In Los Angeles, Filipinos have a special relationship with the Little Tokyo neighborhood. In the 1920s and 1930s, Filipino immigrants formed a viable Little Manila district adjacent to the Japanese neighborhood. Little Tokyo was in many ways the heart of the Asian American Movement in Southern California during the 1960s and 1970s, prompting many Filipino…

Over the next few episodes, the TFAL crew brings you some voices from the Pacific Northwest.  This past month, TFAL was on location in Seattle (and later Vancouver) to speak with some of the movers and shakers of the Filipino American community. In our first installment, we talk to Devin Cabanilla of the Filipino American…

In this TFAL episode, we switch gears a bit and give you a few literary works in audio form by Giovanni Ortega, multi-disciplinary artist, writer, and teacher. Giovanni joins the TFAL podcast and shares his upbringing as a 1.5 generation Filipino American from Chicago. He then gives us three short stories from different Filipino American…

Filipinos and karaoke go together like peanut butter and jelly, like peas and carrots, like green mangoes and bagoong. Karaoke is essential to every Filipino party and every late night Filipino beer house.  We perform karaoke in the swankiest KTV room to the local roadside hole in the wall.  Filipinos even kill each other over…

We talk a lot about food on the podcast (and in life) partly because it’s fun, but also because it creates discussion about recipes, deliciousness, and creativity. Filipino cuisine continues to evolve. Creative home cooks and chefs alike are more mindful about available ingredients relative to their geography and health benefits of delicious alternatives. If…

Most of us have some ounce of Filipino pride.  “Successes” by other Filipinos such as Bruno Mars, Jordan Clarkson, and Catriona Gray become “successes” for us.  Because Filipinos are constantly rendered invisible in the Western world, we tend to internalize these victories as our own.  But what happens when fellow Filipinos do something “embarrassing”?  Countless…

During the holiday season, TFAL was invited by the good folks at Cinema Sala to record a podcast episode live in front of an audience. As a first attempt at a live show, this mini-episode looks at the handful of Filipino films on Netflix.  Filmmaker Marie Jamora joins the crew to discuss films like Heneral…

Though beauty pageants in the Philippines can be traced back to the celebration of Santacruzan and other religious festivals, modern beauty pageants, emerged out of the Manila Carnival, an annual event during the early 1900s.  According to scholar Genevieve Clutario, the queen contest became a platform where both Filipino nationalists’ and American colonial officials attempted…

We conclude our San Diego interviews with community organizers DJ Kuttin Kandi, Kirin Macapugay, and Ree Obana. In this discussion we highlight the issues that these womxn currently center their work around. Kirin and Ree give their perspectives as born and raised Pinxys, while Kandi discusses her experience as a transplant from Queens, NY by…