Despite efforts to create Filipino ethnic enclaves – Historic Filipinotown in LA, SoMa Pilipinas in San Francisco, Filipino Village in National City, Little Manila in Toronto, etc. – a common narrative out there is that Filipinos do not have a discernible ethnic enclave. Even heavy Filipino-populated suburban cities such as Daly City, Carson, Vallejo, Jersey…

  Welcome to Canada, eh?  In addition to our trip to Seattle last month, the TFAL crew was able to take a trip to our neighbor to the north, Canada…Vancouver to be exact.  In our next couple episodes, we talk to some of Van-city’s awesomest Filipino community leaders.  This episode focuses on political and community…

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…