Nuestras prosistas del presente y del porvenir

For years, cooking recipes and literary texts written by women were relegated, in the Philippine newspaper La Vanguardia, to the section called " Hogar" (Home). In spite of the marginalization that this implied, the truth is that in the issue of July 9, 1932, the most promising women writers of the country were proudly shown, and even equated to the level of men with these words: “The woman writing seems to be very close to the man - what an inspiring picture! To write for an Ideal is to place oneself at man's level or at a higher level than man. But that does not make her less of a woman; on the contrary, it makes her more of a woman”.

Some of the women who were included among the promising Philippine writers of the time happened to be prominent personalities in the public life of Manila. This is the case of Paz Mendoza Guazon, an important physician and suffragist who traveled around the world and gave frequent lectures and appears here as a prose writer and author of a travel book. It is also the case of Rosa Sevilla de Alvero, director of the first institute for women in Manila, a playwright, and an inspired conference speaker. The rest of these women mainly wrote in newspapers. Two groups stand out: those who only wrote in Spanish and those who wrote in Spanish and English, as is the case of Josefina Opus Silvestre, "Sylvia", whose short story is included on the same page.

Ocampo, Marceliano. “Nuestras Prosistas del Presente y del Porvenir”, La Vanguardia: diario filipino independiente, vol. XXIII, num. 137, July 9, 1932, p.p. 11, 12. In Biblioteca Virtual de Prensa Histórica

Gardinier, David E., and Josefina Z. Sevilla-Gardinier. 1989. “Rosa Sevilla de Alvero and the Instituto de Mujeres of Manila.” Philippine Studies 37, num. 1, pp. 29–51.

Villaescusa, Irene. 2018. “Un Paseo Por La Modernidad: Reflexiones de Paz Mendoza En Sus Notas de Viaje (1929).” Revista de Crítica Literaria Latinoamericana 44, num. 88, pp. 267–90.