Ateneo Press releases book on Filipino migrant workers in Japan

Rey Ventura's "Into the Country of Standing Men" (2007) delves
closer into the lives of the men he wrote about in his first
book "Underground in ," first published in 1992 and
reprinted in 2006.

In the "unauthorized" migrant laborers are known as
tachinbo, literally standing men, because they have to stand in
line while a company foreman sizes them up and chooses the most
able ones for the job for the day. According to Ventura, "it is
important to be seen standing. If you were sitting, that would
mean you are just loafing around."

Fifteen years after, the standing men have somehow grown roots in
their second "home" with one or two having married Japanese, or
with offspring that have been "made in ." They are not as
intimated by their status as they were when they first came,
some have become very fluent in the language and comfortable in
the lifestyle, but as the book poignantly shows, the tachinbo
ironically embodies homelessness as never before: he will never
be considered a citizen by the Japanese state, nor can he now go
back to his own home that somehow seems to have forgotten him
after all these years.

"Country of Standing Men" also features women, in all their
strengths and frailties. Straightforward language, vivid
imagery, and a unique sense of humor all contribute to making
this book a gripping chronicle of an evolving social reality.

Both books will soon be available in the following good
bookstores: Fully Booked (756-5001), Popular Bookstore
(372-2162), Powerbooks (490-1158), and Solidaridad (523-0870).
On campus the books may be bought directly from the LS bookstore
(4266001 loc. 5184) and the Ateneo Press bookshop (4265984;
4266001 ext 4613; unipress@admu.edu.ph; www.ateneopress.org).