The Isagani R. Cruz collection

The highlight of 2014 for me was my donation to De La Salle University (DLSU) of books, articles, trophies, and other items I accumulated for more than half a century. At the formal turnover last Dec. 18, I delivered a speech in Filipino and English. I reprint below excerpts from the English portion.

A clarification. I actually have two collections. The first is in the Aklatang Emilio Aguinaldo of De La Salle University Dasmariñas. That collection contains almost all the trade books (but not textbooks) published in the Philippines from 1981 to today. The reason I have all those books is that I co-founded the Manila Critics Circle and we receive no tangible reward for judging the National Book Awards except free copies of books sent by publishers. For the period from 1981 to today, that collection is bigger than any collection of Filipiniana trade books in any other Philippine library.

What we are opening here today is my collection of books that were published outside the Philippines. The bulk of the books is in the field of American literature. Two of my three fields of study at the University of Maryland were American Literature before 1865 and American Literature after 1865. (The third field was literary theory.) As those of you know who studied in the United States, that meant that I had to read all, I mean all, the literary texts produced by Americans from the first poem written by Philip Pain on the Mayflower to the time I took my comprehensives, which was in 1974. The collection of books here, if taken with the books in the American Corner of this library, is the most complete collection of American literature books in the Philippines. Anyone studying the United States has to start with the DLSU Libraries before going to the smaller collections in the American embassy and other universities.

Now, why am I giving all of these books, as well as those in Dasmariñas, to DLSU? The reason is simple: they can’t fit in my condominium. Also, of course, I find no sense in reading a book just by myself and keeping it just for myself. Books are meant to be shared. Knowledge is meant to be shared. To misquote the Bible, what doth it profit a man or woman to have read so much and not share what he or she has read?

Before the Internet was born, I wrote quite a number of columns and articles for various newspapers and magazines. Those now exist only in the hard copies in this room. DLSU has started digitalizing them, which is really the way to go. Researchers may not want to read my articles, but they may need to read the newspapers and magazines where these articles appeared. We need to have a sense of what happened before today. I have been writing continuously since 1969, and this room might be the only place in the world where these newspapers and magazines still exist.

Many research assistants helped me write these columns and articles through the years. I want to thank them all. Without them, I would not have been so productive. In fact, without my students and my colleagues, not just here in La Salle, but in UP Diliman, Ateneo de Manila, Ateneo de Davao, UST, and FEU, not to mention the various foreign universities where I spent some time, I would not have written so much.

There are also letters from various people to me. Researchers on these other people need to read these letters. Florbella “Gabi” Bongalos has done an extraordinary job listing everything in this room. It is now electronically possible to locate these letters, as well as any of the other 70,000 items in this room and listed provisionally in the Register. I will be adding quite a number more, because my condo really needs the space.

Naturally, since these are archives, they also contain archival materials, meaning things about me. I leave them here for two reasons. First, I need a place to store them, but second and more important, I hope that DLSU will be proud that it had a lot to do with my having these trophies and certificates.

I have spent more than 30 years at La Salle, first, as a young instructor with Professor Emeritus Dr. Wilfrido Villacorta (who introduced me in the program) in 1970 until I left for abroad in 1972. I returned to La Salle in 1981 and I have not left, despite having technically retired in 2005, since I taught a course last trimester in the Departamento ng Filipino and continue to be active as a Professor Emeritus, on call when needed. When I die, I want to be buried in my green gown as University Fellow.

But with this room, I know that I will never die, because what God wrote through me will remain in this room. I know that some of the things I have written may not exactly be pleasing to Him, and may not even be pleasing to you, but that’s me. This room is me, cluttered and overflowing. What you see in this room is what you get.