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JFK: 50 years gone but never forgotten
By Ludy Astraquillo Ongkeko, Ph.D. It was the start of the school term: Fall1960. The Graduate School of Journalism and Communication of the University of Southern California (USC) in Los Angeles had not formally opened at all. Its schedule, to commence with the master’s program in journalism, was set for 1965, I was informed. That […]
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How the Philippines bonded with Israel before they became independent countries
By Cristina DC Pastor Ralph Preiss, a retired IBM computer engineer, was 9 years old when his family joined a thousand other Jewish people who sailed into the Philippines to escape Nazi persecution. It was around 1935 or two years after Adolf Hitler’s henchmen embarked on an anti-Semitic rampage in Germany. At the time, the […]
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Consul-General lauds TOFA-NY for ‘dedicated and tireless’ efforts to search, give recognition to FilAm achievers
By Oliver Oliveros Consul General to New York Mario L. De Leon, Jr., U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York Lorna Schofield, and former chairman of the board for the Hollywood Foreign Press Association Ruben Nepales will keynote the third annual The Outstanding Filipino Americans in New York (TOFA-NY) Awards on Saturday […]
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Film chronicles rescue of Jews from Nazi death camps through politics — and poker
“Rescue in the Philippines: Refuge From the Holocaust” will be shown at the Philippine Center on October 24th in celebration of Filipino American History Month. Actor Liev Schreiber is the narrator of the documentary The New York Times raved as “straightforward,” “fast-paced” and “fascinating.” According to the film’s website, “Rescue in the Philippines” is a […]
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Norway: From land of plunderers to global peace makers
By Wendell Gaa My first trip to the northern Scandinavian region of Europe gave me several pleasant surprises, and my family knew that a Nordic adventure just had to include a visit to Norway, a lifelong dream destination for us. Today it is a wealthy nation renowned for its high living standards, very well developed […]
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Here lies the disco-driven life of Imelda Marcos
By Cristina DC Pastor If you have to watch David Byrne’s “Here Lies Love,” be prepared to suspend disbelief. This disco musical is part fiction and part history, and if some details appear like figments of the writer’s mind, they probably are. Much of the urban legend revolving around Imelda Marcos is so delightfully woven […]
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Rizal the man, the hero, the contradictions
By Cristina DC Pastor For the longest time, the intense debate over Jose Rizal’s worth as a national hero has divided Filipino scholars, pundits and regular folks. Director Marilou Diaz-Abaya’s 1998 “Rizal” biopic sought to examine if Jose Rizal was indeed a true nationalist deserving of the country’s reverence, or was simply the stereotypical “good […]
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Edwin Ramsey, military officer who organized Filipino guerrillas in WW II, 95
By Chris Schaefer An era in U.S. military history came to a close with the death on March 7th of a genuine American war hero. Lieutenant Colonel Edwin Price Ramsey was a First Lieutenant in the United States Cavalry at the beginning of World War II, stationed in the Philippines. On January 16, 1942, he […]
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FILAMSPEAK: What do you know about the Marcoses?
By Cristina DC Pastor They are the children of the Martial Law Babies. In the U.S., they are the Filipino Americans in their teens to their 30s who were born after the Marcoses have fled the country in 1986 or were of a young age with no hint of political consciousness whatsoever during the Conjugal […]