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.
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.
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”.