heritage & inheritance

May is Asian/Pacific American Heritage Month – a celebration of Asians and Pacific Islanders in the United States. Let us hope it does not activate or aggravate more Asian hate crimes as it did in March - which ironically was Women's History Month. 

advocating against Asian bigotry & discrimination

“What transforms this world is — knowledge. Do you see what I mean? Nothing else can change anything in this world. Knowledge alone is capable of transforming the world, while at the same time leaving it exactly as it is. When you look at the world with knowledge, you realize that things are unchangeable and at the same time are constantly being transformed.”

―THE TEMPLE OF THE GOLDEN PAVILION

(金閣寺, Kinkaku-ji) 1956 by Yukio Mishima

from here to home

The NYTimes Op-Docs piece "From Here to Home" highlights five films on immigration and belonging.

Writer Viet Thanh Nguyen, herself an immigrant, introduces the works with these heart piercing words:

[T]hings happened not necessarily because we were refugees or Southeast Asian, but because we were human and did some of the same things that other Americans did. Our failures — and our successes — were due to our complicated humanity, not because of our ethnic or national origins.

decolonizing & deconstructing

October reminded us of our past colonized histories. Starting with the October 12 celebration of 65 years of Philippine-German diplomatic ties. When Martina and Issa had fun dressing up in our national attires and taking photos in our New Jersey neighborhood. 

Followed on October 13 by International Day for Disaster Reduction. Started in 1989 by the United Nations General Assembly as a day to promote the global culture of risk-awareness and disaster reduction.

memory in our genes | history on our skin

Commissioned Art by Mahala Urra

The recent uproar over the exploitation of a tribal elder at the recent Manila FAME event has opened a whole can of worms. 

Read a BBC article on it - one of many that have since gone viral. 

Apo Whang Od Oggay herself may well disagree. 

Sleeping figure is celebrated Kalinga tatoo artist, Apo Whang Od