Who Is the First Filipina to be On the Cover of Newsweek and Other Stories

If you're US-based, be sure to watch—or set your recorders—to Grimm, the NBC hit show, this Friday March 7 at 9pm/8pm Central for the episode where FilAm actor Reggie Lee as the show's Sgt. Wu deals with the "aswang" of our folklore. As Reggie tells us in "An Honest Actor with a Deceptive Name", he was able to relate well to the episode's plot because of his memory of the "aswang" in his Philippine childhood.

March is Women's History Month so we have a roster of amazing Filipino women in our lineup for the entire month. In this issue, we are featuring "The Bold Soprano" Enya Gonzalez, who created a sensation on Broadway in the late 1930s and yes, was the first Filipina to be on the cover of Newsweek; Consuelo Dancel Sison ("Super Grandma") who at 93 proves the notion that age is only a number; and Mary Jane Alvero-Al Mahdi, the Filipina engineer who is now CEO of one of Dubai's most prominent engineering firms. Read "Dauntless in Dubai" for her story.

Our dear artist friend, France Viana, introduces FilAm artist Lordy Rodriguez whose current series of map art decorates the bus kiosks of Market Street in San Francisco. And, lest we forget, the after-effects of Typhoon Haiyan last November still loom big in the lives of the people of Samar and Leyte. Writer Rene Navarro takes us to Tacloban and Guiuan in "Healer On a Mission" three months after the devastation.

Last but certainly not the least, American college students immerse themselves in an urban poor community in Quezon City and get an education that they'll never acquire in the classroom. In "Casa Bayanihan: A Jesuit Kind of Learning," we share some of their reflections.

I hope you enjoy our first-week-of-the-month collection of stories and you'll Like and Share them with your friends and family.

Let's raise our pride meter and proclaim that we are indeed positively Filipino.