PETER’S PINOY PATTER — April 2023
Bridge Generation News
BG Personality of the Month: Joey Tabaco, 77: Joey was born in Long Island City in the Borough of Queens of New York City just before the end of World War II — the oldest of nine children of Natalio Tabaco and Vanancia Catay from Tagbilaran City, Bohol Province, the Philippines. His father was an employee of the United Nations, located at its temporary home in Lake Success NY, and was believed to be the first Filipino citizen to work for the UN.
At the UN’s first site at Lake Success, discrimination in housing was rampant and posed a serious problem for the hundreds of People of Color delegates and staff. Parkway Village in the Borough of Queens was subsequently built to accommodate the POC delegates and staff, including the Tabaco family. Queens was then a predominantly white borough. Consequently, during Joey’s growing up years, whenever he ventured outside Parkway Village into other areas of Queens, he always felt “isolated” and “had to assimilate or die.” Later as a teenager, he got a job at the 1964 New York World’s Fair as a busboy at the Alaska Pavilion operated by Filipinos. Ironically, he found he related more easily to his native Alaskan Eskimo co-workers than with the Filipinos.
A Vietnam War veteran, Joey began a long career in weather service in 1968, flying into typhoons and hurricanes throughout the world. It began with his enlistment in the U.S. Air Force and then with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Today, in retirement, Joey continues his association with weather, working part-time as a contracted weather observer with the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).
In recent years Joey has become a dedicated member of the Filipino American National Historical Society, serving as a board member of the Metropolitan New York Chapter, and attending biennial national conferences. His FANHS affiliation has provided Joey with opportunities to become more aware of the Filipino experience in America and of his cultural heritage and roots. He resides with his wife, the former Jacqueline Bleza, in Lake Ronkonkoma in Long Island, an hour from New York City. (Acknowledgements: My Baryo, My Borough Collection at the Archives at Queens Library.)
Passings:
Born on January 31, 1931 in San Francisco, Otto Alfredo Niduaza, 92, passed away on March 1 after a three-year battle with dementia. Fair skinned of South American and European ethnicity, he was raised in the Fillmore district, then the home of most SF’s Filipinos. In 1946 the outgoing Otto was unanimously elected as one of the first members of the legendary SF “Mango” Athletic Youth Club, composed of Bridge Generation Filipino Americans. It was not unusual for young Filipinos of the time to be welcoming of non-Filipinos. BG Filipino Americans didn’t care if one was Ilocano, Visayan, or Tagalog — only that the person preferred associating with Filipino contemporaries. With the Mangos, Otto married Dolores, his Filipina wife for 60 years and formed enduring friendships with BG Filipino Americans. (On a personal note, I will always remember breakfasts with Otto in our neighborhood coffee shop at the Daly City Shopping Center.) Rest In Peace, Otto, and other non-Filipinos like Chris Gin of Chinese ancestry from Salinas CA and African American Bob Murray of Seattle — all kababayans (brothers) since our youth club days. “You will always be Filipinos!”
Happy April Birthdays: Veronica (Roslinda) Calibjo, Mel LaGasca, Patti (Monares) Greathouse, Esther (Navarro) Romero, Dolores (Rosales) Supat, Art Villarruz,
Pinakbet — News Across America
Filipino American Historical Tidbits:
On January 18, 1946: Congress passed the Rescission Act, which denied most benefits under the G.I. Bill of Rights, promised by U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, to Filipino veterans of the United States Forces in the Far East (USAFFE) during World War II………….. In 2004, Major General Antonio Taguba headed the investigation of prisoner abuse in the Abu Ghraid prison in Iraq. His final report criticized the conduct of U.S. Army personnel and found widespread negligence and abuse. In 2006 Taguba was instructed to retire………… In the 1992 FANHS Journal, the late Gil Pilapil, two-term Filipino American National Historical Society national president, wrote, “….. gugu, goo-goo, or gook — derisive terms often used to describe Filipinos and other Asians — are derived from the Tagalog word gago which means dumb or stupid.”
Did You Know:
With the March 16 announcement that subpoenas relating to Trump’s unauthorized possession of classified documents were issued to all Mar-a-Lago staff, it appears Navy steward’s mate, Walter Nauta will be the first Filipino to be caught up in this investigation. He reportedly told the FBI that Trump ordered him to move boxes containing top-secret documents……….. Anthony Volpe, heralded to be the next great NY Yankee shortstop, is mestizo — Filipino on his anesthesiologist mother’s side and White from his urologist father………….. Led by retiring board member Rev. Tony Ubalde, the Vallejo City Unified School District Board voted in November to rename the Vallejo Regional Education Center after Al Berenguer — a district educator for more than 50 years,…………. Ron Rivera, had a distinguished career as a National Football League player, assistant coach, and head coach. However, his Filipino ethnicity has been obscured by media erroneously describing him being Latino. In an interview in the online newspaper Inquirer.net, Rivera credited his Filipino maternal grandfather, Margarito Palma, with passing on the traditional Filipino values of family and hard work that he has emulated. Like most 1920s immigrants from the Philippines, his grandfather was a farm worker who followed the crops from his base in Salinas — America’s Salad Bowl. Despite his grandfather’s migratory existence, Rivera recalled how he instilled values he learned in the Philippines in his children. He also remembered his grandfather as an ardent supporter of his achievements as a high school All-Star at Seaside High and as a football All-American linebacker at University of California, Berkeley. Today, Ron takes every opportunity to speak of his pride as a Filipino. He promoted comedian Joe Koy‘s recent movie Easter Sunday and often appears at pro basketball Filipino Heritage nights. Over the years, the NFL has included few Filipinos. However, in 2017 when he was head coach of the the Carolina Panthers in Super Bowl 50, Rivera took particular pride in the uncommonly high number of Filipino American participating in SB 50. In addition to Rivera, the 2017 Super Bowl not only starred Denver Bronco wide receiver Jordan Norwood on the football field but also featured former New England Patriot linebacker Tedy Bruschi on ESPN-TV, Miss Universe Pia Alonzo Wurtzbach reporting for TV’s Inside Edition, and singer/dancer Bruno Mars of Hawaii sharing the stage with megastar Beyonce on the halftime show. He is not the only Rivera family athlete and coach. His wife, mestiza Stephanie (Tamayo) Rivera played basketball at Cal Berkeley and was a former assistant coach of the Washington Mystic’s of the Woman’s National Basketball Association.
Musings
(From) White Supremacy in America, (to) It Has Always Been About People of Color, (to) Equitable Justice for People of Color, (to) Multi-racial Democracy Weakened, (to) Political/Gun Violence) Part XXXIV:
Previous columns have concluded that mass shootings have become “normalized” in America. Moreover, since statistics show America has more than doubled the number of firearms per 100 of the next highest country (Yemen), this column now comes to the conclusion, “Where there are more firearms, there are more mass shootings!”
America also leads the world in political violence! On February 24 Texas Republican Congressman Lance Gooden called California Democrat Congresswoman Judy Chu “disloyal” and should be denied security clearance to confidential intelligence briefings regarding China. Gooden’s reason for his accusation? — “Congresswoman Chu is Chinese!” Chu, Los Angeles born and raised in Southern California, who has more than 40 years serving as an elected official, fought back immediately, calling her alleged disloyalty as “……absolutely outrageous…based on false information spread by an extreme, right wing website….and racist.”
This incident perpetuates the often expressed belief that “Asians Americans are foreigners in their own country.” Remember the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1862, the Japanese Exclusion Act of 1907, the Tydings-McDuffie Act of 1934 that effectively halted Filipino immigration, and the 1942 imprisonment of 125,000 mostly Japanese American citizens for disloyalty?
More recently, anti-Asian political violence was reignited by Donald Trump on September 22, 2020 in a speech before the United Nations General Assembly. Without corroborating evidence, he accused China of “unleashing” Covid-19 upon the world, calling it the “China Virus” and “Kung Flu.” Words matter! A few months later, 61 year old Filipino Noel Quintana was brutally slashed by a man armed with a box cutter on a New York City subway; in Los Angeles a Thai woman was subjected to a racist tirade from another mass transit rider who uttered, “Chinese people are natural carriers of infectious disease.” On March 2021 in Atlanta, six of the eight women killed in three Asian businesses, were of Asian descent.
Anti-Asian political violence is also rampant in America’s classrooms. According to the U.S. Department of Education, Asian American and Pacific Islander students suffer from classroom bullying at higher rates than any other race or ethnicity. In Stop AAPI Hate data, more than 9,000 anti-Asian incidents have been reported since the beginning of the pandemic with more than 1,000 cases for the 2023 current year alone. (To be continued)
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