San José City hosted a Filipino flag raising and lighting ceremony at City Hall to honor Filipino American History Month on Friday night.
Filipinos' first arrival to the United States in Morro Bay, Calif. was first recorded in October 1587, according to a Sept. 26 article from the University of Washington.
Angelica Cortez, LEAD Filipino Inc. executive director, said the flag raising and lighting ceremony kicked off a number of events for the community for October.
Leadership, Education, Activism and Dialogue Filipino Inc. (LEAD) is a local nonprofit organization that serves the Filipino American community and coordinates with other nonprofits to put on events for Filipino American History Month according to its website.
“You feel and you can see immense pride and happiness,” Cortez said. “It's very meaningful to our community to live in a city that honors our existence.”
Cortez said the Filipino flag was hung up for the duration of the night as the City Hall building lit up in the Philippines' national colors of red, blue and yellow.
She said the event usually happens every year to commemorate and spread awareness about Filipino history and its contributions.
Cortez also said the Filipino community shares love, warmth and kinship to the world.
“When I think of this event, all those words come to mind and it's really just enlivening and activating those adjectives and translating them into verbs,” Cortez said. “How are we loving? How are we welcoming? How are we including (others)? Especially in a world that we're seeing today?”
The event consisted of performances, speeches and food from the Los Kuyas food truck, according to the event’s program.
Los Kuyas is a Mexican and Filipino owned and operated food truck from San Francisco.
Los Kuyas, translated into “The Brothers” in Tagalog, the main language of the Philippines.
San José District 4 Councilmember David Cohen and District 5 Councilmember Peter Ortiz sponsored the event.
“What's most inspiring to me is how the event was really led and organized by the young people and the next generation of Filipino American leaders,” Cohen said. “I'm excited to see what they're gonna do in the future.”
Around 500,000 Filipinos live in the Bay Area, which is around 30% of all Filipino residents in the state of California, according to a Nov. 19, 2019 NBC Bay Area article.
“It's really important to not only just celebrate our culture and our vivacity, but to also educate the community,” Cortez said.
Camille Claudio, event attendee and local resident, said she came to the event to see how San José honors Filipino culture, being from Chicago.
Claudio said the event helped her connect with her Filipino American identity on a deeper level.
“I’m a fusion of my experiences in America and my cultural upbringing from my family in the Philippines,” Claudio said. “Being able to come to this event and meet people like me and not like me, and how we still all share this together, is really special.”
