Mabuhay mga kaibigan! It’s September 30th, and that means October is right around the corner -- aka Filipino American History Month! This post will be the first of many that your Barkada E-board will be posting throughout the month :) We wanted to start off by saying that FAHM is about history rather than heritage. Heritage is about traditions being passed down through generations -- things like the mano po or having a kamayan. For FAHM, the focus is on history -- events, milestones, and influential people of the past. Some people that are on this (long!) list include Cristeta Comerford (the first woman and also Asian White House Executive chef) or Astrid S. Tuminez (the first female president of Utah Valley University). Although Filipino Americans make up the second largest group of Asian Amerians in the U.S., FAHM was only officially recognized in 2009 (thanks President Obama!) after being originally proposed by the Filipino American National Historical Society in 1991. Not only do Filipino Americans make up ⅕ of Asian Americans, they also play a large role in American history, starting even before America itself. FAHM commemorates the arrival of the first Filipinos (and first Asians in general) in the US in what is now known as Morro Bay, California, in 1587. That’s 33 years before the Pilgrims landed on Plymouth Rock, yet this fact is hardly recognized. Filipino American history continues through the Philippine-American War in 1899, and the next 50 years of American occupation of the Philippines. Despite the years of American colonization and the importance of Fil-Am figures throughout American history, these stories are never told in modern day textbooks. It is rarely mentioned that a large part of WWII was fought in the Philippines, and that a quarter of a million of American veterans were Filipino American themselves. And only few have heard of Larry Itliong, a Filipino American who led the labor movement in the 1930’s, demanding minimum wage for migrant workers. With the lasting effects of Amercian colonization in the Philippines, from language, to colonial mentality, to pop culture, and the influence Filipino Americans have had in American society, we take time this month to celebrate the lasting effects of these Filipino-American stories. Throughout the month, we’ll be posting more of these types of articles going more in depth into important historical moments of Filipino American history, so be sure to keep up with us! Hopefully through this, you learn a little more about the rich history of Filipino Americans. Our presence as a culture might seem small to those around us, but Filipino Americans have had a larger impact than you might think! We’ll see you in the next post :) - calapotato and blogbykt
1 Comment
ralph
10/1/2019 02:22:32 pm
thank you, i found this post very powerful and important and would like to know more . can’t wait for the next post!
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