DAVIS, Calif. — Filipino American History Month is celebrated every year in October in the U.S. It's a time to recognize the countless cultural and historical contributions made by Filipino American communities nationwide.
The Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) is a nonprofit founded in 1982 "to promote understanding, education, enlightenment, appreciation and enrichment through the identification, gathering, preservation and dissemination of the history and culture of Filipino Americans in the United States."
Each year, the FANHS announces the national theme for Filipino American History Month. This year's theme is "Celebrating Our History and Legacies: 50 Years of Filipino American Studies, 40 Years of the Filipino American National Historical Society, and 30 years of Filipino American History Month."
According to the FANHS, Filipino American History Month has been recognized in the U.S. for 30 years.
FANHS Founders Fred and Dorothy Cordova first introduced October as Filipino American History Month in 1992 with a resolution from the FANHS National Board of Trustees. In 2009, U.S. Congress officially recognized October as Filipino American History Month.
This year, President Joe Biden took to Twitter to recognize Filipino American History Month. He tweeted, "Jill and I are proud to recognize Filipino American History Month and celebrate the innumerable contributions and rich heritage of Filipino Americans across our nation."
Biden went on, stating "We support, honor, and thank you for all you have done to help fulfill the promise of America for all of us."
The Biden-Harris Administration also celebrated Filipino American History Month through the White House Initiative on Asian Americans, Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders (WHIAANHPI). The agency hosted a virtual celebration of Filipino American History Month on October 20.
It included live performances, guest speakers, panel discussions, educational resources and more.
Filipino American History Month is in October to commemorate the first recorded presence of Filipinos in the continental United States. According to the FANHS, “Luzones Indios” came ashore from the Spanish galleon Nuestra Senora de Esperanza and landed at what is now Morro Bay, California on Oct. 18, 1587.
More than 4 million Filipinos live in the U.S., according to a 2021 report from the Pew Research Center. It shows Filipino Americans are the second-largest Asian American group in the nation and the third-largest ethnic group in California after Latinos and African Americans.
Every year, during Filipino American History Month, FANHS Chapters, colleges and universities, museums, and community groups hold activities and events to bring awareness of the significant role Filipinos have played in American history.
Outside of celebrating 30 years of Filipino American History Month and 40 years of the founding of FANHS, the U.S. is also recognizing 50 years of Filipino American Studies (FAS) classes being offered to students at colleges and universities.
According to the FANHS, colleges and universities began offering FAS classes for the first time in 1972, including UCLA and UC Davis. But not without a fight.
Students at UC Davis protested for ethnic studies programs in 1969. At the same time, students stood in solidarity with Filipino immigrant farmworkers, like Larry Itliong, in the Cental Valley - fighting for workers' rights and changes in labor. Overtime, UC Davis developed the Ethnic Studies and Asian American Studies Departments due to student activism.
FAS classes were previously established at San Francisco State University and City College of San Francisco. Western Washington University and the University of Hawai'i later established classes in the mid-1970s.
As an educator, author and activist, Dr. Robyn Rodriguez works to ensure Filipino people are accurately represented in classrooms. Rodriguez serves as the first Filipina chair in the Asian American Studies Department at UC Davis.
She's also the founding director of the Bulosan Center for Filipino Studies, which focuses on the Filipinx experience in America.
Rodriguez was born and raised in the San Francisco Bay area. Despite living in Union City, a predominantly Filipino community, Rodriguez says she struggled to find representation in school textbooks at a young age.
"It's hard to grow up in a place where you feel like, you do not see yourself," Rodriguez said. "I noticed the discrepancies between my lived experiences of being a Filipino in a neighborhood with a lot of other Filipinos and being a kid in a school with lots of other kids of color and not seeing ourselves in the books."
Rodriguez says her family migrated to the U.S., right before the declaration of martial law in the Philippines on September 21, 1972. Then-Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos declared martial law a year before his second term was set to expire.
According to Amnesty International, a human rights organization, tens of thousands of people were arbitrarily imprisoned, tortured and killed during the nine-year military rule.
"My mom migrated along with many other Filipinas to work as nurses in the United States. My dad followed suit," Rodriguez said. "Martial law really had a huge impact on Filipinos in the Philippines. Human rights were violated, the economy was not sustaining people well, and that really did drive a lot of Filipinos to leave the country and many came to the U.S."
Rodriguez, along with other community activists, organizations and educators, is advocating for Filipino people, history and culture to be represented in the U.S. education system - not only in colleges and universities.
Most recently, FAS curricula have been established in K-12 public schools in California, Hawai'i, and Seattle. FAS scholars have also emerged across multiple disciplines – from History to Humanities to Psychology to Education – with numerous books, journal articles, and multimedia works that provide knowledge of the experiences of Filipino Americans in the United States.
Even though some progress has been made, Rodriguez says more work is needed to ensure Filipino people are not just a "footnote in textbooks." She's also pushing for other historically marginalized communities and groups to be recognized in schools nationwide.
"What I hope Filipino American History Month does, is not only invite people to think about only Filipino communities," Rodriguez said. "But to really think about the important value that our community and other communities like ours, who are often in the margins of history books, if there at all, that we offer important contributions to our society, economically politically and culturally."
To learn more about Filipino American History Month, visit the official FANHS website.