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Wanna Ver’s ‘cathartic’ meeting with torture survivor (Part 2)
By Wanna Ver, Atmi Pertiwi, Leonardo Taddei, Jody Fish, Adolfo Canales Recognizing the ‘Golden Age’ myth A year after her child’s birth, Wanna Ver reconnected with Michelle so she could come clean about her father. “Michelle almost fell over”, Wanna recalled. “She had to put her hands on the ground to hold herself up and […]
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‘A million sorries is not enough’ — the daughter of General Fabian Ver (Part 1)
By Wanna Ver, Atmi Pertiwi, Leonardo Taddei, Jody Fish, Adolfo Canales Wanna Ver spent her early childhood in a lavish Forbes Park mansion flanked by foreign diplomats’ homes. As the youngest daughter of General Fabian Ver, Ferdinand Marcos’ most trusted ally and loyal military officer and close childhood friend, Wanna was kept under close watch […]
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The 1992 L.A. riots: A personal retrospective
By Wendell Gaa This month marks the 30th year anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots, an incensed reaction to the verdict in the Rodney King case. In 1991, white police officers who had brutally beaten African American Rodney King in an arrest gone awry, were all acquitted by an all-white jury in suburban LA. I […]
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How close are we to a USS Telesforo Trinidad? Naming campaign continues
A sustained campaign to name a U.S. Navy warship after Filipino sailor Telesforo Trinidad has the support of Filipino American organizations and mostly Democrat congressional leaders. California Rep. Sara Jacobs, a member of the House Armed Services Committee, is leading the effort in the House. Jacobs said Fireman Second Class Telesforo Trinidad was a hero and […]
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‘The current state of Philippine collections is problematic’ (Part 2)
By Sarah Derouin Ricky Punzalan has his own layered history with the Philippine collections. “The University has a record of bringing Filipino scholars, during the early colonial years up to even the present, to study here,” he says, adding that he was one of these students. When he returned to U-M as a faculty member, […]
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Faculty leads a project to decolonize University of Michigan’s PHL collections (Part 1)
By Sarah Derouin The University of Michigan’s Ann Arbor campus is 8,199 miles from Manila, the capital city of the Philippines. Spread throughout multiple campus locations is one of the largest collections of historical Filipino artifacts outside of the archipelago nation. But how did such a robust collection end up at a Midwestern university? It’s […]
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Good night, Mr. Almeda, 104
Celestino Gonzales Almeda passed away peacefully on March 27 surrounded by his family in Rockville, Maryland. He was 104. He was the first recipient of the Filipino WWII Veterans’ U.S. Congressional Gold Medal presented by the Speaker of the House of Representatives in a historic ceremony in October 2017 under the Capitol dome. “It was […]
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Springtime unveiling of Historic Filipinotown Eastern Gateway
“After many years, countless meetings, and a lot of blood, sweat, and tears, I’m proud to share that the Historic Filipinotown Eastern Gateway will be installed and unveiled this spring,” said Councilmember Mitch O’Farrell, who represents Historic Filipinotown on the Los Angeles City Council. “This project has been a labor of love by so many […]
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On Global Filipinos: Kinding Sindaw: Telling the stories of Mindanao for 30 years
By Loida Nicolas Lewis This year marks the 30th year of the inimitable and only indigenous dance and cultural group called Kinding Sindaw, which means “Dance of Light”, from the ancient Austronesian language: Kinding meaning graceful movement and Sindaw which means Light. To shed light to the unwritten stories of Mindanao through this graceful movement. […]