PETER’S PINOY PATTER — February 2022
Bridge Generation News
(Today’s Bridge Generation — now in their 70s, 80s, and 90s — is a rapidly declining population. Over the years, most of the members of these American-born children of the first wave of Filipino immigrants have passed away. To remember their contributions to the history of Filipinos in America, a deceased BG individual is a recurring feature of this blog. This issue features activist, teacher, and non-profit agency executive — Filipino American icon Royal Morales 1932-2001.)
I first met Royal in 1957 at a social work students’ picnic inside Los Angeles’ sprawling Griffith Park. We were both graduate students — he at the University of Southern California and I at the University of California at Los Angeles. He aspired to use his education to make a difference for the Filipino community. Even then, I sensed the affable, yet driven, Royal would reach his goal.
Born in 1932 in the Filipino enclave on Bunker Hill in downtown Los Angeles, Royal took a circuitous educational and career path. When he was a boy during the Great Depression, he visited the Philippines with his family, only to be stranded there by World War II. In the Philippines, his family underwent frightening house arrest by the Japanese invaders. Royal would not return to Los Angeles until 1951. By then, his English was so poor he had to relearn the language after flunking a college entrance examination. Undeterred, he subsequently earned a bachelor’s degree at Chapman University and a masters of social work at USC.
After serving in the U.S. Army during the Korean War, Royal went on to teach at UCLA for fifteen years. He was a revered lecturer — affectionately known by his students as “Uncle Roy.” In his lively classes, Royal told stories, played Philippine music, led discussions, and conducted Saturday field trips to Filipinotown. Field trips typically started at the Filipino Christian Church his father helped establish, went on to the Pilipino American Reading Room and Library, and proceeded downtown to Bunker Hill, where the local Filipino community flourished in the 1920s and ‘30s. (Today, Bunker Hill is the site of business and government high rise buildings.) The field trips were so popular buses were often used to transport students. Of his unique teaching style, Meg (Malaya) Thornton, longtime coordinator at the UCLA Asian American Center said, “He took kids out of the ivory tower and into the streets.” Royal’s boss at UCLA, Don Nakanishi, at his 1996 retirement declared, “He is a national living treasure.”
Royal worked at the Neighborhood Youth Association, was Director of the Pacific Asian Alcohol Program, and for ten years led the Asian American Community Mental Health Training Center of Los Angeles. In 1972, with assistance of Bridge Generation colleague Al Mendoza, he founded Search to Involve Pilipino Americans (SIPA) — the second largest continuous Filipino youth-serving organization in the country. (Sipa is a traditional Filipino sport played by players’ kicking a small woven rattan ball with their insoles.) Not content in establishing local community agencies, he helped found the National Asian Pacific American Families Against Substance Abuse (NAPAFASA) — a national organization of agencies dedicated to alcohol and drug addiction. In 1974 Royal published Makibaka: the Pilipino American Struggle, a contemporary account of the Filipino experience in America.
A consummate activist, Royal was at the forefront of 1960-70 movements to improve the lot of Asian Americans, especially Filipinos. As SIPA executive director he was known for his coalescing efforts with other community agencies. He also went beyond Asian/Filipino communities — among the first social workers to assist victims of the deadly 1965 Watts riots in Los Angeles.
Royal died too young of a heart attack on January 23, 2001 at the age of 68. UCLA, USC, and the National Association of Social Work each honored him with posthumous recognitions. Today, hundreds of his former students can be found in the American mainstream carrying out his legacy.
A Filipino American in the National Portrait Gallery
A black and white photograph of Joe Bataan, (pictured with Dorothy Cordova, FANHS executive director) the Filipino/Puerto Rican/African American “King of Latin Soul” proudly hangs in the National Portrait Gallery of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. The photograph is the only one in the Gallery featuring a Filipino American.
Happy February Birthdays:
Carlene (Sobrino) Bonnivier, Laura (Cabanero) Ente, Fred Campano, Lydia (Antiporda) Galian, Gloria (Carido) Nomura, Marya (Castillano) Bergstrom, Bob Flor, Lillian Galedo, Vince Gomez, Cris ( Krisologo-Elliott, Dorothy (Laigo) Cordova, Dan Poland, Rosalie (Salutan) Marquez, Joyce (Tibon) Balandra.
Pinakbet — News Across America
Historical Tidbits:
In 1974 Benjamin Menor was appointed Hawaii Supreme Court Justice – the first Filipino American to hold the position in a U.S. state supreme court………… On December 20, 1906, fifteen Filipino plantation workers, called sakadas (rising up), arrived in Honolulu. Today, Filipinos make up 23% of the population of the State of Hawaii.
Did You Know:
Congratulations to Olivia Rodrigo of Temecula CA who continues to smash pop music records! After her records setting “Driver’s License”, she exceeded them with the release of “Sour” in May 2021. In December, Time magazine named her “Entertainer of the Year.” ………….. Yes, baseball fans, Melissa (Esplana) Baker, the wife of Houston Astros manager Dusty Baker, is pinay.…………. Filipino-Chinese-Canadian actor Manny Jacinto‘s role in NBC/TV”s “The Good Place” went against stereotypes of how Asian men are often portrayed. He has another non-stereotypical role as Yao on Hulu’s “Nine Perfect Strangers” as top aide to Nicole Kidman, the mysterious head of an upscale wellness resort…………. In FANHS Journal, Volume 2, 1992, physician/historian Gil Pilapil, regarding the portrayal of Filipinos as primitive people at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair, wrote: “An enterprising German vendor took advantage of the Igorots’ appetite for dog meat and introduced a sausage in a bun and called it a hotdog. Never mind that it was formerly called frankfurter or weiner, the name “hotdog” stuck”.
Musings
From White Supremacy in America, to It Has Always Been About People of Color, to Equitable Justice for People of Color, Part XXIII:
My January blog concluded, “Nothing is more important than Congressional passage of anti-voter suppression legislation — not infrastructure, not climate change, not even Covid. Furthermore, I urged the Senate to pass the Freedom to Vote Act bill previously approved by the House of Representatives to quell egregious legislation. On January 19, the Senate answered: It defeated the Freedom To Vote Act by a 52-48 vote. Not a single Republican Senator voted for the bill while two Democrats, Senators Joe Mancin of West Virginia and Krysten Sinema of Arizona voted to defeat it.
With the bill’s defeat, more than 500 voter suppression/election subversion laws targeting People of Color in Republican controlled states will be implemented. Some egregious examples: In Georgia, providing water or food to persons waiting in line to vote would be prohibited. Arkansas and Arizona would allow state officials to decertify local elections officials or overturn results of local elections they did not agree with. In Alabama the time to apply for a mail ballot would be shortened. Florida would limit the number, location, or availability of mail ballot drop boxes. In 2021, Texas removed a requirement that students be taught about the history of white supremacy and “the ways in which it is morally wrong.” Republican controlled states are busy realigning congressional districts to reduce POL representation.
How did this happen to the world’s leading democracy? American democracy has been described as fragile. But, except for the Civil War, never has its fragility been as brittle. Our Constitutional triumvirate of executive, legislative, and judicial branches no longer perform their traditional “checks and balance” role. The “rule of law” has been often ignored. No longer does America have two political parties based on ideology after the Republican Party turned to race and religion. 95% of the nation’s wealth go to a tiny number of wealthy individuals. Laws protecting vulnerable populations have been greatly weakened. The twice impeached former president has seized on the grievances of a sizeable number of mostly White citizens to convince them that America no longer cares about them. Thus, the January 6, 2021 mob assault on the Capitol Building was not just a Trump insurrection but also an insurrection against People of Color. We now are a deeply divided nation.
The January 19 defeat of the Freedom to Vote Act was a serious blow to American democracy. But does it mean the country is inextricably heading into an autocracy? Your faithful blogger says, “No way. We can come back!” America has shown in earlier crises that it can rise to the occasion. We came back after Pearl Harbor. We came back after 9/11. We can come back after the defeat of the Freedom to Vote Act. The president and attorney general have set the tone in the fight for democracy. On January 11 President Joe Biden emphatically declared, “I will defend the right to vote, our democracy against all enemies — foreign, and yes, domestic.” On January 5 Attorney General Merrick Garland said, “The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators, at any level, accountable under law.”
As this blog goes to press, strategies are being developed to blunt the expected deluge of Republican state-sponsored voter suppression/election subversion laws. Stay tuned.
##########