Our Manongs and Manangs: They're Positively Filipinos

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Last Sunday, August 24, Positively Filipino hosted the second "Building Communities: A Tribute to our Manongs and Manangs" event at the San Francisco Public Library. Here is an excerpt from PF Publisher Mona Lisa Yuchengco's welcome address:

For the past 12 years, Positively Filipino has been publishing weekly, to inform the Filipino diasporic community with accurate information, about our culture and heritage, our heroes and sheroes, and issues that affect us not only in our adopted countries, but also in our Motherland.

The name Positively Filipino evokes pride in being a Filipino, wherever we may be. The name Positively Filipino is also a rejection and a reversal of the racism that Filipinos faced in the 1930s where a hotel in Stockton posted a warning sign that read, “Positively No Filipinos Allowed.” It’s been almost 100 years since then, and we have come a long way. Yet, no one doubts that we are still fighting for the recognition of our contributions to this country. 

The ten outstanding individuals we are honoring today are all of immigrant background, who left the Philippines in search of a better life in America. All of them achieved success and recognition in their own right despite the difficulties and prejudices they faced. 

This year has brought so many disruptions to our political system and challenges to our longstanding values of empathy and respect for diversity. Immigration, the very system that brought many of us to these shores, is undergoing radical changes. While all nations have the right to control their borders, the right of individuals to due process, be they native-born or immigrant, is the hallmark of a democratic society.

Unfortunately, the rules-based system we have lived in is being seriously tested by new and arbitrary policies. It doesn’t matter anymore that your grandparents or parents toiled the farms in Hawaii and California. Or if you and your family members have served in the military and died for this country. Or if you risked your life to care for others during the pandemic. With or without legal status, US citizen or not, anyone can be suspected of violating immigration laws and can be detained even “based on physical features,” according to a current border enforcement chief.

Beneath dark political clouds, it becomes even more important to honor our manongs and manangs for their contributions to this country and our community. Let it be known that they have given this country their knowledge and skills to help run farms, businesses, classrooms, hospitals, care homes, services, and government offices. We thank this country for giving them—and us—the opportunity to do so, but gratitude should flow both ways.

Let us, our community, be the first to thank our elders, among them these ten honorees, on whose shoulders we stand, for paving the way for all of us. We must continue to tell our stories as integral parts of this American life.

Our Stories This Week

Honor the Past, Uplift the Present, Inspire the Future by Lorna Lardizabal Dietz

“Community Building: A Tribute to Our Manongs and Manangs 2025” honored the legacies of our Filipino American pioneers.

[Video] Building Communities: A Tribute to Our Manongs and Manangs 2025 by Ken Guanga

Positively Filipino continues to honor Filipino Americans who have given us pride.

Cutting Asparagus in Gonzales, California — Spring 1965 by Alex S. Fabros, Jr. 

Farmworker-Soldier-Historian Alex Fabros, Jr. shares the second part of his Filipino American memoir.

Filipino Language and Its Discontents by Julienne Loreto

It’s Buwan ng Wika (Language Month) but shouldn’t it be Buwan ng mga Wika (Month of Languages) instead?

Have Books, Will Travel by Claire Mercado-Obias

A vacation reading list for those who can’t travel but need an escape.

FilAms Among The Remarkable And Famous, Part 70 by Mona Lisa Yuchengco

Role models and achievers, some of whom you may not even know are Filipino.

{Read It Again]

When Lolo’s Debating Team Vanquished America by Liana Romulo

The Last Night of I-Hotel by Veronica Versoza

[Video of the Week]

Alexandra Eala on Tennis in the Philippines

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Staff

A Fateful Homecoming, August 21, 1983

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What does it take for a young kid fresh out of high school in the mid-'60s to learn about real life before he joins the US military in Vietnam? For Fil-Am writer/historian Alex S. Fabros, Jr., it was doing back-breaking labor with Filipino manongs in the farmlands of California. In this issue, we post the first of a series of five stories Fabros wrote about his time as a farm laborer. The story -- and the series itself -- is a valuable Fil-Am history lesson, made more so by the author's end notes and citing of sources. 

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"He will be lonely without me." While probably said in jest, these words from Benigno "Ninoy" Aquino, Jr. of his arch-rival, then-President Ferdinand Marcos, shortly before he (Aquino) left his US exile to fly home to Manila is the ultimate ironic statement. Forty-two years ago tomorrow, on August 21, 1983, Aquino landed in Manila and was shot dead, a heinous act that marked the beginning of the end of the Marcos regime.  Chibu Lagman, a then-student journalist who happens to be Aquino's fraternity brod recalls his last interview with the Filipino martyr.

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Humor that bites -- that's what stand-up comedian Vice Ganda is known for. With over 20 million followers in social media, Vice is a formidable force in Philippine society and politics, as our Manila-based correspondent Rene Astudillo attests. 

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Filipina nurses in WWII is now the focus of a campaign by the Bataan Legacy Historical Society to recognize their heroism with a Congressional Gold Medal. Cecilia Gaerlan, the group's Executive Director and founder, writes about Adelaida Garcia, one of the heroic nurses, to jumpstart the campaign.

[Read It Again]
The Ghosts of Plaza Miranda by Gregg Jones
August 21, 1971: A Testament to My Immaturity by Mila D. Aguilar 
Diary of a Fil-Am Cop by Edwin Palomar

[Video of the Week]
”Quezon” Trailer

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Staff

A War’s Toxic Legacy

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Agent Orange. An innocuous enough term for those who were not yet around during the Vietnam War or who are not aware of its folly. But for those who were there, like historian/writer and Vietnam War veteran Alex Fabros, hearing the term triggers a historical trauma, a deep-seated PTSD, an inescapable decades-long physical deterioration, hand-me-down genetic defects to offspring, a bureaucratic nightmare and a generational guilt that permeate the psyches of VW veterans. In other words, Agent Orange, the chemical weapon that the US unleashed in then-South Vietnam from 1962-1971 was, by any definition, a colossal bomb that may be as physically and psychologically destructive as the nuclear bombs dropped in Hiroshima and Nagasaki in WWII.

"How Vietnam War Vets Wrestled with the Shadows of the Toxic Orange Mist" by Alex Fabros, our lead story this week, was not easy to write. Though he wrote the first version a few years ago, Alex had to set it aside several times. The memories and the pain that he endures to this day are just too much. We went back and forth with it for months as he rewrote, re-edited, tweaked. This while he was in and out of the hospital as he continues to bravely battle ailments related to, yes, Agent Orange.

As you read his story -- and we hope you will take it to heart --please take a moment to reflect on the immeasurable costs of war, not just to actual combatants and their families, but to nations and the future of mankind. 

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Our other stories this week:

"New Residency Fellowship for Fil-Am Writers Launched" by Elaine Elinson introduces the Helen Toribio Kapwa Fellowship for Filipino and FilAm writers and activists at the Mesa Refuge, a writing residency north of San Francisco. The fellowship, named after a FilAm author/activist who passed away a few years ago, now has its first three recipients.

"Trump Immigration Clampdown Facing Backlash" is PF editor Rene Ciria Cruz's column, Edgewise in Rappler, where he dissects the pernicious implementation and effects of Trump's ill-conceived immigration actions that have led to the rapid fall of his poll numbers.

"Soccer, Lola, and the Persistence of Memory" by Anthony Maddela talks about FilAm soccer player Reina Bonta's short documentary, "Maybe It's Just the Rain," which is essentially a love letter to her Filipina lola Cynthia Bonta whose consequential life is definitely film material. 

Our Video of the Week: Retired Stockton teacher continues to inspire her Filipino community

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Staff