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Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer tells Washington: ‘Don’t withhold funding for affordable housing’
By Cristina DC Pastor New York City Housing Commissioner Maria Torres-Springer said her office is on track to build 200,000 affordable housing units over a period of 10 years. “The mayor has an incredibly ambitious housing plan – 200,000 units over the course of 10 years. We are a few years in, and I am […]
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Lawyer Nick Caraquel: How love and religion can sometimes win cases
By Cristina DC Pastor Early this year, he burst into the community in an intense, almost invasive way. An upstart lawyer who grew up dirt-poor in Davao selling banana cue to help his family. His story, shared more than 7,000 times, grabbed social media attention. He is now on radio, sharing immigration insights, dispensing advice. […]
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New Jersey activists condemn Maute attacks, Duterte’s martial law response
“We condemn the attacks on the people of Marawi. We also condemn President Duterte’s declaration of martial law in Mindanao.” With this statement, Ren Clacer, chairperson of GABRIELA New Jersey, added her voice to the May 26 community vigil in solidarity with the people of Marawi. Clacer and about 30 other left-leaning activists gathered at […]
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Bittersweet tales in Marivir Montebon’s book on human trafficking
By Pol Tiongson For every enslaved or trafficked immigrant that Marivir Montebon has painstakingly given a permanent voice in her book, “In the Belly of the Beast,” there are probably a hundred equally tragic secrets taken to the graves. Immigrants’ laments are at times only talked about behind closed doors or even denied by the […]
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Filipino Restaurant Week: Not a food review
By Cristina DC Pastor Filipino Restaurant Week – two weeks actually – is winding down. It was a great excuse to visit restaurants that are off the beaten path, or to try Pinoy food fused with another culture’s culinary concoctions. In the last two years that I’ve made FRW an occasion to hang out with […]
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MoMA features Philippine cinema from June 1 to 25
MoMA presents a survey of Philippine film from around 2000 to the present, a period known as the Third Golden Age of Philippine cinema (following the first golden age, in the 1950s, and the second, from the 1970s to the early 1980s). The Philippines’ current wave of sustained creativity is unusual in its diversity of […]
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Inadequately Asian
By Tricia J. Capistrano Although we’re full Filipino, when I was growing up in Manila, my family was often invited by a Chinese Filipino family for a celebratory lauriat. My grandfather worked for Mr. Yao Shiong Shio, a successful Chinese Filipino businessman. And during Mr. and Mrs. Yao’s birthdays, they generously invited my grandparents, my […]
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A conversation with my Filipino mother-in-law about food safety
By Kristen Booze U.S. Department of Agriculture Food Safety and Inspection Service Two years ago, I married into a Filipino-American family, and have learned a bunch about the culture through my magnificent mother-in- law and all of my new Filipina “titas” or “aunties.” Very early on, I witnessed how Filipinos often show their love through […]
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From Antipolo to New York, Philippine contemporary art opens a door
By Cristina DC Pastor In the 1970s, a group of Fine Arts students from U.P. exhibited their paintings at the garden estate of noted neurologist Dr. Joven Cuanang in Antipolo outside Manila. It was martial law, and none of the established galleries in Manila wanted to showcase art that unmasked the ugliness of poverty or […]