A former beauty queen and a lifelong educator, Paz Marquez-Benitez changed the face of Philippine literature forever through her short story “Dead Stars.”
In the same year she won the Carnival Beauty Pageant—gracing the cover of the weekly magazine Renacimiento Filipino while donning a stunning gown befitting her new title as Queen of the Carnival— Paz Marquez-Benitez became one of the first graduates of the then-nascent University of the Philippines’s (U.P.) College of Liberal Arts and became engaged to Francisco “Paco” Benitez. It was 1912, the prelude to Paz’s remarkable career, not only as a dedicated educator, but also the pioneering face of Philippine literature.
During her lifetime, the writer is believed to have crafted several stories, though many were suspected to have been lost during World War II. At present, most of the public has access to two of her short stories: “Dead Stars” and “A Night in the Hills,” both of which were published in Philippine anthologies. It was “Dead Stars,” released in the pages of The Philippines Herald in 1925, that would change the country’s literary history as the first modern Filipino short story written in the English language.
In celebration of National Women’s Month, we touch upon the life of the singular Filipina writer and educator, as well as revisit and explore the significance of her seminal short story.
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A Literary Star Is Born
Paz was born in 1894 as Paz Jurado Marquez (or, following the Spanish conventions of the time, Paz Marquez y Jurado). She was born into an affluent family based in Lucena, Tayabas (now Quezon Province), comprising Tagalog and Spanish-speaking coconut plantation owners. Her father, Gregorio Marquez, was an Ateneo-educated gentleman hailing from the same batch of students as national hero Jose Rizal; her mother, Maria Jurado, was a Spanish mestiza beauty who attended the prestigious girls school Escuela Municipal with two of Rizal’s sisters.
Despite the glittering world, Paz and her family still found themselves living in a period of unrest, fleeing from the Spaniards and later the Americans as her hometown Tayabas became what she described as “a hot bed of the revolution” in letters her daughter Virginia Licuanan published in the book Paz Marquez-Benitez: One Woman’s Life, Letters, and Writings, under Ateneo de Manila press.
During American rule when Paz became the poster child of U.S. education—a bridge between two cultures—as was common among high-ranking Filipino families at the time. She was part of the first group of American-educated Filipinos, studying in a U.S.-established public school at the age of 6. Her father later enrolled her and her sister Socorro in a newly-opened American high school in Lucena, Tayabas High School, where she further honed her skills in speaking and writing—so much so that her principal noted her ability as “far superior” to his.
Paz then graduated high school in 1910, taking up her postsecondary education at the Normal School in Manila, the first secular institution of higher learning at the time. After two years, she entered U.P. to earn her Bachelor of the Arts in the Liberal Arts.
Beauty Queen Of Only Eighteen
In the same year she graduated from U.P., Paz attended the highly-anticipated Manila Carnival—an event brought about by the Americans that generated great fanfare, promoting Filipino-American relations and business through activities like grand galas and beauty contests. At eighteen, Paz won the royal crown, holding the coveted title of Queen of the Carnival (“Matrona de las Filipinas”), due to her mix of beauty, brains, and social graces.
As Alex D.R. Castro writes in the blog “Manila Carnivals 1908-39,” Paz’s father didn’t initially approve of his daughter winning the title, though he later acquiesced after some convincing from the Carnival Committee. In a congratulatory letter addressed to Paz, he wrote: “Quiero ser el primero para render homenaje a los pies de la Reyna de Filipinas.” [I wish to be the first to render homage at the feet of the Queen of the Philippines.]
The Lifelong Educator
Despite her many achievements, Paz often considered herself an educator first and foremost. After graduating from U.P., she began a career as a professor in the university’s English department, a role she would hold for roughly 30 years. Even after marrying her husband and having four children, she continued to teach—something rather unconventional and unheard of at the time, marking her as the exemplification of the “new woman” that emerged at the turn of the 20th century.
Her and her husband Paco held a deep passion for education, and after further studies abroad, Paco became U.P. ‘s first dean of the School of Education, a position he held for 33 years until his untimely death from cardiac arrest in 1951.
Paz taught a course in writing Philippine fiction in English, becoming a mentor to great writers like National Artist for Literature Francisco Arcellana, Edna Zapanta-Manlapaz, and Bienvenido N. Santos, among others.
“There was no mistaking her. She had such a presence about her. A tall woman, she carried herself with regal bearing. And when she addressed the class, introducing herself, the class immediately sat at attention,” recalled one of her students in 1926, as cited by Judith Raftery in her paper “La Girl Filipina: Paz Marquez Benitez, Brokering Cultures.”
Paz would go on to establish the Philippine Women’s University, and serve as editor for the Women’s Home Journal, the country’s first women’s magazine. Even after she retired from teaching, she assumed her husband’s role as managing editor for the Philippine Education Journal, which they founded together, writing over two hundred pieces for the column “Brevities” from 1951 to 1977. She later passed away at the age of 89 on November 10, 1983. For her 129th birthday on March 3, 2023, Google honored her with her very own doodle, celebrating her contributions to Philippine letters and education.
Revisiting A Classic
During her teaching career, Paz wrote and published the short story “Dead Stars,” which stands as a staple in writing and Philippine literature courses to this day. One need only read it to understand why: its prose is lush without bordering on purple, featuring three-dimensional characters and a captivating story that still feels fresh.
“One has reason to say that the Filipino short story in English, Athena-like, was born full-grown…In the year it was born, 1925, appeared ‘Dead Stars’ by Paz Marquez-Benitez, a story whose quiet beauty cannot be denied even by the most discriminating,” writes critic and scholar Leopoldo Yabes, who included the story in the anthology Philippine Short Stories 1925-1940. The story marked the year that Filipino short fiction in English moved from the “Age of Imitation” to the “Age of Adaptation and Experimentation,” as L.M. Grow describes in his paper “The Art of Paz Marquez Benitez.”
“Dead Stars” is told from the perspective of young lawyer Alfredo Salazar, who finds himself torn between two women: his steadfast fiancé of four years Esperanza, and the spirited Julia Salas, whom he meets when her family visits his town on vacation. He finds himself attracted to her, but in the name of social obligation, ultimately settles down in a “not unhappy” marriage with Esperanza. He still holds onto his affections for Julia, though eight years later, after enthusiastically reuniting with her, comes to the sobering realization that whatever affection they might’ve held for one another has long since died—and as the story’s famous lines express, “he had been seeing the light of dead stars, long extinguished, yet seemingly still in their appointed places in the heavens.”
You can read the tale in a number of ways: as an exploration of the complex push-and-pull of traditional vs. modern values; a gender-stereotype-bending story where women are the firm realists and the male protagonist is the romantic, emotional dreamer; or simply a poignant story of star-crossed youths, “what-ifs,” and feelings left unsaid. However you choose to see it, there’s little room for doubt that Paz Marquez-Benitez will live on through the words she gifted us with.
References
Grow, L. M. “THE ART OF PAZ MARQUEZ BENITEZ.” Philippine Quarterly of Culture and Society 19, no. 1 (1991): 3–10.
Raftery, Judith R. “La Girl Filipina: Paz Marquez Benitez, Brokering Cultures.” The Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era 9, no. 2 (2010): 232–43.
Zapanta-Manlapaz, Edna. “A Feminist Reading of Paz Marquez-Benitez’s ‘Dead Stars.’” Philippine Studies 41, no. 4 (1993): 523–28.
