The centuries-long presence and contributions of Filipinos in American Society will be celebrated in an exhibit at the Stony Brook University in New York next month.
Titled “Singgalot—The Ties that Bind: Filipinos in America from Colonial Subjects to Citizens,” the free two-month “historic traveling exhibit” will showcase the place of Filipino Americans in the US through rare images and trivia.
The exhibit will highlight “the tenuous political relationship between the United States and the Philippines” from as early as the 1500s, and will follow through the beginnings of the Filipino-American communities in Louisiana in the 1600s and the participation of Filipinos that fought for the US Army during the Second World War.
“[It] will feature rarely seen historical image of Filipino migration between 1906 and 1935 as workers at Hawaii sugar plantations, West Coast farms, and Alaskan canneries,” the news site Filipino Reporter said.
Last December, US First Lady Michelle Obama named the Historic Filipinotown in Los Angeles, California as one of the five new Preserve America communities in the country, a part of the “federal initiative that encourages community efforts to preserve cultural and natural heritage.”
Historic Filipinotown is a newly created district in the southwest portion of Echo Park in Los Angeles, via a resolution proposed by city council member Eric Garcetti in 2002.
The Filipino community is considered one of the largest and influential ethnic groups in the US. According to the 2010 US Census, there are more than 2.5 million Filipinos there, with the largest concentrations in the states of California (nearly 1.2 million), Hawaii (more than 197, 000), and Illinois (around 114, 000).
Developed by the Smithsonian Asian Pacific American Program in cooperation with a number of organizations, “Singgalot” will be open to the public from February 12 to April 22 at the Charles B. Wang Center, Room 201 in Stony Brook.
There will also be a community opening program on March 3 at 3 p.m., followed by a campus opening reception on March 8 at 6 p.m. — ELR, GMA News
source:gmanetwork.com
