John Bahia on why Filipino immigrants need to get involved in U.S. politics

By Hannah Lorenzo

When giving tours around Woodside in Queens, 23-year-old John Bahia makes a special stop to Purple Dough, a Filipino-owned dessert shop.

He recommends to friends and visitors to try the leche flan and ice cream that are filled with the nutty sweet flavor of ube, a Filipino purple yam.

Down 63rd Street, he passes by Barako Cafe, a Filipino coffee shop, and Makati Express Cargo, a shipping company that sends Woodside residents’ care packages to the Philippines.

He walks past New York’s first Jollibee restaurant, a popular Filipino fast-food chain where he used to work. The smell of fried chicken and sounds of Tagalog reflect his Filipino American roots.

Born in the U.S. territory of Saipan, Bahia moved to the Philippines with his parents in 2011 and lived there for 4 ½ years. Leaving his parents in the Philippines, he traveled to live with extended family and complete his education in the U.S., graduating high school in 2019. He now resides in Woodside while studying at Columbia University.

Bahia is not only a Woodside tour guide. As the special projects coordinator for District 30’s Assemblymember Steven Raga, the first Filipino American elected in office in New York, Bahia advocates for stronger public policy initiatives for the Filipino American community in Woodside and all over New York. He says Filipinos need more financial resources to develop Filipino community programs and small businesses.

“We want real money invested in real people in our communities,” he told this reporter.

Filipino immigrants make up 27% of Asian and Pacific Islander ethnic groups that are reported to have Limited English Proficiency in New York City. Bahia says, however, that there is still a strong need for local resources including access to Tagalog translation in his community.

In 2021, Bahia first met Raga who he considers a mentor. He says Raga helped develop his leadership, community outreach and public policy interests.

“I feel like I’m (a close mentor) to John what I did not have and most people never had,” said Raga. “We never had a Filipino elected official we could walk or talk with and can be upfront and blunt about certain issues.”

Raga co-hosted a Community Roundtable with New York Senator Chuck Schumer at Tito Rad’s Grill, a Filipino restaurant in Woodside, to build relationships between Schumer and FilAm business owners and community leaders. Bahia advocates for events like the Community Roundtable to push for Filipinos to be more invested in policy change that affects their community.

“As Filipinos, when we come here, we come here to work,” said Mark Mantaring, owner of Purple Dough. Mantaring says that Filipino immigrants tend not to get involved in U.S. politics.

Bahia aims to reverse that narrative.

“You’re not going to get what you want in terms of investment, in terms of policies, in terms of things that would help your community,” he said.

He transferred from LaGuardia Community College to Columbia University in 2023. He is currently focused on urban studies to understand how geographic data can “transform into policy” for Filipino and the broader Asian American and Pacific Islander communities in New York.

Outside of school, Bahia is also secretary of the Filipino American Democratic Club of New York. Queens County Young Democrats named it 2024 Community Leader of the Year for the organization’s work to bolster FilAm engagement in U.S. politics.

Michelle Amor, the club’s vice president, remembers Bahia back when he worked at Jollibee.

“It’s definitely refreshing to see someone like John that’s always willing and who’s so ride or die for his community,” she said.

When he’s not in the office, Bahia is always representing his Filipino community in Woodside, a portion of which is being called Little Manila. He runs the Little Manila Woodside Instagram account that promotes Filipino small businesses and community leaders.

“Nothing about that page is me,” he said. “It’s more so centered on the preservation and development and encouraging of Filipinos and Filipino Americans to visit, live, buy, invest and be around Little Manila and what we have to offer.”

Hannah Lorenzo, a Filipina American raised in Phoenix, Arizona, recently graduated from Trinity College as the Class of 2024 salutatorian, summa cum laude in International Studies and a minor in Media Studies. She is preparing to earn her Master’s Degree of Science in Journalism at the Columbia Graduate School of Journalism. She is vice president of Columbia’s Asian American Journalists Association.