Robert Jackson

Robert Frederick Jackson, Jr. (Educ ’70 L/M), published two historically set, interrelated fiction series, Magandang Pilipinas (set in the Philippines at the time of America’s conquest of those islands) and Sunny of the Old Southwest (about the relationship between a young female refugee from the Long Walk of the Navajo and a young white man from Virginia). Serious fiction, with positive messages, was always Mr. Jackson’s ultimate life goal and follows a teaching career in Virginia, Texas, and the Philippines and work as a portrait painter and muralist. These two series share the last two volumes, in which some characters from both interact.

Robert is married to the former Rosario Maria Taboada from the Visayan Islands of the Philippines, a region where some of his novels are set. The couple lived there for several years in the 1970s following their meeting at Virginia. She was a foreign exchange nurse at the University of Virginia Hospital. In those days, her parents owned a fifty bed hospital in the Philippines, built out of the devastation of World War II. Robert and Maria’s residency in the islands coincided with the martial law period of the Marcos presidency.

A dominant theme within the novels is the companionship, equality and determination that several mixed-race couples apply in their attempt to function normally in an era in which their relationships are abnormal. Mr. Jackson publishes through Amazon in trade paperback and Kindle editions.

Robert Jackson (Educ ’70 CM) recently retired from teaching, having focused most of his career on teaching middle school social studies. He also taught at the college level and coached women’s volleyball in the Philippines. Since leaving teaching, Mr. Jackson has turned his attention to painting and writing. He paints medium to large wall murals and portraits, sometimes working with his daughter, Sonia Jackson Summers, a writer and illustrator. His literary and artistic efforts are self-determined; he does all of the artistic design and illustration for his online and print publications.