Who started Filipino American History Month? FANHS!
Watch Emily speak at The White House program, giving a brief background on Filipino American History Month and how the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) commemorates it with a different theme every October.
Keynote Speech: Bayanihan/Community
Listen to Prof. Emily P. Lawsin deliver the Keynote Speech, with historical slides, at the SAFA x Kapamilya Pilipino Cultural Night (PCN) sponsored by University of Michigan Dearborn Student Association for Filipino Americans and Eastern Michigan University Kapamilya, LiveStreamed on YouTube, April 3, 2021. See PCN Program.
TV/Video Interview of Emily P. Lawsin
by Jay Sanchez, http://www.filamtelevision.com
Here’s Emily performing and talking about how her poem “My Pinay Nanay” came to be. This was filmed in 2004 in Virginia Beach, at the benefit performance for Kundiman writers organization. It’s Season 1, Episode 3 Part B, from http://www.filamtelevision.com
Life History Interview of Grace Lee Boggs
Global Feminisms Interview with Grace Lee Boggs by Emily P. Lawsin, 2002: Deep Blue Archive, Transcript (English), Video, Bibliography, YouTube Video, Name Pronunciation Audio
Grace Lee Boggs was an activist, writer and speaker whose 80 years of political involvement encompassed the major U.S. social movements of the 20th century: labor, civil rights, Black power, Asian American, women’s and environmental justice. A daughter of Chinese immigrants, she was born in Providence, Rhode Island in 1915. In 1953, she came to Detroit where she married James Boggs, labor activist, writer and strategist. Working together in grassroots groups and projects, they were partners for over 40 years until James Boggs’ death in July 1993. The Monthly Review Press published their book, Revolution and Evolution in the 20th Century, in 1974. In 1992, with James Boggs, Shea Howell and others, she founded Detroit Summer, a multicultural, intergenerational youth movement program, to rebuild, redefine and re-spirit Detroit from the ground up. She spread her ideas by writing a weekly column in the Michigan Citizen newspaper. In 1998, the University of Minnesota Press published her autobiography, Living for Change. In 2011, University of California Press published The Next American Revolution: Sustainable Activism for the Twenty-First Century by Grace Lee Boggs with Scott Kurashige. In 2013, filmmaker Grace Lee directed and produced the Peabody-Award-winning biographical documentary film, American Revolutionary: The Evolution of Grace Lee Boggs, about Boggs’ life, activism and philosophy. Among numerous honors, Grace received the distinguished Alumna Award from Barnard College, the Chinese American Pioneers Award, from the Organization of Chinese Americans, and a lifetime achievement award from the Anti-Defamation League. A plaque in her honor is displayed at the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York. Grace Lee Boggs passed away in her home in Detroit on October 5, 2015, at the age of 100 years and 100 days.
Examples of Intergenerational Community Projects
History, HERstory, OURstories: Pin@y Performance Project
Philippine American Community Center of Michigan, 2004.
Produced by Emily P. Lawsin and Joseph A. Galura
Directed by Garri Madera, Ma’arte Tribe Collective
Featuring Original Music by Singer/Songwriter Lisa Hunter, based on the oral history interview of Presentacion Igay.
Oral History Poem by Emily P. Lawsin, based on the oral history interviews of Rosalina Regala and Isabel Galura.
Actors in this Excerpt: Rica de Ocampo, Garri Madera, Lesly Burgamy Sauceda, based on the oral history interviews of Isabel Galura.
Video Edited by Rica de Ocampo.
The Filipino American Oral History Project of Michigan is a collective effort between University of Michigan faculty, students, staff, alumni, and community members. Our project aims to document the history of Pinays—Filipino American women—and Pinoys—Filipino American men, with a special focus on those who migrated and settled in the Midwestern United States. Through team-taught, service-learning courses, students have collected hundreds of photographs, life histories, and artifacts since the project’s inception in 2001. In 2002, we published the first book on Asian Americans of Detroit, titled Filipino Women in Detroit, 1945-1955: Oral Histories from the Filipino American Oral History Project of Michigan. Students and project volunteers also traveled to different conferences and campuses around the country, stressing to others the importance of documenting our histories. We launched the Pin@y Performance Project project in 2003, as one historian has put it, “To take oral histories out of the archives and onto the stage!” Through 15-minute, 30-minute, and 60-minute multi-media performances, a diverse all-volunteer cast dramatizes stories, poems, memoirs, photographs, and interviews of Filipinos in Michigan. In 2004-2006, performances featured students, ages 12-80, from the intergenerational Filipino American History class taught on Sundays at Paaralang Pilipino/PACCM.
University of Michigan and Community Partners include: Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), Bentley Historical Library, Lisa Hunter, Ma’arte Tribe Artists Collective, United Asian American Organizations, Philippine Study Group Association (PSG), the Filipino American Students Association (FASA), Philippine Historical Society, Filipino Women’s Club of Detroit, Paaralang Pilipino Language & Culture School, and Philippine American Community Center of Michigan (PACCM). Funding provided by University of Michigan Arts of Citizenship Program; Center for Research, Learning, and Teaching; Edward Ginsberg Center for Community Service and Learning; Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies; Department of American Culture; Undergraduate Research Opportunity Program, and Department of Women’s Studies.
FYI: Filipino Youth Initiative
Paaralang Pilipino Language and Cultural School, Southfield, Michigan
University of Michigan Asian/Pacific Islander American Studies Minors Aisa Villarosa and Ken Uy made this public service announcement with FYI teens as part of their Fall Semester 2007 Term Project for our American Culture 305: Asian Pacific American Community Service and Learning Class. Every Sunday, Aisa and Ken helped facilitate the FYI Class, with lead mentor Ph.d candidate Cathryn Fabian. In Winter 2008 Semester, they were joined by Veronica Garcia and Aimee Estrellado. The class is co-sponsored by the Michigan Chapter of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS-MI) and is housed at the Philippine American Community Center of Michigan. To enroll in Paaralang Pilipino see: http://www.paccm.org
emily p. lawsin 