Restoring the Filipino Spirit, One Exile at a Time
The Philippines wasn’t born in recognition — it was born in revolution. And it’s time we wrote that truth with clarity, pride, and fire.
Thirty years ago, on October 21, 1995, we inaugurated Gintong Kasaysayan, Gintong Pamana — a 150-foot mural that took eight months to complete and was consecrated to the legacy of Larry Itliong and the Delano Manongs. Painted when I was just 22, it was my first city-commissioned mural, shaped by interviews over meals at the MANILA Restaurant in Delano. Their stories didn’t just guide the brush — they sparked a movement.
From those conversations emerged the Larry Itliong Day Organizing Committee (LIDOC), a name that restored the long-erased “OC” from AWOC. Founding members — Uncle Roy, Helen Brown, Tita Remy Geaga, and Leo Pandac — formed a coalition rooted in truth and remembrance.
The Manongs were unequivocal: “Larry Itliong was our hero. He united us. He’s the reason we succeeded in the Grape Strike.”
Larry spoke nine Filipino languages, plus Cantonese, Japanese, and Spanish. His words moved hearts into action. Though Chavez’s terms were initially rejected, it was Larry who persuaded AWOC to unite. His leadership wasn’t just strategic — it was visionary.
In the mural, a Babaylan holds a lighted dish above Larry’s portrait, invoking ancestral presence and designating him as the central figure. That moment marked the first known Larry Itliong Day celebration in the U.S. The mural’s impact was immediate — it helped catalyze and clinch the 2002 designation of Historic Filipinotown in Los Angeles, the naming of the Itliong-Vera Cruz Bridge in San Diego (2014), the Itliong-Vera Cruz Middle School in Union City (2015), AB 123 (2014), which added Larry’s story to California’s curriculum, and the signing of Larry Itliong Day as a state holiday in 2015.
This isn’t just art — it’s a decolonial archive. A civic ritual. To paint is to remember. To remember is to resist.
Since then, I’ve had the honor of designing key destinations in Historic Filipinotown: Unidad Park with its Dap-ay learning circle, yo-yo walkway, Visayan tattoo floral play area, and terraced garden; the Shrine of Filipino Saints at St. Columban Church; and the Eastern and Western Gateways that mark the neighborhood with pride and permanence. Each piece is a brushstroke in the long mural of history. Each monument is a memory made visible.
But this visibility did not begin with recognition — it began with exile.
They did not leave the Philippines. The Philippines left them.
Not in blood, but in spirit. Not in geography, but in soul.
When the land no longer speaks the language of its people, when its systems no longer reflect its stories, who would not seek air and authorship elsewhere? The Filipino diaspora was not born of abandonment — it was born of remembrance. They left not to forget, but to carry the Philippines where it could still breathe and emit ancestral light.
Our homeland, once radiant with the light of Asia’s first republic, now flickers under borrowed glow. Colonized not only by foreign powers, but by foreign values, foreign priorities, foreign dreams. Our bookstores overflow with foreign authors while Filipino voices are silenced in their own soil. Even our toys fail to reflect our children’s faces, our homes, our heritage. Where is the Filipina doll with almond eyes and brown skin? The carabao plushie? The bahay kubo dollhouse with capiz windows and maritime rooftops? Where is the Christmas banner that proudly says Maligayang Pasko — not Merry Christmas, mass-produced far from our shores?
The soil still bears our names. But the systems do not.
If the Filipino sun on our 1898 flag was meant to reflect the radiance of a sovereign people, how do we shine again when our light is outsourced?
So they left. To remember. To resist. To restore.
In exile, Filipinos became the keepers of memory, the guardians of culture, the lifeline of a nation that once turned its back. In California, Hawai‘i, New York, Las Vegas, and beyond, they built communities where Tagalog, Ilocano, and Visayan are still spoken. Where parol lanterns glow in December. Where the stories of the Babaylan and Gabriela Silang are retold in classrooms, union halls, and murals. They organized labor strikes. Taught ethnic studies. Sent remittances. Raised children who know the taste of pancit and the rhythm of tinikling.
And still, they send love home — in prayers, in balikbayan boxes, in advocacy for disaster relief and human rights. In stories told to children who have never touched our shores but carry its spirit in their bones.
This is not a condemnation. It is a reckoning.
To restore the Filipino spirit, we must name what was lost: authorship, sovereignty, soul. We must honor those who, in leaving, became the lifeline.
Let us restore the Filipino spirit — one exile, one mural, one Larry Itliong Day, one act of remembrance at a time. Let us urge our youth to build a Philippines worth staying for. So we may shine again like the June 12, 1898 Filipino Sun — with a human face, sovereign, luminous, and truly Filipino.
