As time goes on, the Filipino American community continues to grow with more and more generations. In Louisiana, Filipino American families are more than twelve generations deep. The community also grows each year with newly immigrated families as well. The result is a varied and diverse Filipino American community.
I attended the viewing of a 97-year old Filipino American who had immigrated to Hawaii from Ilocos in 1993. In 1999, he had moved to the mainland in California. Earlier this month, a prominent Pinay also passed away at the age of 74, who had served two terms as National President of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS). She was born in Stockton, CA, and her career took her to Sacramento, CA; San Francisco, CA; Seattle, WA; and Falls Church, VA, before she retired in Atwater, CA. There are also many from the manong generation, who immigrated as farm laborers during the first part of the twentieth century.
These are just a few of the many topics and individuals that can be studied, researched, remembered, and memorialized. Through that work, Filipino American history will forever be preserved.
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