Flag of the Philippines featuring bands of royal blue and crimson red, with a white triangle next to the pole with an eight-pointed gold sun and three golden stars in the corners.

Filipino American History Month

As we near the end of October, we share appreciation and gratitude for Filipino American History Month, and this year’s theme “Struggle, Resistance, Solidarity, and Resilience,” which pays tribute to the anniversaries of several resistance movements in Filipino American history.

Dawn Mabalon smiles with a wood and wire fence behind her.Historian Dr. Dawn Mabalon, born to Filipino parents who immigrated to the United States, urged the importance of recognizing the distinction of this month as a history month, rather than heritage.

In 2013, five years before she passed, Dawn wrote, “History is inclusive of heritage and culture, but it’s also about the ways we have built and changed this nation—our stories, political struggles, transformations, labor, migration, activism, impact of imperialism and war, victories—whereas ‘heritage’ is more limited to what we pass down in terms of culture, tradition, legacies.”

Learn more about Filipino American History month, established by the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS) in 1992, and the work of Dawn Mabalon and others in the resources below.


Emerson Resources

Emerson’s Intercultural Student Affairs celebrates Filipino American History Month.


Emerson’s 2024 Teach-In on Race keynote presentation, A New “Normal” Just Won’t Do: Intersectionality in the Arts and Communication, featured Grace Talusan. Talusan is the author of The Body Papers, which won the Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant writing and the Massachusetts Book Award for Nonfiction, and was a New York Times Editors’ Choice selection. She was born in the Philippines, raised in New England, and graduated from Tufts University and the MFA Program in Writing at UC Irvine. She teaches nonfiction writing in the English Department at Brown University.


Learn More

Learn about the anniversaries that occur during 2024’s Filipino American History Month.

Filipino Americans throughout history for Filipino American History Month with 2024 theme Struggle, Resistance, Solidarity, Resilience.


October is Filipino American History Month! Follow Instagram @fanhs_national to learn all about Filipino American history—especially their theme “Struggle, Resistance, Solidarity, and Resilience”.