Calgary, AB / Winnipeg, MB, December 30, 2020 – FilipinX artist, musician, and media creator
jacqueline gallos aquines (they/them/siya) has released their groundbreaking book Home is in
the Body: 2SLGBTQIA+ PilipinX Femme, North of 49th Parallel, the first of its kind to feature the
voices of Pilipinx/Filipinx/Pinay(Filipina) who are queer in their politics, allyship, advocacy,
and/or lived experience. Exploring topics around Community, Identity, Self, and Love, Home is
in the Body is a 144-page hardcover with essays, articles, poetry, and visual art. The book
comes one year after Pinay Power II, the first gathering in Canada of self-identified Pinays
(Filipinas), including queer and transwomen, to create a peminist (Filipina feminist) agenda in
the 21st century.
In addition to being a community activist, aquines is a seasoned sound editor and composer
and has worked in film and videography since 2004, after completing a BA in Cultural Studies
with a minor in East Asian Studies at McGill. They continue to explore their FilipinX identity
with documentaries, short films and podcasts that seek to unlearn colonial mentality, examine
cultural identity, deconstruct mediums from an intersectional perspective, and create
community within the diaspora and across cultural indigenous identity.
Home is in the Body is part of aquines’ project funded by Calgary Arts Development that will
include a documentary. This book features portraits and interviews with over 40 radical FilipinX
femme from across Canada and the United States who identify as Trans Pinay, Lesbian,
Bisexual, Pansexual, Queer, Questioning, Asexual, Aromantic, or Gender Non-conforming, as
well as some Allies of 2SLGBTQIA+.
The book is published by Winnipeg-based ANAK Publishing Worker Cooperative Ltd, which
produces thought provoking Filipino-Canadian content, notably in oral history, children’s
literature, and creative writing anthologies.
Home is in the Body: 2SLGBTQIA+ FilipinX Femme, North of 49th Parallel can be purchased at
homeisinthebody.ca.
Daisydee Bautista
ANAK Publishing Worker Cooperative Ltd.
204-293-4100
info@anakpublishing.ca