Composed By: Karen Manalac, LEAD Filipino
Awareness in Action is an eight-week educational program that teaches participants the Filipino culture, identity, history, and the importance of civic engagement. Through this program, participants learn through presentations, videos, articles, and interactive activities that also challenges their beliefs and learn how to exercise their rights through class discussions. AAP also provides participants an opportunity to learn about the past by giving them an opportunity to visit historical sites such as Little Manila.
On July 27th, both the East and South Bay cohorts gathered together and visited Little Manila in Stockton where we were accompanied by Little Manila Rising Executive Director, Dillon Delvo, a civic leader who helped the Filipino community alongside Manang Dawn Mabalon. During the tour, we went to the streets that were an important site that had Filipino influence. We learned the stories about the Manongs who came to America at a young age and how Stockton was an important landmark to Filipino/as.
In this tour, we also visited the Little Manila Center, where we further learned about the Manongs and also had the opportunity to see artifacts from the past that the Manongs had.
Overall, we learned about the importance of understanding our history and what we could do to change it. Through Manang Dawn and Dillion, we learned how they helped strengthen the Filipino community by providing the resources and through fighting for our place here in America. Along that, we visited the FANHS museum, where we learned more about the different waves of migrations and the impact that Filipinos had in different professions such as business and in public health.
