know, sadly, this is not the only time that this has happened.

And I bet a lot of people out there will be so moved to hear about your experience and it'll echo their own devastation and make them feel seen. So thank you for sharing your own experience with them in the book and today. 

Cherry: Thank you. Oh my gosh. I'm so sorry. 

Zibby: Why don't be sorry. I mean,.. 

Cherry: I just cry at a drop of a hat, you know, this is why I thought I would be an actress.

Zibby: Look, grief is, grief it never really goes away. It's just, it's right there, like, pressing up right against, you know, the littlest thing, you know. 

Cherry: Yeah. 

Zibby: To make it come out, and that's okay, that's okay. 

Cherry: Yeah, it's only been four years, and um, and to your point, you know, and I, I had, I'd gone to this grief group when the year that, that he passed and and then um, I met so many people who had most of the people that I had met had horrific health care stories and and that's such a such a sad thing where just health care here isn't.

It's not what people think it is and you're not taken care of, you know, you're you're barely taken care of I mean one of the people that I had met actually when it came time to talk about her plans for retirement because her mother died only at 54 I think and and she was in her 30s and And she said that she hopes she has a heart attack and that dies right away You So I, you know, that stayed with me.

Zibby: I mean, the book really is, you know, from the beginning to the end, like when I, when I think about it through the lens of healthcare, which I wasn't sort of, but that is the main, really one of the through lines of who takes care of who and how, and you know, what's it all about. Like, what is life all about?

If this is the way we take care of each other at the end, like, what does that say about the life itself and how we live? I don't know. It's very profound, what you write about. It's a really important examination of. How a country takes care of its own, and what that says. Yeah. Part of the American nightmare, I would say.

Aww. Are you working on anything else these days? Are you doing some writing? 

Cherry: Yes, yes, I try to, to write when I can, uh, especially with, with a new baby. I'm actually working on a piece, uh, That's sort of taking my father and his death again as sort of the, the capstone where, where he goes into the underworld.

You know, a character, not my father, but a character. Similar to my father goes to the underworld and how his family reckons with the absence of of him, you know, so it's a speculative fiction and I'm really excited about it because one of the things that I, I, uh, appreciated about my father, which was also really frustrating because it was never stable.

He was, I mentioned before, he was such a dreamer. I mean, things that he had done. He was a treasure hunter in the Philippines. He used to try to look for gold that was left by the Japanese or something and it was just crazy and it made me think he, he loved his adventures, you know, and so I want to keep that tradition going but in a literary, fictive sense where he is now, I mean, like a person, a character based on him is now unmoored and And traveling and doing these exciting things in, in realms far from the physical, you know?

Yeah. So, I'm, I'm really excited about that. That's amazing. And it's very different from, from this one because this is, you know, realistic fiction and this one now that I'm going to be work that I'm working on currently. It's a departure. 

Zibby: Wow. Well, Cherry, thank you so much for the story and for how thought provoking it was and emotional, intense, transportative, if that's a word.

And thank you for being so open with your feelings. And I hope that your father is at peace wherever he is. 

Cherry: Thank you so much. And thank you for everything that you do for the writing community. 

Zibby: Thank you. Thank you. 

Cherry: Okay. Thank you. All right. Bye. Bye. 

Zibby: Okay. Bye.