Beyond the Galleons by Isabel Cristina Legarda is a meditation on Filipino experiences of colonization, ancestral connection, alienation, and the ghosts that haunt people living in geographic or psychological diasporas. Isabel juxtaposes historic moments from the days of Spanish and American colonial rule with threads of real women's lived experiences to raise awareness of multicultural histories that might be less known or talked about.
Isabel was born in the Philippines and spent her childhood there before moving to Bethesda, Maryland. She holds degrees in literature and bioethics and is currently a practicing physician in Boston, Massachusetts. Beyond the Galleons first looks at the complicated interactions between Filipino natives and their colonial subjugators, shifting from Spanish to American imperialism, and culminating in imagined individual voices descended from those who lived through these histories. Tagalog, baybayin, Spanish, and English weave together to help tell a sometimes forgotten, sometimes ignored history. Isabel's poems contemplate longing, resilience, and the need to hold on to memory while moving forward beyond pain.