Cherry Lou Sy, LOVE CAN'T FEED YOU
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[0:42]Cherry Loose Eye is the author of Love Can't Feed You a Novel. Cherry is a writer slash playwright originally from the Philippines of Chinese and Filipino heritage.
[0:52]Currently based in Brooklyn, New York, she received her BA at NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study and intended Brooklyn Colleges,
[0:59]M.A. in English Literature, as well as the M.F.A. in playwriting program, under Mack Wellman and Aaron Courtney.
[1:05]She is a recipient of fellowships and residencies from V.O.N.A., Vona and Tinhouse, among others, and a finalist for way too many things to mention.
[1:14]I wonder what they are.
[1:16]Welcome, Cherry. Thank you so much for coming.
[1:18]On Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books to discuss Love Can't Feed You. Congratulations.
[1:23]Thank you so much.
[1:24]As we were just discussing, the novel is so the first person voice, and I mean, it is a first person, right?
[1:31]Yes, yeah.
[1:32]Oh my gosh, I'm like, why did I think this was true?
[1:34]But it feels so deeply personal and relatable to the main character that you feel you are
[1:41]completely a part of this person's life. I could not stop reading. I just wanted to consume
[1:46]more and more and see what happened, the horrors of her life, the violence against
[1:53]there's some really tricky parts of the story, but really you're just rooting for her so much
[1:59]for Queenie to be okay. Tell listeners about the story and what it's about. Let's start there.
[2:05]Thank you so much again for having me here. I'm really excited to talk to you and about the book.
[2:12]It's something that is very close to my heart because it talks a lot about things that I had gone
[2:18]through as a person who is half Chinese and half Filipino. And maybe that's why some people think
[2:25]it's a memoir because of that. But the core of the story is it's about Queenie, a 17-year-old
[2:33]who immigrates to the United States with her father and her younger brother to reunite with
[2:40]her mother who is an overseas nurse. She's from the Philippines. She came to the United States
[2:46]to work in the healthcare industry and they haven't seen each other for about five years. And in
[2:55]that time, the mother has changed so much that she's unrecognizable to the family. So essentially,
[3:02]the story is about this family through the eyes of the daughter Queenie and how they immigrate
[3:11]thinking that they're going to achieve the American dream, but actually they start experiencing
[3:17]the American nightmare. And that is of assimilation and what you are demanded to erase because of
[3:25]assimilation. So interesting. Oh my gosh. So when Queenie first gets to the States, her mother
[3:32]has spent, had them come over and she spent all this money. And so the mother is convinced that
[3:39]everybody has earned the money back. And so she has to get this job as a caretaker for an elderly
[3:44]woman. And meanwhile, the mother is a nurse. And then the father ends up having to get a job
[3:49]cleaning up trash. And they're all basically wiping. It's like a metaphor. Where they feel
[3:57]their place in society might be. I feel like there's a statement to that, but they're just cleaning
[4:02]up other people and not being allowed to shine for the brilliant people. They are themselves or
[4:06]their own gifts. At one point someone was like, I'm not even a nurse. I'm cleaning off an ass
[4:15]like other caretakers. Like are you happy? Aren't you tired? How are you feeling about this
[4:20]station in life essentially? So tell me a little bit about that because I feel like that really
[4:24]sets the scene for some of the just like the point of view, the unique point of view that this novel
[4:30]takes you into. Right. So I mean, I know that as someone who also came here with a similar background,
[4:39]my mom is a nurse herself and she came with other Filipina nurses who were taken because they
[4:47]were nurses, you know, and actually I even met. So I worked briefly at a hospital when I was in my
[4:54]20s or at Dr. College because my mom, of course, of course, this is the story of every Filipino,
[5:00]Filipino American that you will meet. They have someone who's a nurse in the family and they're
[5:05]expected to be doctors or nurses. So I didn't want that for myself and I ended up just working
[5:12]in a hospital to see if that was something that I wanted to do. And I mean, God bless the people
[5:19]who can do that because I cannot. I was there for five years as a clerk and I just saw things,
[5:26]heard things and it's really heartbreaking at times on witnessing things just from both sides from
[5:35]the patient point of view and then the carrot giving point of view. And I thought that writing a novel
[5:43]that really asks what caretakers give up for themselves in order to care for someone else.
[5:52]You know, because usually we don't think about who the people carrying for us are in these
[5:59]settings, you know, but they have personal lives. They have personal dramas. They have families
[6:05]that they have given up, right? Or deferred. Let's put it that way, deferred to think about a better
[6:11]future. And sometimes it's not that way you lose connection. You lose part of yourself, I guess,
[6:20]and carried for someone else as well. So that was something that I was really keen on exploring.
[6:28]One of the most powerful relationships and dynamics is between Queenie's parents. So her mom had at
[6:37]one point been a dancer slash sex worker, whatever. And the father was a much older man who
[6:44]she marries theoretically for money, but then finds out he doesn't really have much money.
[6:48]Yeah. And their relationship when he comes to America in particular is so fraught. I mean,
[6:54]there is one scene where Queenie and her brother and her mother have just barely gotten behind
[7:00]the door and locked it where the dad is like brandishing a knife. I mean, well, it was like so
[7:06]powerful. And the frustration he had about her behavior and the frustration she had about what
[7:15]she thought with him. I mean, this whole mix of disappointment and betrayal and all of it. Just
[7:22]tell me a little more about the two of them. And then of course Queenie has to witness all this
[7:26]is a model of behavior and relationships herself. But this very toxic relationship is really
[7:34]I feel like at the heart of the story in some ways. Yeah. I mean, one of the things that I thought
[7:40]about, obviously I had parents who had a similar dynamic growing up because my dad is older and
[7:49]he's Chinese and my mom is Filipina and much younger. Okay. This is this is where I tell people,
[7:54]okay, my mom was not a go-go dancer in Alonga Post City. Okay. But I did take part of that story
[8:00]because what I what I did notice working at the hospital was that I was meeting a lot of people
[8:07]who were nurses and especially if they were women and then they had a male partner who basically
[8:14]didn't catch up with them economically or you know, all of that. There seemed to be a lot of
[8:21]issues and it was something that I I think I even read a study where the nursing, you know,
[8:31]the nurse basically leaves her partner because she usually it's a woman feels that her male partner
[8:40]has not stepped up with her and that she is growing and he is actually holding her back, you know,
[8:46]and so in this dynamic because they're immigrants, it made me think, well, how many stories of
[8:53]people do I know where actually the nurses have come here and they have left their family. I mean,
[8:59]I have known personally stories of people who have left their family and literally just
[9:08]forgot about them or started living their own lives here and so that was something that I
[9:14]I started thinking about and then thinking what does this do to the children, you know, from
[9:21]the child's point of view when you see this as you said, as the model for what adult life is,
[9:28]what working life is and the transactions behind relationships, you know, I mean, how how many
[9:35]articles essays videos have we seen where people talk about 50-50, where as some cultures,
[9:44]you know, it's the man who's supposed to be taking care of the woman and what if they suddenly
[9:49]come into this American environment and that's not the case where they demand that you pulled
[9:54]your weight. So what does that do? And for the male psyche, I find
[10:00]in that there's a diminishment of who they are as people
[10:03]because they feel like, well, who am I?
[10:06]Because this American self that I'm supposed to be,
[10:10]I can't manage it with who I was in the other country.
[10:15]And so I don't know who's right
[10:18]because who's point of view are we privileging?
[10:21]Of course, women's rights in other countries,
[10:24]sometimes it's not, it's not where it should be,
[10:28]because of patriarchy, et cetera, et cetera.
[10:30]But at the same time, I also think about,
[10:33]it's complicated because what traditions and morees
[10:39]and mentalities do we kind of keep for ourselves
[10:45]from wherever our ethnic identities
[10:50]were from originally and then what becomes
[10:54]this American self for the immigrant
[10:57]for second, third, fourth, whatever generation, you know?
[11:01]So that's something that I was contending with also
[11:03]in the book.
[11:05]Interesting.
[11:05]Well, then we see what happens with some of her relationships.
[11:09]She has this one moment with a boy where she invokes
[11:17]like more of a violent sort of tone, more aggressive tone.
[11:21]And he's like, I thought you were this nice Filipino girl.
[11:23]What are you doing?
[11:24]Yeah, she's like, no.
[11:26]And then we watch as she sort of explores
[11:29]her own sexual identity throughout the book.
[11:32]And at one point, she's like, wait, what am I doing?
[11:35]I still like men and the woman, it's like, I do too.
[11:39]Don't worry about it.
[11:39]And there's just a lot of exploration
[11:42]and identity searching, even sexual identity.
[11:45]Can you speak to that a little bit?
[11:47]Yeah, and for the listeners, just to give context.
[11:50]So there is also, because this is a coming of age story,
[11:53]I also wanted to deal with what happens
[11:55]with a young person's sexuality,
[11:58]where they're experimenting or they're thinking,
[12:01]well, if this isn't as great
[12:04]and what are the other options out there?
[12:06]And so she does develop, I don't know if it's
[12:09]a healthy relationship either with an older woman.
[12:13]And so I just keep thinking that that is life
[12:17]because a lot of people that I also meet
[12:20]are also my experiences.
[12:23]Again, not my experience, but just people that I've met,
[12:27]they talk about who are they, especially
[12:31]when you're completely upended in this world
[12:34]that you're trying to navigate.
[12:37]And then nobody is telling you, that's not exactly true.
[12:42]People are telling you, this is how it's supposed to be.
[12:46]But then you see that it's not working, right?
[12:49]So she sees the relationship between her parents
[12:53]not working.
[12:54]She saw that she tried with this boy
[12:59]who's half Greek, half Filipino, that she met through work.
[13:04]And it's not working.
[13:07]And so there's this very exciting woman
[13:12]who comes in and tells her things and tries to educate her.
[13:17]And because she doesn't know what the norms are culturally,
[13:22]she thinks that, OK, maybe this is something
[13:25]that I'll see what this is about.
[13:28]So there's a lot of learning through experimentation,
[13:33]learning through stories, learning through just different
[13:37]experiences with herself and other people,
[13:41]and then learning also from their points of view.
[13:43]And her good friend, also, what's his name, Sam?
[13:47]Yeah, yeah, yeah.
[13:48]Yeah, I'm sorry, yeah.
[13:50]Yeah, and who is a shoulder to cry on for her at many times.
[13:53]And then he ends up having a whole secret life of his own.
[13:57]And you've even talked about someone
[13:59]he's having a relationship with, the someone who
[14:01]seems so masculine that you would never know in Filipino culture
[14:05]that this person would possibly,
[14:08]I think it goes with this theme of things aren't necessarily
[14:11]what they seem, right?
[14:13]Yeah, yeah.
[14:14]Is this the biblical illusion, what does it say at all that
[14:18]all that sparkles doesn't shine?
[14:19]Yeah, yeah, so it's something that all that's
[14:22]shine is not gold, something to that effect.
[14:26]Also, I just want to say that maybe it's my mom brain working,
[14:29]because I just gave breakfast last year.
[14:32]My daughter just turned one.
[14:33]So I find that my brain has been like, ah, my brain was
[14:39]like that for many, many years.
[14:41]Some days, I'm still like, I don't even know.
[14:43]But yes, I totally understand.
[14:46]Not a good day.
[14:47]I can't pull up an expression.
[14:48]So tell me more about your life.
[14:51]You have an MFA in playwriting, right?
[14:53]Which I was telling you to sing with MFA.
[14:56]OK, I was like, what?
[14:57]So just take me back.
[14:59]When did you decide to be an author?
[15:01]Like, what is your, what is your story?
[15:04]Yeah, I guess I've always been so originally I
[15:07]wanted to be an actress.
[15:09]I mean, I was writing.
[15:10]I mean, I think every teenager writes angsty poetry
[15:13]in their youth.
[15:15]So I did that.
[15:16]And then I had met folks when I was at NYU.
[15:21]And then also in regular life,
[15:24]like I was at this martial arts school.
[15:27]And I had this Italian teacher, teachers, they were twins.
[15:32]And one of them was an actor stuntman.
[15:35]So I was always in that realm.
[15:38]And he was saying, yeah, you should be.
[15:40]And film TV or our theater.
[15:43]And so I was thinking, OK, maybe I'll try this.
[15:46]But I didn't know what I was doing.
[15:48]I had no mentor.
[15:50]And then I did that for a little bit.
[15:52]I did get a scholarship from this gentleman
[15:57]to go to acting school for a year in a conservatory.
[16:00]I did that.
[16:01]And then I tried to audition.
[16:03]It was just really hard.
[16:05]I felt like just people saying, no,
[16:09]to be honest, it was so hard.
[16:10]And then always asking myself, am I good enough for this?
[16:16]So it was just not computing.
[16:18]And then I worked in the hospital.
[16:20]Then I got married.
[16:23]And then I don't know.
[16:25]I felt like life was just passing by.
[16:27]And suddenly I met some people who rekindled my acting.
[16:33]And then after that, I realized that you know what?
[16:37]I think I like writing more.
[16:39]So I started writing plays.
[16:41]And then I got into an MFA program
[16:45]because I was also a kind of writing fiction,
[16:47]but very experimental.
[16:50]I went to an MFA program at LAU for a semester.
[16:55]But I just, I don't know.
[16:57]I felt like the environment was not for me.
[17:00]So I dropped out.
[17:02]I ended up applying at the MFA program
[17:04]at Brooklyn College.
[17:05]They gave me a full ride.
[17:06]So I went there.
[17:07]And then I was still secretly trying to write.
[17:11]I was, and then when the pandemic happened.
[17:15]So I had graduated right before the pandemic like in 2018.
[17:19]I was miserable.
[17:20]I had a knee injury.
[17:24]I couldn't walk.
[17:25]Theater was closing down everywhere.
[17:27]And then I just thought, I don't know what I'm going to do.
[17:31]I'm just going to keep writing.
[17:32]So I went to this novel generator at Catapult
[17:36]when they still had the school.
[17:38]Took it with Ling Stegor Strong.
[17:41]I had the first draft of this novel.
[17:44]And then it just snowballed from there,
[17:48]where I just kept plugging away just because I was so miserable.
[17:51]Also, my dad had passed actually New Year's the 2020.
[17:56]And we did think in the beginning that he was,
[17:59]that something had happened to him
[18:00]because he was found at a bus stop in Coney Island.
[18:03]And it was such a, it was such a hard moment for me
[18:08]where I just questioned everything in life.
[18:10]And then we didn't know for a while what had happened to him.
[18:14]And I think it wasn't until I was joining a lot of these,
[18:19]online, these Zoom calls with a lot of Asian-American artists
[18:24]where there was this playwright Julia Cho
[18:27]when she heard my story about my dad
[18:30]because I was so frustrated I didn't know.
[18:32]And then I described what had happened to my dad
[18:35]and how he looked, he had two black eyes,
[18:38]he had a head fracture.
[18:40]And then she asked her, she's out in California.
[18:42]So she asked her husband who is an emergency room doctor
[18:46]about it.
[18:47]And he said that, okay, he fell because of the raccoon eyes.
[18:51]So I had never heard that.
[18:52]And the doctors here didn't explain anything
[18:55]about that, you know.
[18:58]And it was weird because the people who were working
[19:03]at the hospital, they were whispering to me
[19:06]because these were people that I knew
[19:08]where it was the hospital where I used to work.
[19:11]And they would tell me things like, oh,
[19:12]we think something like he was hit, you know?
[19:15]And so I'm getting these kind of like things, information.
[19:18]And I was so upset.
[19:20]And then two months later, my dad passed.
[19:23]Sorry.
[19:24]Oh, because I'm just remembering also
[19:26]the way how the doctor at the nursing home,
[19:29]where we thought he was getting better,
[19:30]had broken the news to us that he had passed away.
[19:34]And that was that he died.
[19:36]And he gave us the wrong age, the wrong diagnosis.
[19:39]So we were thinking, are you sure?
[19:42]And then, and then he just kept trying to call us
[19:45]to say to pick up the body, you know?
[19:47]And it really, it was very difficult
[19:50]because then I had to divorce my father as a person
[19:54]and then reduce him to, oh, he's a body now, you know?
[19:58]And I think we just worked.
[20:00]on the novel. I mean, that's why I dedicate this book to him. He had said, you know, if you want
[20:07]to write, just keep writing. He said that to me when I was a younger person. So he was very supportive
[20:14]and I thought, you know, it's the least I could do that you had support, you know, like giving me that
[20:22]support when I was younger to say that encouragement. If you think you can do it, do it.
[20:29]you know, so which is unusual for a lot of Asian parents because they tell you things like,
[20:36]do something practical with your life. But my dad, he was the dreamer. So he said, no, if you want to
[20:43]chase after your dream, do it, you know, I'm just, I'm so sorry that he was not able to make it.
[20:50]So he did not meet his granddaughter and he did not live to know that I am publishing a book.
[20:56]Oh, I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry. And that's such a complicated grief. The way that that
[21:04]all happened is so traumatic and I'm so sorry you went through that. It's just terrible.
[21:10]So I didn't know I would be talking about that because it was hard to talk about it before.
[21:15]Like I would just cry at everything, you know, and it's okay to cry about it. It's so sad.
[21:23]I mean, now the last scenes of the book are about this. I mean, it's fictitious, but
[21:30]yeah, it's the same, you know, the reader gets a preview of this feeling of loss and confusion
[21:37]and, you know, end of life. You know, it's a degradation of someone who loves so much and respects
[21:44]so much, who becomes someone to take care of and figure out what to do with. And, you know,
[21:51]it's just heartbreaking. It's so heartbreaking. And you wrote about it beautifully. And I'm not surprised
[21:57]it's coming from such a place of personal experience. I'm so sorry.
[22:02]I mean, I felt like we, you know, during the pandemic, no one could go anywhere.
[22:08]I felt like I was just sort of making myself crazy, just turning all this over and over in my mind.
[22:16]And I felt like, well, I have to put it into something that makes sense because otherwise,
[22:23]why, what was the purpose of anything? You know, because I did feel like my dad was
[22:30]degraded towards the end. And I wish it wasn't that way, but yeah, that's how it turned out,
[22:38]you know, so I'm happy that I was able to use those emotions into something that makes sense
[22:48]in this book, you know, and again, I'm very thankful. I had a complicated relationship with him.
[22:54]It wasn't a saint, but I'm grateful for the encouragement that he had because, you know, being a
[23:01]writer, and being an artist, choosing this life, it's not easy, you know, very lonely,
[23:09]and sometimes just a word of encouragement helps so much, you know, so I'm grateful. And
[23:17]again, what is dedicated to him and I hope wherever he is that that he is proud and, you know,
[23:28]happy. Well, I am so sorry. And I had this close relationship with my grandmother who was the
[23:38]biggest encourager of my own writing. And I would cry like when my first book came out that she
[23:44]wasn't there because like, I wanted to just be like, I did it. And like, even I should be hugging
[23:49]right now. Like, you should, I should show you that after all that it, you know, the dreams came true.
[23:55]People would say to me, you know, I know that she knows, you know, so people have all different
[24:00]beliefs of what people know. But I like to believe that the people that we love and who have
[24:06]encouraged us on some level in the universe, I don't even know somehow know and sort of bless
[24:13]what is going on. So I cling to that hope. But of course, it's unfair and terrible that they
[24:20]can't be here. And I'm just so sorry about your dad. But it's beautiful how you're beautiful
[24:26]the way the tribute to him. And this happens to so many people. I mean, healthcare is so horrific
[24:33]in this country. And, you know, sadly, this is not the only time that this has happened. And I
[24:39]bet a lot of people out there will be so moved to hear about your experience. And it'll echo
[24:45]their own devastation and make them feel seen. So thank you for sharing your own experience with
[24:51]them in the book. And today. Thank you. Oh, my God, I'm so sorry. Why don't you sorry? I mean,
[24:59]oh, God, this is this is crying and drop over the hat. You know, okay, this is why I thought I
[25:03]would be an actress. Look, grief is grief. It never really goes away. It's just, it's right there,
[25:11]like pressing up right against, you know, the littlest thing, you know, yeah, make it come out.
[25:16]And that's okay. That's okay. Yeah, it's only been four years. And to your point, you know,
[25:23]and I had gone to this grief group when the year that he passed. And then I met so many people who
[25:32]had most of the people that I had met had horrific healthcare stories. And that's such a such a sad
[25:40]thing where just healthcare here isn't, it's not what people think it is. And you're not taken care
[25:50]of, you know, you're, you're barely taken care of. I mean, one of the people that I had met actually
[25:57]when it came time to talk about her plans for retirement because her mother died only at 54,
[26:06]and she was in her 30s. And she said that she hopes she has a heart attack and that dies right away.
[26:14]So I, you know, that stayed with me.
[26:17]I mean, the book really is, you know, from the beginning to the end, like when I, when I think about
[26:21]it through the lens of healthcare, which I wasn't sort of, but that is the main really one of the
[26:26]through lines of who takes care of who and how and, you know, what's it all about? Like, what is
[26:34]life all about if this is the way we take care of each other at the end? Like, what does that say
[26:37]about the life itself and how we live? I don't know. It's very profound. What you write about
[26:44]it's a really important examination of how a country takes care of its own and what that says.
[26:51]Yeah. Heart of the American nightmare. I'll say, are you working on anything else these days?
[26:58]Are you doing some writing? Yes. Yes. I try to to write when I can, especially with with a new
[27:05]baby. I'm actually working on a piece of the sort of taking my father and his death again as sort
[27:14]of the capstone where where he goes into the underworld, you know, a character, not my father,
[27:21]a character similar to my father goes to the underworld and how his family reckons with
[27:30]the absence of him, you know, it's a speculative fiction. And I'm really excited about it because one
[27:37]of the things that I appreciated about my father, which was also really frustrating because it was
[27:44]never stable. He was, I mentioned before, he was such a dreamer. I mean, things that he had done,
[27:50]he was a treasure hunter in the Philippines. He used to try to look for gold that was left by the
[27:58]Japanese or something. And it was just crazy. And it made me think he loved his adventures, you know.
[28:05]And so I want to keep that tradition going, but in a literary fictive sense where he is now,
[28:14]I mean, like a person, a character based on him is now on board and and traveling and doing
[28:22]these exciting things in in realms far from the physical, you know. Yeah. So I'm really excited
[28:30]about that. It's amazing. And it's very different from from this one because this is, you know,
[28:37]realistic fiction. And this one now that I'm going to be working that I'm working on currently,
[28:42]it's a departure. Well, Terry, thank you so much for the story and for
[28:49]how thought provoking it was an emotional, intense, transportative, if that's a word.
[28:55]And thank you for being so open with your feelings. And I hope that your father is at peace wherever
[29:02]he is. Thank you so much. And thank you for everything that you do for the writing community.
[29:07]Thank you. Thank you. Okay. Thank you. All right. Bye bye. Okay. Bye.
[29:14]Thanks for listening to momstone have time to read books. If you love it, please leave a review
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