Randy Ribay on generational healing and dismantling the patriarchy

This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

Samantha Pak: Where did you get the idea for Everything We Never Had?
Randy Ribay: A lot of my ideas for stories come from questions—generally, a question that I've been thinking about for a while, that I don't know the answer to. This one was pretty straightforward. My son was born four years ago, and when he came into my life, I was thinking about the question, “How do I be a good dad?” As with a lot of new parents, you think about how you were raised, what you want to keep from that, what you want to avoid and do differently, as well as what you still need to heal from, from your own childhood.

I was thinking about that, and then I started thinking about my own dad and about how he might answer those questions for himself, and then how his dad would answer those questions.

SP: You combine your characters’ stories with real-world events and history. What made you pick the Watsonville riots and the labor movement that Filipino Americans were involved in with the Mexican American community?
RR: A big part of it is where I live. I used to live on the East Coast. I had always lived in a place where there were not many other Filipinos, Filipino Americans—where spotting one felt almost like spotting like a unicorn. [Laughs.] And then I moved to the Bay Area, and Filipinos are everywhere. And a big part of that is because of the history of the region. So when I was thinking about where to start the story, I was thinking about different historical moments on the West Coast at the beginning of the 20th Century with Filipino Americans.

I learned about the Watsonville riots several years ago. It's one of those instances where most people don't know anything about it. And so it was a chance for me to learn more about it, to bring it into the narrative, and bring that moment of history to a wider audience.

And then thinking about the next timeline, which focuses on Emil, 1965 in Stockton. It was a similar kind of thing. A lot of people are pretty familiar with the grape strikes. But a lot of people think it started with (Cesar) Chavez.

SP: You have Francisco, he's super involved with the strikes, and he's up there with Larry Itliong and Cesar Chavez—the names that we know from history. But his son ends up not wanting anything to do with it. What was it like to write that?
RR: I think one interesting thing about parenting, it's encapsulated in the title of the book: Everything We Never Had. You look at your own childhood, and you want to give your children what you didn't have, or what you felt like you would have needed. The catch is your child is not you, nor are they living in the world that you lived in. They’re a completely different person. But that's hard for any of us to grasp, myself included.

Francisco needed somebody to fight for him. He didn't have anybody. And so, given what he faced, what happened to him in the Watsonville riots, and his friend, he wanted somebody to stand up for him and his people. And so that's what he becomes. But his son Emil, he wants to just get by. A very real consequence of a lot of those big-name organizers that we think about is that they're away from their families a lot. A lot of times their activism can make life very difficult for their family members, whether it's at a practical standpoint of just covering the bills, or creating hostile conditions for them.

SP: With Enzo, he goes to therapy, and they talk about his mental health. Growing up, we didn't really have those conversations—not just within the Asian American community, but also in general society. What was it like to think about that, how Gen Z is growing up now, and the types of conversations they're having?
RR: It was important for me to bring that in, because that is the kind of conversation that Gen Z is having. This is mainstream now, where people are talking about generational pain or trauma, healing, and talking about therapy openly, and dismantling the patriarchy and toxic masculinity.

So a few years ago, (Enzo) would have exposure to these things. He would be thinking about these things. He would be aware of them. There would be this sense of growth, and it would be him. I think that feels like he needs to try to do something to heal his family's wounds or repair—

"Everything We Never Had" follows four generations of Filipino American boys dealing with identity, racism, and more.

Courtesy of Randy Ribay

SP: That's a lot to put on a teenager, but I can see why he would feel that way.
RR: He has the language—because of the culture, his family, his friends—to think about what has happened in his life, and his family's lives, with a clarity that the previous generations didn't have. It's a natural consequence of the times, of the growth that you've seen from generation to generation.

SP: The relationship that Enzo has with his friend, it's the pandemic, and he basically ghosts his friend. Eventually, they reconnect, and I don't remember if they actually say “I love you,” but you got that sense. And that's something for us growing up as teenagers, you probably would not have heard teenage boys saying to each other. I really liked seeing that male friendship.
RR: That was very intentional to present him with an emotional support network that was healthy, and again, was better (than the previous generation).

And something that was also intentional is pretty much each one of the characters has a friend right in their corner that's key to their development, outside of their family—with the exception of Emil.

SP: I love young adult books, and I read a lot of them. But it's honestly a little difficult to find books with male protagonists. So what is it like to be in that space where it is very female dominated?
RR: There are several male YA authors that I think are writing into this and examining issues of masculinity outside of myself. There's Jason Reynolds, Brendan Kiely, Jeff Zentner, Lamar Giles. 

It’s a consequence of the patriarchy, a little bit. Writing itself is an act that requires great empathy—which is something that's generally not encouraged in male spaces a lot. So when you look at the YA space of authors, I don't even know the statistics, but I would guess offhand, it’s 80 percent female authors.

You don't see that imbalance as much in adult literature. And I think it's because—this is my complete conjecture—there's more literary recognition that you can gain in adult spaces. And so I think that will naturally draw more males, because they're like, “Yes, I can get these awards,” or “I can get this prestige.” And a lot of that isn't there in the YA space. You're writing for students. And so I think the YA space is very much still a space that's regarded as very female, not as prestigious.

SP: Honestly, YA is where it's at. [Laughs.]
RR: [Laughs.] That's what I'm saying.

SP: This story is very American. It takes place here in the U.S., and you cover things that happened in American history. But it's also very Filipino in terms of the families and the communities within the story. What was it like to try and balance that?
RR: I didn't think too deeply about that, to be honest. Toni Morrison has this famous interview clip where she's talking about writing about Black life. And a lot of people would ask her, “Do you think white people are gonna read your stuff?” And she was like, “I don't care. I make Black life the center of the story. And if people want to come over to it and check it out, and read the story, that's fine with me. But I very much center that life.” And so that's how I approached it. This Filipino American family. I'm gonna deal with these events in Filipino history that are inherently American because they happened here.

SP: What was one of the biggest challenges you had in writing this?
RR: A lot of the historical stuff. When you're looking at the history of a marginalized community, it's not as easy to find some of that stuff. Obviously 1929 Watsonville, you find a lot about the Watsonville riots. You don't find out a lot about people.

I found two partner organizations, The Tobera Project, and Watsonville is in the Heart. The first one is a community organization. They compile family stories of people in the region, Filipinos of the region. And then Watsonville in the Heart is an organization out of University of California, Santa Cruz that worked with The Tobera Project to digitize those stories. They gave me access to their archives before they were available. That was just really valuable for seeing the Filipinos of the time period as actual people, fully human.

Along with that research difficulty, I was a high school English teacher full-time while I was working on most of this book. I didn't have a whole lot of time, and sometimes I would get so stuck in research, I wouldn't have any time to write anything. So I ended up hiring a research assistant for the first time, and she was extremely helpful.

SP: What was your favorite part about writing this?
RR: Similarly, just making those connections. Yes, learning the history, but also connecting with the people in those organizations, the people in the communities that ended up showing me around or answering my questions. It's one of the interesting things about this job. A lot of times I do have to reach out to random people that I don't know. But then you end up making all these connections. If I go down to Watsonville, I can reach out to this person and be like, “Hey, you want to go get coffee or something?”