East Bay Pinoys

Published January 18, 2008
INQUIRER.net

When people talk about the Filipino community in the San Francisco Bay Area, most inevitably think about San Francisco and neighboring Daly City. But our community has been growing steadily on the other side of San Francisco Bay, known as the East Bay.

In fact, one of the pioneering Filipino organizations began there more than 15 years ago at the California State University East Bay (formerly known as Cal State Hayward). The Center for Filipino Studies was founded by the late literary giant NVM Gonzalez and now led by Professor Efren Padilla of the Sociology Department of the Cal State East Bay.The center’s other founding members include the late Edgardo de la Cruz of Cal State East Bay’s theater and dance department, Alan Smith, the former dean of the university’s College of Letters, Arts and Social Sciences and Ric Singson, a marketing and entrepreneurship professor.

Since 1992, the CFS has served as a focal point of Filipino American involvement on the Cal State East Bay campus and beyond. This made sense since nearly 9 percent of Cal State East Bay’s students are Filipinos. And the Filipino population on that side of the Bay Area has been steadily growing since the 1990s, particularly in such cities as Union City, Fremont and Newark. (Farther north there are also major East Bay Pinoy communities in the cities of Hercules and Pinole.)The center has offered resources for teaching and research, held forums on Filipino American issues and sponsored community events.

In what can be considered a major achievement for any Filipino organization in the United States, the CFS helped spearhead the introduction of one of a minor program in Filipino and Filipino American studies on campus. The program gives students opportunities to study Tagalog and courses on Filipino American history, labor and theater.It is even more impressive when one considers that the California State University system, which includes San Francisco State University and San Jose State University, is one of the largest public university systems in the world. The Center has also helped set up student exchanges and other programs with Philippine institutions, including the University of the Philippines, De La Salle University, Silliman University in Dumaguete and the University of Northern Philippines in Vigan.The center recently launched an online publication edited by Rica Llorente. The “Journal of Filipino Studies” focuses on Filipino American issues.

The recent issue includes an interesting look at Filipinos’ use of non-verbal communication by Brad Washington, a doctoral student at the University of San Francisco and a paper about the lives of elderly Filipino immigrants by Rozzana Verder-Aliga, a marriage and family therapist based in Vallejo, a city on the northern edge of the Bay Area which also has a huge Filipino population.

The current Journal of Filipino Studies even has an interesting look at the experiences of immigrant Filipino accountants by Manuel Valle, who teaches at Cal State East Bay.The journal also publishes poetry and other literary pieces in Tagalog and other Philippine languages.

As a Bay Area expat, I’ve never been much of a joiner mainly because of commitments to family and work. But when I was invited to serve on the center’s advisory board I decided to give it a try. A major reason is because the Cal State East Bay campus is near my home. Another reason was because I wanted to honor the memory of NVM Gonzalez, the great Filipino novelist who passed on in 1999.Gonzalez had taught at Cal State East Bay where he played a critical role in the creation of the center. The CFS created the NVM Gonzalez Scholarship program in his honor.

Eventually, I became drawn to the center (although I still fail to attend some meetings due to other commitments) because of my colleagues, most especially Professor Padilla who, with energy and commitment, has led the organization through good times and bad over the past 15 years.This year promises to be another busy one. There’s a Harana planned in April, and a symposium on Filipino political leadership in October which is Filipino Heritage month in the U.S.And it’s simply not going to be a complete year without – what else – a fiesta. There are two held each year in San Francisco. And East Bay Pinoys will have their own fiesta sometime later in the year.
(For more information on the Center for Filipino Studies, go to http://filipinostudies.csueastbay.edu or http://journaloffilipinostudies.csueastbay.edu)
Copyright 2008 by Benjamin Pimentel