[upbeat music] [upbeat music continues] - I love how I told them in advance, like we're recording PBS and all of you acted surprised about that today.

We recorded.

Yeah.

I also want to ask for some grace from all of you.

This feels like we're in the sala, right?

Literally sitting on a couch.

We're going to have, I think, some serious conversations, but amidst trying to create a familial environment as we celebrate fam early.

This is my first time using one of these things, okay?

My first time using a teleprompter and I don't have my glasses on.

So let's get through this.

Let's go.

Thank you.

Cheer me on if you know, if you see your girl struggling a little.

Okay.

Now I don't know if it's said at the beginning.

Okay.

Sorry.

Shout outs to the folks who are scrolling this manually in the room.

I just want to make this as interactive as possible, everyone, because this is live and in the flesh.

Okay.

All right.

Please welcome our panel.

And this is the camera over here, everyone.

Hey.

Joining us is Abraham Abe Menor, an artist and photographer whose work documents and celebrates Filipino American community, culture and identity.

Let's give it up.

And we have Ingrid Mapanao-Racho and she is a public health and student affairs professional whose work has centered around community, education and the experiences of Filipino Americans.

Welcome to Ingrid.

Yes.

And immediately to my right, we have Marc Sanna, who is a member of the Filipino American History Mural Committee and has been involved in efforts to preserve and make visible Filipino American history here in San Jose.

Well, thank you all for joining us and I want to begin with something personal.

So let's start with your own relationships to our history.

Okay.

And the questions I'm going to ask, you can all decide who wants to answer first.

Don't talk over each other.

Don't rush to answer.

I know it's burning within you, but you each came to community organizing with a different path.

And I've had the privilege of knowing all of you through your journeys thus far, going back 10, 15, 20 years.

So tell us a little bit about your connection to San Jose and the Filipino American community here.

What first made our history feel personal to you?

- You're looking at me, so I'm just going to go.

Okay.

So my journey with Filipino American history here in San Jose started when I came to San Jose State.

I joined Akbayan, which is the Filipino American student org at San Jose State.

And I got super involved there.

I was an intern, I was secretary, I was president.

And I did a lot of learning about Filipino American history and working in the Filipino community, doing community organizing and just organizing that entire organization as a whole.

But I think the moment that I'm most connected to Filipino history specifically here was actually doing one of the self-guided walking tours of Pinoytown.

I unfortunately have not had the chance to do a formal one with Monang Robert yet, but we went on a self-guided tour as part of an internship retreat.

And I think that was the first time I really realized that there was such a deep connection in Filipino history here in San Jose.

It was the first time I've even realized that the Pinoytown even existed in a place that is so synonymous here in San Jose, which is Japantown.

So I think that was the first moment where I really felt connected to the history here, especially because that weekend also was when we had the exhibit at the Martin Luther King Jr.

Library of Filipino history and Filipino American history.

So that was the moment where it felt personal.

It felt like something that I needed to learn more about and needed to also spread the word about as I continue my journey in community organizing here in the South Bay.

- All right.

I'll go second.

So I am proud to be born and raised here in East Side San Jose.

I'm a first gen Filipino American.

Both my parents immigrated from the Philippines.

And so my connection to San Jose is most of my life.

I've lived in San Jose.

And then about 12 years ago, I did move to Philadelphia and the East Coast.

And so I was there for a bit and I returned back home.

And I guess when I'm thinking about my ties to the Filipino American community, it really came when I went to San Jose State University.

I was an undergrad there.

I got involved in two Filipino culturally based student orgs.

It was Akbayan and also the Alpha Kappa Omicron sorority.

And so it was through these experience that I actually started appreciating my own Filipino identity because I think growing up here, going through K-12 school, I really was trying to not be Filipino, if that makes sense.

I was trying to be more American and even trying to change my accent or not really appreciating what was around me and my family.

And so I just really appreciated my experience at SJSU for kind of opening my eyes a little bit more to our history.

And I'll say when it came personal to me, I remember I was actually at a restaurant sitting with my dad and I think my two siblings.

I don't remember where we were, probably a buffet because he loved buffets.

And I remember I was just rambling off because in our family dinner table, we barely talk.

We were just very quiet family members who just ate food.

But I think I started talking about, "Oh, I learned this in Filipino American history class."

It was about the grape strike, the Grape Strike labor movement in Delano.

And then all of a sudden I look across and I see my dad, his eyes just kind of, I don't know, it just opened up and he said, "Whoa, how'd you know about that?"

And I said, "Oh, I learned about it in class."

I was like, "How'd you know about it?"

And he just started opening up about how our family and our side actually immigrated and there's like a strong lineage, like my grandparents, my uncles who were farmers.

And so I didn't know that until I was just randomly talking, being myself, and that really allowed that conversation.

So I think it really became personal to me when I think we just had that conversation and that allowed me or taught me how to ask more questions about my family.

And so that was a pivotal moment in my kind of connection to San Jose and also Filipino American history.

- Evening everyone.

Thank you for being here.

For me, I grew up in a household of two parents who were activists in the '70s.

My father is here, Ben Menor, my mom, Carmen Cortez, brought me up making sure I knew what my culture and what my history was all about.

So I was able to be introduced at a very young age, if not birth.

Connection to San Jose Filipino community.

I was part of an organization called Filipino Youth Coalition.

Some of you might know it.

And it was a youth organization that provided services to Filipino students here in San Jose.

And it was created to address the problems of Filipino gangs and drug use and other issues that were affecting Filipinos in the '90s and early 2000s.

And then I had an opportunity to meet this great mentor, Tony Santa Ana.

I was picking up my girlfriend from Independence High School and one of our colleagues, Charmaine, and I say colleagues because I did work for FYC, said, "I want to introduce you to this guy.

He's part of FYC."

And I knew about FYC, but I thought I was too cool because I was like, "That's just a Filipino club.

I don't know if they really know their history and whatnot."

And so I met Tony and I was like, "Yeah, I know about Lapulapu."

Met him at Independence High School parking lot.

And I think that was the spark in my intro to FYC.

And FYC actually allowed me to really understand the importance of knowing your history in order to know yourself.

So like I said, I grew up in a household and my parents made sure that I learned about things, but in perspective, I didn't know how I actually connected with that, with my own identity until FYC.

And then another thing that I'll mention is being at Northside Community Center with the World War II veterans, that's kind of how my photography path launched, but I got to learn the stories of these veteranos and hear about their history.

And so with the two FYC working with youth and then Northside working with seniors, it really opened me up to really understanding what the importance of our history here in San Jose is all about, but why I am a person in service to that history.

- Let's give that some love.

I want to look this way, but I was told also to look this direction.

I - Don't know.

Do we do that too?

- Yes.

- Okay.

- They can cut this out, I think, but they should leave it in.

- But they - Should.

I'm hearing themes of when we're included, when we see ourselves represented, when we are able to feel that texture of our ancestors, the imparting of the importance of our identity and our contributions in this country from our parents in the classroom, in student organizations.

And we're blessed in San Jose and in the San Francisco Bay Area to have infrastructure and investment and our forebears who have invested in classrooms, student organizations, cultural performances where we had the spaces to question, to know our history, to know ourselves.

So when we talk about Filipino American history in San Jose and the Santa Clara Valley, what is one story, place, person or contribution you think more people should know about?

Well, you all are thinking... Actually, I'm going to let you still think because I got an alert on our time.

- Okay.

This is hard because I feel like I'm still learning so much of the history here, but I think one of the things that has stood out to me for a while and something that I just didn't even know at first who I want other people to know usually is, so I was doing research for one of my programs.

I was a community organizer at San Jose State through the Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment.

And one of my programs was on Filipino American student activism and Filipino student activism.

But I specifically was looking at research around Filipino clubs or organizations here in the South Bay.

And I learned that there was a Filipino club when San Jose State was San Jose State Teachers College, and that was back in the 1920s.

So I thought this was probably the one that I wanted to share because this is a story that of Filipinos that has been here since for decades, for centuries really, but they've also been here in San Jose for more than now a century.

And that's something that I never knew.

And I think that's something that other people should know is that history doesn't just start with Pinoytown and it doesn't start with Pinoytown and what we currently know, but it even goes farther than that.

And it's history that we need to keep exploring to kind of piece together that story of Filipino Americans here in the South Bay.

- All right.

I guess I'll go second.

Thank you, Marc, for sharing that.

So I think for me, I feel like Filipino Americans have contributed so much to San Jose and there's so much, I think, stories that haven't come up.

But it was really hard for me to think about answering this question, but the first thing that has come up for me is what I want people to know about Filipino Americans and one of the contributions, a big contribution they have to San Jose, to Silicon Valley is I think the, I'll say it, the blue collar workers who have contributed to the success of our tech and electronic companies.

And I think oftentimes when we're thinking about Silicon Valley, we're focused on the big founders of the startups.

We're talking about the money, the success that comes from it, but I think we forget who are the people making those products, those microchips.

I don't know.

I'm not really a tech person, right?

And this is really personal to me because both my parents were in electronics and that's what we called it when I was growing up in the 90s and the 2000s here.

And my dad worked at Philips as a technician.

My mom was, I don't know her exact title, but I remember I would always put her resume together, but she worked for Atlantic, which I don't think exists anymore.

And a lot of my family and relatives also work in those fields.

And growing up, seeing them work long hours, not a lot of money, but they never complained because I think for them it was nice that they knew that they had the money and opportunity to pay the bills.

And so it's really personal to me.

And even today I'm married and my in-laws work in those fields, right?

And it's not like they're not, they're still in these fields with, I don't even know what to call it, but I was thinking microchips, all of that, but I'm kind of blanking out on the terms of it.

But yeah, I think I want people to remember those families, those immigrant families, specifically Filipino immigrants who have contributed to the success of Silicon Valley and San Jose.

And so I think when we highlight those stories, we're able to advocate for better working conditions.

And oh yeah, that's my last thing.

I just recently learned two weeks ago that in the '90s, I think, there was this Filipina, and I don't remember her name, but she really worked hard to advocate for the working conditions of immigrants who are working in these tech companies or electronic companies.

And that story hasn't been told.

So I'm mad that... I was actually really mad because I never heard that story.

And so I feel like it's important that we actually bring up those stories so we can start educating people about it and also advocating for our Filipino communities working in those industries.

- For me, I'm going to talk about an experience in a moment in history.

2001, there was a collective of us, some of us college students, some of us just recently graduated college or many of us who just never went to college and we were just organizing.

And we wanted to do something for young people in regards to learning about their history, their culture, but most importantly, how do you organize and how do you organize effectively?

So in 2001, we organized a youth national conference at San Jose State and invited people all throughout the Bay Area.

And I also think maybe SoCal.

And we had folks come as far as from Virginia, I think some folks from Seattle.

And it was a great opportunity just to bring people together and learn about what each group or each person was doing in their community, wherever city they were coming from, and really see what can be the future of young people organizing if we come together.

Because we all know in Filipino cul - or no, I don't want to say general.

We don't all know, but we might be familiar with Filipinos like doing one thing and then breaking off and doing other, other things because maybe you can't align.

And what we were trying to do is figure out how we can align whatever our background and our experiences were, but really unite to focus on one thing, which was really trying to help figure out how do we organize as young people and organize collectively and learn at the same time.

- And San Jose has multiple murals now.

We have Delano Manongs Park, the first park named in honor of our Filipino farm workers in San Jose.

Please give DMP a visit.

We're also working with community organizations on a mural as we speak that will be adjacent to Delano Manongs Park.

We have the Pinoytown Mural that was featured in the segment as well as the Filipino American History Mural coming up at San Jose State.

Woo.

Yay.

And on 4th and Santa Clara Street, the Our Lives Are Photographs, beautiful mural depicting Manong Larry Itliong and Dolores Huerta.

So visually we are depicted.

We have organizations here.

And I think the call too is how are we archiving?

How are we documenting?

How are we continuing to preserve?

Because in communities like Silicon Valley where change is almost guaranteed, change and innovation and an invention, what do we risk?

What do we risk losing when Filipino American stories, spaces and memories aren't intentionally preserved?

- We both wanted to go.

- We lose ourselves and then we lose those that are around us.

We lose our community, our identity.

And I think the beautiful thing right now is technology allows anyone and everyone access, right?

But I think too, if you get lost in that and you don't take the time earlier in the panel, it was like talk to your family members so you can learn their stories.

I think that's important.

And I think in a changing space, especially here in Silicon Valley, I think the important thing, and this is great that we're having this tonight, is these are the practices, these are the tools that we need to implement in our own selves and our daily lives as well as our families in our community.

So then that way we have things to be able to know how to preserve and how to keep on as we continue trying to figure out this life and identity in America.

- That's a good one.

I think in addition to losing our identity, I also think for me, I think it's losing connection to the motherland of the Philippines.

So I've never been to the Philippines.

I've never even, I don't have easy access to get to the Philippines.

So coming to San Jose is actually my form of coming home to the Philippines.

When I lived in Philadelphia in the East Coast for 10 years, there's not a lot of Filipinos there.

So I think after living almost 10 years there, I started craving that sense of home and San Jose is that sense of home for me.

And so I think that's what we risk losing, at least for people like me who don't, have never been, I don't know what it's like to be in the beautiful islands of the Philippines.

I think we just lose that kind of connection to home.

And so I'm just really grateful that when I came back to San Jose two years ago to see the murals, to see the parks, to see LEAD Filipino, I think I'm just really in awe of how much progress has been made since I was born here in San Jose.

And so I think if we continue that, I think that will connect a lot of us back to what I say, the motherland of the Philippines.

- I think Abe and Ingrid hit it pretty well, but I'll add that I think we risk losing our visibility and our voice and without our power.

Filipino Americans are a very large sect of Asian Americans here in California, and that means we have a lot of power in voting and in taking up space here in the state.

But if our stories aren't told, if our stories are forgotten, if our stories aren't spread out to more people, we risk losing that visibility.

We risk losing people even knowing that we're here.

And that is kind of scary because it helps, it loses part of our culture.

It loses a part of our identity and something we want to avoid.

We want to be able to openly express and celebrate and be proud of our culture.

But if our voice, if our visibility, if our power is lost, that story, that culture, that identity gets lost with it.

- We're clapping.

We're clapping.

- I was just so like drawn to what was being shared.

But to Marc's point, the population of Filipinos in California, anyone know our size here?

So part of history is that we're looking into who we are today.

The answer was shared.

Do you want to say it louder in the audience?

1.5 million in California.

One and a half million Filipinos in California.

California is the largest Filipino population in the country.

We're four, nearly four and a half million in the United States.

But to Marc's point, we can talk about how large we are, but if we are not organized to act, if we're lost and we don't have the visibility, the safety and the cover of seeing professors like Dr.

Melissa teaching, keeping the classroom safe, knowing that we can emote and ask questions and be vulnerable and say, "I don't know who I am."

I was asked when I was 19 years old, I was running to be an officer with the Filipino student organization on campus at San Jose State called Akbayan, a gem of San Jose.

- It is.

- And in front of almost 300 people while I was delivering my speech to be the community affairs person to represent one of the largest groups on campus, an alum raised her hand and she asked me, "Who is your favorite Filipino hero?

And you can't say your mom, dad, or Dr.

Jose Rizal."

And then she just looked straight at me, 300 people in this auditorium.

I said, "I don't know.

I'm 19, but how dare I try to run and represent and I haven't done my own self-study."

All right.

Let's talk about the work you're doing today.

Whether through community organizing, preservation, public policy, art or education, and helping, how are you making sure our stories remain visible just in your line of work?

That's the short way of asking that question.

- For me as a artist, I put an effort to connect with other artists.

And so I like curating art exhibits, art shows, art galleries, or even art projects where folks could be involved in person.

And I think that's one thing, one effort that I make through the arts and through the creative space is giving other Filipino Americans or Filipinos the opportunity to express themselves, to create work where they could display it, and then bringing it to the wider audience, the greater audience, not just the Filipino community, but everyone in San Jose, Bay Area, wherever you are.

So you can learn a little bit about the Filipino arts, but also culture, history, experience.

- So I currently work as a program coordinator for San Jose State University Center for Asian Pacific Islander Student Empowerment.

I've been there about a year, so still new to everything.

And I think the way I'm preserving stories for our community, but I think the broader community specifically is that I supervise and mentor students, college students from all different majors.

They are in the STEM fields.

It's really cool.

I mean, Marc's one of them, so that's why it's really cool to see him up here with me.

But engineering, there's students who are also in the creative arts, they're from the social sciences.

So working with them where they create programs and events that share our stories from different Asian and Pacific Islander experiences has been really, I think, healing for me.

So that's one way we're preserving the stories.

What's really cool too is I give credit to my supervisor there at the center.

We are finally bringing Filipino American History Month or FAM to San Jose State University.

When I was a student there, I didn't even know what FAM was.

They were like, "What's FAM?"

And so it's really great to see about 15 years later that since I graduated, I think I did the calculation right, but I don't know, maybe 14, 15 years, whatever it is, it's really great to bring this onto campus and also just at least highlight what different things are happening across campus, the different student clubs.

We also have the mural that's going to be revealed at San Jose State.

So I think that's one way I'm preserving the history.

And also as just an alum and also just working there, I just like to tell my stories about like, "Hey, you know, back in my day," which it wasn't that long ago, but I'm always like, "Back in my day, did you know that this center didn't exist?

Did you know I was in Akbayan?

Oh, did you know we didn't have like..." I think they have like a thousand members now, but we're like, "We had 200 and that was a lot for us."

So just kind of like sharing those stories, not to just the Filipino students, but also just to the broader students so that they could share that with others as well.

- I mean, I think that segues perfectly into my experience and what I'm doing, because yes, I was one of the community organizers at last year, and so I worked under Ingrid and with Ingrid on my programs.

Two specifically programs that I hosted was one, again, on Filipino American and Filipino student activism, but also one on art as resistance.

And both of those programs explored ways that, first of all, how Filipinos have done activism in the past, how we can use art as a way of resistance to tell stories that don't want to be told in the mainstream media or the mainstream, just anything.

But also, and with a specific focus on some of it, was on Filipino, the way the Filipinos do that.

So like performance and, and... Murals and music and everything.

That also leads into my work on the Filipino American History Mural Committee at SJSU.

This is a very large upbringing, which is probably years in the making from really jealous time at SJSU even, to even start that conversation of Filipino representation when we had the Arch of Dignity, Equality and Justice at SJSU, which celebrates and honors the United Farm Workers Movement, but unfortunately leaves out the stories of Filipino Americans in that upbringing and that movement as a whole.

And that is a huge part of that story that was omitted.

And so this mural that we're very, very excited to unveil on October 30th this year is a testament to, first of all, that story, to tell the complete story of the United Farm Workers Movement or a more complete story.

We will never have every story and every aspect of it, but also to representation and preserving our story and allowing other people to learn it because this is going to be an essential part of campus and close to the arch and allows us to look at both and see both and make those connections between our cultures and the cultures that are depicted and the stories that are depicted on the mural.

Yeah, I guess that is how I've organized really most recently is through that mural that we're super proud of at SJSU.

I'm super excited personally to see FAM at SJSU because of the story of CAPISE.

For those that don't know, CAPISE is only five years old, which is crazy because of how many students at San Jose State are Asian American or Asian in general.

So working towards that and for them to lead that and host that this year is also a really amazing thing to see.

- We know that in Santa Clara County, the Asian American Pacific Islander community is nearly 40%.

So we have one of the largest API - It is over 40%.

Now it is over 40%.

So we have one of the largest API populations in the country here where San Jose is located.

How do you all feel about, because we're getting into our second to last question.

Can I ask something that goes a bit off of the script?

Sure.

Is that okay?

It's still related.

It's not going to be something about like a hard calculus problem.

- I never took calculus.

- How do we feel about that?

I know they hate me with this teleprompter because I'm not using it.

- It's just gross.

Yes.

- Like tonight, just sitting across both of our dialogues about stories and about what it means to be a Filipino American, a Filipina, Filipinx American in the United States and through all of your mediums, all of the forms of your activism, all being done in the name of the preservation and the protection or the presentation.

So I want to put that out there as the preface to my question.

LEAD Filipino headquartered out of San Jose.

We also operate in other cities in San Antonio and Las Vegas.

I was recently in a conversation with a FilAm who did not grow up in San Jose and in the San Francisco Bay Area having the benefit of professors and educators and murals and parks named in honor of their community.

And they asked me very earnestly because I was telling them about the mural projects.

They said, how does a mural help the economic conditions?

How does that help what Filipinos are experiencing as we think of our immigrant communities?

I don't think they asked to be adversarial.

I think they genuinely asked how will mural projects support the empowerment of Filipinos who are without resources right now?

And I was curious just given that you are all organizers and advocates and activists, what your response to that person would be.

- Well, if we think of art as resistance, art as storytelling, and really the history of how art affects people and brings information, I would say for us in San Jose, having a mural that represents us, that tells our stories as Filipinos experiencing different things in America, that could be the spark and the launch for conversation, for organizing, for educating.

So when you're asking, how does that affect economics?

If we don't have conversation, we don't have education, we don't know where we stand, to Marc's point, as far as our voice and our power, then yeah, then there's nothing.

And I think that with art, anyone could interpret something differently, but it's like, what do you pull from it?

And then how do you really organize from it?

So I think that for me, if I were to answer that question, that's how I'd answer or start.

- Can you ask that question again just so I remember?

I think - The part of the question is Phil Ams who might not be as interested in learning about our history.

It's not a universal interest as we think about being a community of four and a half million across the country.

So this person I think asked very earnestly.

I don't think they were trying to do a gotcha on me, but they were like, "How does the mural work and the advocacy help the material economic conditions of Filipinos who are without right now?"

It was a good dialogue.

That's - A deep question.

- And I don't think they intended that.

They were just like, wait, how does that help?

Especially with Medicare, Medicaid cuts, SNAP cuts, chip cuts.

- Yeah.

I mean, I think it's a valid question because I probably had the same question too.

It's like, how does the art project impact the maybe struggles that our Phil Am community is going through?

But I agree with what Abe is saying.

It could be used as a storytelling tool to advocate.

I think earlier in my response, I was talking about telling our stories about our Filipino immigrant families or communities that are working these blue collar jobs in tech companies or electronic companies.

And so I feel like mural can, it may not directly impact, it's not a policy, it's not a piece of legislation, but at least it's a conversation starter and also it can bring light to maybe the stories that are in the dark.

And so I think the question is, yeah, it actually may not directly have impact, direct impact on the struggles or the health inequities that our Filipino American communities are going through, but it can at least shed some light into maybe what is happening.

And so every time I even, I think even downtown, I didn't notice, I just noticed Larry Itleong's mural.

I was like, "Whoa, that wasn't there before."

But then I'm like in the car and I'm just talking to my husband.

I'm like, "Oh my God, did you see that mural?"

And so it's like a good conversation starter because then if we didn't have these murals, then we wouldn't even be having these conversations.

So I think it may not be a direct link, but I think it's a tool, it's an advocacy tool that can be used to leverage what we might advocate for in terms of policies and changes in our community.

There you go.

- Yeah.

I think with Abe and Ingrid's point, a big part of this is storytelling.

It's starting the conversation.

And this question is also part of that conversation because yeah, truthfully, yeah, we're raising and spending money on this mural and it might not seem like there's that direct connection to how it will improve our conditions in the long run.

But a big part of that storytelling piece is the idea of no history, no self.

And if we don't have the ability to learn and understand and interpret the reasons and the ways we got here to be in this situation and why we are, partly why we are facing these issues and these struggles, it doesn't allow us to understand how to get out of them or to address them in a way that actually works because the system, frankly, isn't built for us or built for minority communities in a way.

It isn't directly built for that.

And it's something that we have to find ourselves.

And through part of that, the start of that, the foundation of understanding how we got here and how do we get out of here in a way or get out of that situation is understanding that first piece, the history, the conditions and the quality equity, social justice piece of it before taking action in that.

Because if we go in without really understanding how, we can't solve the problem.

We can't find the solution.

- There you go.

Thank you for rolling with me off script.

That was excellent because I agree with all of you a thousand percent.

Knowing our stories is a form of power building.

So for our final question, our final question, I want us to look even further ahead.

And I got to this earlier, but they heard this once before, but if and when we have this conversation 25 years from now, so a generation from now, what do you hope people will say that our generation, this generation of Phil Ans and San Jose chose to preserve, change and build?

- So imagine if they took a Filipino American History Month away from us, not just us, but the country, right?

And some of us in the audience might not even know what Filipino American History Month is.

So if they take that away from us 25 years from now, it's not going to matter.

So I think this generation and the previous generations before the folks here in San Jose and just the Filipino American experience, we must continue to make sure that we're fighting for our experience, for our community, for the preservation of the stories and everything that makes us who we are.

And I think that's the most important thing that I think 25 years from now they're going to say, dang, that generation or that era definitely did not fall victim to the scrolling, but took the time to get out of the screen and really organize and lead and educate so generations to come can be able to look back and say, I'm proud to be Filipino.

- So 25 years from now, what I hope to see is... I was calculating my age.

I'd be in my 50s.

Yeah.

So I think 25 years from now, what I hope to see, first of all, is that when people think of San Jose, they also think of Filipinos as well.

Because I think earlier there was the conversation, the first panel where I think some people don't even know we're here.

And so I want people to know that Filipinos are part of the fabric of San Jose, that we're here, that we've contributed, we celebrate our culture proudly.

And what I hope for our, when people think of our generation 25 years from now, I want them to think that we were the generation that took the courage to ask hard questions, but also just ask questions to our elders, to our monogs, to our about their history and then preserve that in whatever way, whether that's like a mural, this documentary.

I mean, this is pretty cool.

I was like, "Hey, this is kind of history making right now."

And I also think also preserving our own histories.

I mean, we have a lot of tools like social media, right?

So I think I want them to look back at that as we were the storytellers, we were the history preservers, and we were willing to ask the questions and start the healing journey of our Filipino American, maybe... I'm a social worker, so I'm like trauma.

Trauma, but also celebrating the kind of richness of our culture.

So that's what I hope to see in 25 years from now.

- Let's see.

25 years from now.

I think selfishly, kind of selfishly.

I want to be able to come back to San Jose State.

I want to be able to see the mural that we've worked so hard on still standing and still being the beacon of representation that we have advertised it to be, the storytelling piece that we've told, we've said it's going to be, and a legacy piece of the university, something that is there for a long time and hopefully for maybe forever.

I don't know.

I don't know what 25 years or even farther it's going to look like, right?

But because that will partly be a testament to the fact that we will still be around.

Filipinos will still have power in saying that things will happen and organizing because that will also hopefully mean that Akbayan will be celebrating its 75th anniversary as a student organization at San Jose State, but also the Filipino alumni network will be able to celebrate its 30th anniversary at San Jose State, which is a really crazy numbers to think about, but that requires the work now to be done to ensure that there is that healthy moment for those organizations and for that art to be there and for people to come back and bring their kids and be like, "I went to this school and this was something that came here then."

And for people who got the lucky moment to be in the community paint day, like say, "I painted a part of that mural," and when they bring their kids to campus.

And I think that would be a really cool thing to see of something that I hopefully will get to do myself.

So I guess in a way selfishly it's that, but I think moreover, just having more representation just in general in our government, in the spaces that make change and that help decide things here.

Because if we don't... Or I'll rephrase that.

In the way that I've seen it and I very much appreciate people that I've seen that it's hard, it's easier to make change if you've experienced it and experienced a thing that you want to change and then be in a position to actually make that change.

I want to be able to see people in those positions and I want to see them succeed in those positions because that means change will have happened and our conditions hopefully will be better in 25 years come that time, which is what is... I don't even know what year this is.

51?

2051?

Lord.

I - Don't do math.

- All right.

Well, thank you everyone.

And I think that's a fitting place for us to end.

But Filipino American History Month, as we know, is about remembering where we've been, but it's also a time that asks us to think about what we're leaving behind.

The Filipino American story has been shaped by generations of people who built community, organized, created, cared for one another, defended the vulnerable, and made a place for themselves and their families in this country.

History doesn't survive simply because it happened.

Someone has to carry it forward.

And I think that was a resounding theme today.

And we are not simply inheritors of community.

We are its authors.

And at LEAD Filipino, we often say that when we know our stories, it changes where we believe we can go.

That's why we connect culture and history with civic participation, leadership and community power so Filipino Americans aren't only represented in the stories of our communities, but are visibly helping shape our future.

Thank you to Abraham Abe Menor, Ingrid Mapanao-Racho and Marc Sanna for sharing your stories and your work in activism with us.

Thank you to NorCal Public Media, Bond Santa Clara Valley Chapter.

Shout outs to Fons National as well.

Our partners and everyone here in the audience.

Give it up to the audience.

Thank you for joining us for Connect the Bay.

Until next time, let's keep telling our stories and building what comes next.

- All right.

End scene.

- We have time for audience questions now.

Give us a break.

If there's one in there.

- I will.

- It's okay if there's not.

Oh, Gracelyn.

Oh, wait.

We have our friend as well back here, Gracelyn and... There you go.

- Hello.

My name is Keone.

I'm a current student at San Jose State.

And I mean, the identity of Asian American has always been inherently political, but would you consider your identity as a Filipino American to be political/counterculture to current US policy, national culture, et cetera?

- I'm not a panelist.

- I don't know.

That kind of hard.

I don't think I see it as political, but that's just because I think it's just part of my identity.

It's who I am.

I am Filipino American, or if I use the full one I use, it's Filipino American Italian.

I am mixed Filipino.

And that's just part of who I am and that maybe influences my activism or advocacy or how I carry myself and how I act and what I stand for.

But I don't think... Maybe that makes it inherently political.

I don't know.

But I don't think when I think of my identity and I think of myself as an Asian American or a Filipino American, I don't think of it as a political, but I think definitely being in these spaces, advocating for these spaces and building community is a way to resist and to build, I guess, political power.

- I love your question.

I just needed time to think.

But I think what I've learned is Asian American, the term is in itself political because I know it was developed because it was to advocate.

And I'm not a history buff or anything, but it was to advocate for, I think, ethnic studies in... Oh, good.

Thank you for saying yes to that, affirming that.

But I would say growing up here, I didn't consider myself Asian or Asian American.

I just considered myself Filipino.

And I think it's because growing up here, it's racially diverse.

I mean, I went to Independence High School and yeah, I just kind of knew my... I think when I thought of Asian, I thought it was specifically about East Asian folks.

And it wasn't until I moved to Philadelphia, to the... I always say East Coast, but East Coast is big.

I moved to Philadelphia when I realized, oh, I am Asian, because there's not a lot of Filipinos there.

So I kind of started telling folks, I would say I'm Filipino American, but I would also say I am part of the Asian community because I think, again, it's used as a political tool, but also with a way for me to find sense of belonging as well, not being around a lot of Filipinos.

So I think because of that experience, I started thinking more critically about it like, oh, I mean, I do consider myself Asian American and I'm proud to also be part of that community.

And then when I moved back here, it was nice.

I was like, "Oh, cool.

I'm Filipino and people know what that is."

Or people don't... I think in Philadelphia, some people didn't know many Filipinos, so they would just say... I mean, they would know.

They'd be like, "Oh, I know someone who's Filipino, or I'm married to someone who's Filipino."

I'm like, "Okay."

And they would start talking me into Galog and I said, "I don't even speak Tagalog or any other Filipino dialect."

But yeah, I think for me, I do consider myself both Filipino American and Asian American.

- I'm a threat to a system that doesn't want black or brown people educated, ready to resist a system that is oppressing us.

It's kind of scary, even though I know I'm privileged in the sense of US born, have a US passport.

It's kind of scary to think I could be affected by immigration, the immigration situation by just walking down the street or driving or maybe just hanging out with friends.

So it's pretty crazy to think that.

So yeah, I think being Filipino for me and understanding who I am and also where we are in this country is political.

- I'm just going to say real quick, 100,000% being a member of the Asian American Pacific Islander community is political.

We need to be very cognizant and very sensitive of how authorities and powers that be will try to use our community to be a wedge and to be a racial polarizing force.

And some folks in our community are happy to volunteer to be that and we need to call them in and we need to have the conversations because to Abe's point, phenotypically, some of us can move in and out of certain spaces and we like being that.

I've encountered a lot of APIs that are A-okay being the only API in the room, but I come from the land of like APIs and Filipinos.

I'm used to rolling in deep with APIs, but it's not the case in other parts of the country.

We also organize in Texas.

I'm confused with the other PNI who shows up to civic conversations we don't look alike.

I was told when I was trying to introduce Manong Larry's story that we also needed to, at the time, and this was before the fallout of Cesar Chavez, that we needed to tread softly.

I was told that in the year of 2026, that we needed to tread softly about how we talked about our Filipino heroes, because one of the cities that we organize in had, at the time, the largest Cesar Chavez parade in the country, 2026.

So we are very much a politicized group and there are, I say, authorities and folks in power that want to exploit that and use us.

And then you get into the model minority myth.

We're a cudgel.

We are used to point to as like the pristine, the consummate minority, and we need to be very careful and we need to push back and we need to call that out.

I'm getting like we need to get off the stage signs, you all.

So thank you.

I can't read that sign, but I'm sure it says like get off the stage.

Thank you.

- Thank you.

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