Taxi Dancer - by Marivi Soliven (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In Depression-era California, Filipino farmworkers earned a dollar a day, spent a dime a dance, and paid for love with murder.

"If we can't marry white girls, we can at least dance with them." In response to Depression-era California laws that criminalized interracial marriage, Filipinos established taxi dance halls where they could mingle with American women. When Filipino farmworker Eli and American taxi dancer Lucinda fall in love, they hope to move to Washington State where they can legally wed. Their plans are derailed when Eli is arrested for the shooting death of a dance hall owner. As Lucinda fights to exonerate Eli, she uncovers a murder conspiracy orchestrated by Mamie Savage, a rival dance hall owner and Sal, her Filipino bartender. The capital punishment trial brings to light abhorrent secrets concealed by the conspirators, the victim, and Lucinda herself. Inspired by true events in San Diego's Stingaree district.

Review Quotes

"In Taxi Dancer, Marivi Soliven has crafted a riveting tale that explores the taboos and risks of interracial love, set in the sizzling hot--and often dangerous--world of Depression-era dance halls. I was on the edge of my seat until the final, satisfying page."
--Jennifer Coburn, author of USA Today bestseller Girls of the Glimmer Factory

"Following through on the success of her first novel The Mango Bride, Marivi Soliven takes us back to the dancehalls of Depression-era California where Filipino men descend to slake their thirst for liquor and companionship. A homicide investigation lays bare the relationships, both tough and tender, that form in these recesses, capturing a vivid and often searing portrait of immigrant life in racially divided America. This book is a page-turner, the action brisk and edgy, a murder mystery and also a poignant torch song to brown love in a black and white universe."
--Jose Dalisay Jr.

"Marivi Soliven brings to life the Filipino dance halls in 1930s California in this action-packed novel that follows the dramatic love story between two young working-class immigrants. From her ground-breaking novel, The Mango Bride, and now Taxi Dancer, Soliven establishes herself as one of the finest historical novelists working today in documenting the Filipino community in the United States."
--Naomi Hirahara, author of the Mary Higgins Clark award-winning novel, Clark and Division

"Welcome to the electrifying underworld of California's Depression-era taxi dance halls, where a dance could cost you a dime, a chance at romance, or a bullet in your back. Filipinos dressed to the nines, vying for 'the prettiest girls you've ever seen, ' this page-turner from Marivi Soliven conjures the circumstances of living at the seams of pleasure, folly, hard edginess, and danger. What a breathtaking ride to read through it!"
--Rick Bonus

"In the 1920s and 1930s, Filipino immigrant men sought pleasure--and a sense of dignity--in the taxi dance halls with white working-class women for 'ten cents a dance.' Racialized as exploitable 'stoop labor, ' Filipino men reclaimed their sensuality and virility on the taxi hall dance floors, touting their young fit bodies in flagrant displays of sexuality. In her riveting novel, Taxi Dancer, Marivi Soliven brings this history to life with vivid prose that renders Filipino men as both desiring and desirable bodies."
--Yen is a Distinguished Professor of Ethnic Studies at UC San Diego.

About the Author

Marivi Soliven has authored seventeen books, taught creative writing at the University of the Philippines and the University of California San Diego and was admitted to the Hedgebrook Writer-in-Residence Program in 2012. Her debut novel The Mango Bride won the 2011 Grand Prize at the Palanca Awards, the Philippine counterpart of the Pulitzer Prize. Additionally, two of her books for children were awarded silver medals at the 1991 and 1993 Palanca Awards. The film adaptation of her story "Pandemic Bread" has screened at film festivals across the country. Marivi writes and works as a Filipino interpreter in San Diego, California.