The art and meaning of "Peeled Fruit": a conversation with Xavi de Guzman

"Peeled Fruit" is a picture book exploring Filipino traditions and the intersection of food and identity - with a mango.

Mangoes - they’re the national fruit of the Philippines. Its juicy yellowy-orange color with sweet and deep flavor, popular in the favorite summer desserts like mango sago and mango float cake, and make great snacks as dried mangoes and mangoes just by itself. The art of halving the mangoes and slicing them into little designs first originated from the Philippines, a love-language of many immigrant parents - particularly from the Philippines.

Peeled Fruit front cover

Actor and writer, Xavi de Guzman, released his first book Peeled Fruit — a picture book that explores this art and the idea of passing down this tradition. Similar to the gesture told in Robert Munsch’s Love your forever children’s book, in which the act of singing a lullaby comes in full circle with the mother singing her son to sleep in each stage of his life, until he no longer wants it; only for him to sing it to his newborn daughter, just like how his own mother did. Xavi’s book is just like that, but with peeled mangoes. “I want a roomful of adults reading this book and saying they hope that their kids also take these traditions of peeling fruit, see the love behind it, and pass it down to their kids.” Xavi told me.

Food and identity have always been intertwined, one representing the other and mango, as the beloved fruit of the Philippines, is a huge part of Filipino culture that Peeled Fruit successfully captured. Beginning with a Thanksgiving dinner at the de Guzman’s house, the story starts with baby Fernando wanting to try a mango that his mother is peeling at the dinner table: to Fernando, the bright and vivid colors of the fruit is like finding gold. As the story progresses, we see Fernando eating his mother’s peeled mangoes, “lost in his mango world”, throughout the stages in his childhood — from a toddler sneaking in a bite, to middle school-age where the mangoes slowly phase out and he loses interest. It isn’t until Fernando, all grown up and married, has a baby of his own when he realizes the connection with mangoes and, just like his mother, peels the fruit and feeds it to his baby.

Like many first generation immigrant children, I’ve seen this happen way too often times where they push away from their cultural identity; “when I grew up, I didn’t want want to be Filipino,” Xavi said. “Everybody made fun of me because of the food I brought for lunch and the way my parents spoke. Obviously, they didn’t do it out of malice, but it’s something that sticks with me, right?”. This idea of assimilation, of fitting in and the idea of individualism comes into play, which is what Peeled Fruit explores. One thing Xavi and I had related on was wanting to get something else aside from the Filipino food at home. When my parents and extended family visited last week, they brought over a plethora of Filipino food - from Filipino spaghetti to pancet and bistek. “Food for the entire week!”, my grandmother said as she helped us pack food in storage containers. Throughout the week, I constantly wanted something other than Filipino food and I ended up eating take-out of soups and burgers. It made me realize that, first and foremost I’m spending way too much money on food. But also to be more grateful for the Filipino food we were blessed with. My family took the time to make us all this food to feed us, and I’m not even eating and appreciating it. Just as Xavi said, it made me think “where else am I going to get food like this?”, especially in Brooklyn (after the takeout and feeling guilty, I ravaged through the frozen spaghetti and some of the adobo chicken).

Aside from writing and publishing Peeled Fruit, Xavi is also an actor and standup comedian — having appeared in shows such as Rookie Blue as a boxer and The 100, and films such as Easter Sunday and Check Date, in which he also wrote and directed. In talking about his career in film and media, he mentioned that Peeled Fruit was originally written as a screenplay for an animated short film, before it was decided the story would become the picture book it is today. “I don’t want people just sitting and watching. I want people [telling] the story themselves. It’s like a throwback to Shakespeare - if you actually read it aloud, the words travel through your body and you sit in the story more, making more sense, and it’s much more fun.”

With Peeled Fruit out in the market and the representation of Filipino culture, it’s always so exciting to see more of our stories being told in the forefront. With other wonderful media such as Easter Sunday and popular Netflix show Beef, Hollywood is diversifying. There are still discrepancies in the industry where Xavi faces some challenges as he seeks projects with questions such as are you trying to be the best Filipino actor? In which he responds I just want to be the best actor. “It doesn't matter what your background is, as long as you do the training as long as you're prepared. You will get work.” It’s a challenge for many actors of colors to be chosen only as diversity tokens - whilst it’s great to see this kind of representation, it can feel disingenuous to cast someone of a different ethnic background to fill a quota. We’ve been seeing some progress, with amazing films such as Everything, Everywhere, All at Once and Minari; Filipino stories as well have been making room on their own, slowly but surely inching into the spotlight to uplift our voices.

But in order to fulfill this, and improve the way we tell our stories without falling into the trap of tokenism, the most “important thing is for people to be honest with their surroundings”, as Xavi suggested. He had brought up a show about the healthcare industry, and said there’s only one Filipino nurse. “Why is there only one nurse? That's Filipino? It's like stuff like that, where it's like, when people are writing their stories, they just need to be more honest with what the environment is like.” One of the things that are well known about Filipinos is that, almost every one you meet will most likely be a nurse. In 2019, 1 out of 20 registered nurses are Filipino and they continue to be the largest internationally outsourced group of nurses in the US. In that case, it would most likely be unrealistic to write in only one Filipino nurse in a hospital-based show.

Other than acting, Xavi also runs and operates his non-profit, The Play On Foundation - a charity dedicated to raising awareness and the research of brain aneurism. Peeled Fruit was published with the means to raise funds and promote the charity — you can click here to purchase the book and donate!

Told from the collected experience as a child of immigrant parents, Xavi wrote a beautiful and intimate story about a shared and passed down tradition from his family. This simple act of love - a parent peeling and slicing a mango for their children - represents what it means to be Filipino: putting family first, sharing food, and getting lost in our mango worlds.

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Other links:

• Show your support for the WGA and SAG strikes with THIS guide

• Learn more about The Play On Foundation and donate HERE

• Purchase Peeled Fruit HERE

In other news and events…

• Participate and connect at FilExcellence’s networking event and panel TODAY from 2pm - 5:30pm. RSVP link here

• Jollibee will be holding out a Worker’s Speakout with a Know Your Rights training. RSVP link here

• Project Barkada teams up with Greenpoint Terminal Market to host a Summer Palooza on August 12-13, from 11am - 6pm ET!