UniPro Expands: Promoting Unity, Collaboration, and Visibility in San Diego

New York City-Based UniPro Expands to the West Coast

Honorary Consul Audie de Castro : “This is the best time for UniPro to be created in San Diego.”

San Diego, CA – On Friday, February 6, the Pilipino American community of San Diego welcomed the arrival of the new San Diego chapter of the New York City-based Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro). Over 50 attendees gathered at the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW) Community Hall for the chapter’s official launch and town hall meeting.

The event, co-sponsored by UDW, National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), and Silayan Filipina, opened with a keynote speech from the Philippine Honorary Consul for San Diego Audie de Castro. Echoing the goals of UniPro, he urged the audience to strive for unity and to promote the Pilipino American in San Diego. He stated, “In the past couple of years, our community has worked together better than ever.  A major reason is that I have seen many of you reach out to all generations and to others with different political views.  This is the best time for UniPro to be created in San Diego. I look forward to working with all of you.”

Hon. Consul Audie de Castro opens the UniPro San Diego launch.

The town hall dialogue followed the launch and consisted of small group discussions on the importance  of communities to individuals, and what UniPro can do to serve the San Diego area. Groups discussed the questions, “What does community mean to you? What were your expectations of the Pilipino American community when you first joined? How do you perceive the Pilipino American community and what are your expectations now? Identify any needs of the community and potential solutions for those needs. Identify existing community organizations and how those organizations can work together to fulfill those needs.”

The discussion groups then reconvened and presented their responses to the entire audience. Some of the recurring themes included the needs for improved communication, greater visibility in the political sphere, and professional and personal development. Some of the possible solutions presented were the creation of a Pilipino community center, a database of Pilipino American organizations in San Diego, recurring town hall meetings, and leadership and mentorship programs in the community.

Attendees participate in small group discussions at the UniPro San Diego launch.

Founded in 2009, UniPro’s San Diego chapter is the organization’s first venture outside of New York City. “UniPro has always been interested in expanding beyond the metro-NY area. How could we work towards our vision of a unified and engaged Pilipino America without a presence in other major Pilipino American communities?” asks UniPro NY President Iris Zalun. “The answer came when we became involved in the Empowering Pilipino Youth through Collaboration (EPYC) conference, held in San Diego last August. Through EPYC, we met a group of passionate leaders whose values of collaboration, advocacy, and education aligned with ours. That team then approached us, expressing a need for UniPro in the San Diego community. Thus, UniPro San Diego was born.”

San Diego has been identified to have the second largest Pilipino American population in the nation. UniPro San Diego aims to identify and resolve the needs of the community while providing support, resources, and networks to organizations and individuals, most especially the youth. UniPro San Diego President Romyn Sabatchi adds, “It was humbling to be able to listen to the experiences and expectations of the Pilipino American community of new and seasoned members. Together we will be able to fulfill our needs with positive and effective solutions."

UniPro San Diego will host a Town Hall and Community Dialogue Follow-Up on May 15, 2015. For more information, read the story in the Filipino Press and contact sandiego@unipronow.org.

From left to right: UniPro San Diego Vice President Alicia Ricafrente, President Romyn Sabatchi, and Director of Community Relations Anthony DeGuzman (Photo Credit: Ernie Sasis)

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Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro) is a New York City-based 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that envisions a unified and engaged Pilipino America. Founded in 2009, UniPro's mission is to engage Pilipino Americans through collaboration, advocacy and education. It seeks to transform Pilipino students & young professionals into community leaders through its various programs, which incorporate professional development, history, and policy through the lens of the Pilipino experience.The organization allows Pilipino Americans the opportunity to explore their place in the community in the hope of owning their niche. Ultimately, UniPro asks Pilipino Americans to critically answer, "How do you define Progress?"

Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro) Expands to the West Coast with the Launch of its San Diego Chapter

San Diego, CA – Pilipino American Unity for Progress (UniPro) is proud to announce the launch of its new San Diego chapter. The official launch, scheduled for Friday, February 6th at the United Domestic Workers of America (UDW) Community Hall in San Diego, will coincide with a town hall dialogue and will touch on UniPro’s role within the thriving Pilipino American community in San Diego. The official UniPro San Diego launch and town hall event – co-sponsored by UDW, National Federation of Filipino American Associations (NaFFAA), and Silayan Filipina – will feature guest speaker Hon. Consul General Audie de Castro as well as an introduction by the members of UniPro San Diego. The town hall dialogue following the launch will then consist of small group discussions on the importance and meaning of communities to individuals and what UniPro can do to serve this community.

“UniPro has always been interested in expanding beyond the metro-NY area. How could we work towards our vision of a unified and engaged Pilipino America without a presence in other major Pilipino American communities?” asks UniPro NY president Iris Zalun. “The answer came when we became involved in the Empowering Pilipino Youth through Collaboration (EPYC) conference, held in San Diego last August. Through EPYC, we met a group of passionate leaders whose values of collaboration, advocacy, and education aligned with ours. That team then approached us, expressing a need for UniPro in the San Diego community. Thus, UniPro San Diego was born.

San Diego has been identified to have the second largest Pilipino American population in the nation. UniPro San Diego aims to identify and potentially resolve any needs of the community while providing support, resources and networks to organizations and individuals, most especially the youth.

UniPro San Diego Official Launch and Town Hall event details:

Friday, February 6, 2015

6:00 PM - 8:30 PM

United Domestic Workers of America: Community Hall

4855 Seminole Drive, San Diego, CA 92115

Leave Taylor Swift Alone

Disclaimer: If you like Taylor Swift, well - come sit down next to me. If you don't like Taylor Swift, well - sit down anyway. Because this one's for you.

Earlier this month, NYC & Company announced that Taylor Swift would be the New York City Global Welcome Ambassador for 2014-2015. People are pissed, and I'm not so sure why.

I'm not exactly certain what the job description or criteria for a "global welcome ambassador" is (nor certain if there was ever one before TSwift), but apparently there are a lot of folks who don't think that Taylor Swift fits the bill for a number of reasons - the most obvious one being that she is not originally from New York. But then again, how many people these days are pure born and bred New Yorkers?

Having lived in New York City for the last four years, I've found it a rarity to meet people who are originally from here. When meeting new people, one question that is almost guaranteed to come up in conversation is "Where are you from?" (insert my constant internal dilemma of how to answer this question -- you mean, where my parents are from? where I grew up? where I live now? WHAT DO YOU WANT FROM ME?!) New York City is filled with so many people who aren't necessarily from here, but who are making it here.

Not all of us have moved into a $20M Tribeca apartment like Taylor Swift, but who cares -- my five-story walk-up tells the same story. It's a story of someone who has always been fascinated by the lights and sounds of New York City and always believed (even before stepping foot in this country) that it's a place where dreams come true (blame it on movies and TV shows). It's the same story as all the others who moved from home to chase a dollar and a dream: the actress, the dancer, the hustler, the chef, the artist, the entrepreneur, the singer, the lost, the bored. They're all here and they're all a part of what makes New York City exactly what it is - a melting pot of diversity and dreams.

In saying someone isn't fit to represent New York City, it sends a message that New York City is unwelcoming, selective, limiting. I love this place for the way it has enabled and embraced me; I love it even more when I see it doing the same for others around me who aren't originally from here. Taylor Swift's big song as part of this whole campaign is called "Welcome to New York." The song even says, "It's been waiting for you." But between you and me, I think the lyric should be changed to "You've been waiting for it."

Taylor Swift has been waiting for it, and now that she's here -- she's taking ownership of it. She's putting her budding romance with New York City on display, publicizing their incompatibility while celebrating their differences and thus adding to the cultural fabric of this city. Who are we to fault her for that?

It's interesting to juxtapose this with the situation of many Pilipino first-settlers who come to the US, who (when finally here) celebrate their arrivals quietly - never wanting to attract attention to themselves, keeping their cultural practices and traditions behind closed doors, and sticking to their own little Pilipino communities - a true detriment, in my opinion. How else would the Pilipino identity and presence be seen and heard here if we all failed to assert ourselves in a land that's not ours among people who aren't like us? Okay -- that kinda got deep, but moral of the story is: Taylor Swift's not a New Yorker, but she's adding to the Big Apple's flavor, and it's time we took a bite and moved on.

New York City is just as much Taylor Swift's as anyone else's to claim. And if you don't agree, then please tell me why the Statue of Liberty gets to be the symbol of American independence and freedom when she wasn't even made in America?

Photo credit: taylorswift.com

NotAllMen

In May, the issue of misogyny rippled through the internet after the recent shooting at UCSB. A gunman, crippled with loneliness, killed six and injured thirteen people in Santa Barbara, California. In a series of videos, the gunman, Elliot Rodger, unleashed a tirade of self-deprecation and misogyny, wondering why women weren't attracted to him. This latest shooting has revealed the frighteningly hidden levels of misogyny buried in Americans. Rodger has gained sympathy points all over the country as if being rejection is enough justification to for him to start a “war on women.”

In Rodger’s last video, he spoke about his loneliness. “I’m 22 years old and I’m still a virgin…. It’s not fair. You girls have never been attracted to me. I don’t know why you girls aren’t attracted to me, but I will punish you all for it. It’s an injustice, a crime…. I’m the perfect guy and yet you throw yourselves at these obnoxious men instead of me, the supreme gentleman.”

His words are so saturated with self-obsessed narcissism and insanity, but men everywhere found solace in Rodger’s misogynistic explications, which in turn started the Twitter hashtag, #NotAllMen. People would use the hashtag to separate themselves from Rodger’s action, saying that not all men are misogynistic psychopaths, so it’s wrong to assume all men are like that. It was a fair point, but it was ignoring a significant portion of the population that is misogynistic, that do blame women for their loneliness. Not only does it undercut the idea of feminism by creating this impression that feminists are dedicated to the annihilation of men, but it gives men an excuse to shy away from the glaring problems that people like Rodger pose to the fight for gender equality.

#notallmen practice violence against women but #YesAllWomen live with the threat of male violence. Every. Single. Day. All over the world.

— Soraya Chemaly (@schemaly) May 24, 2014

The hashtag, #YesAllWomen, took Twitter by storm. Women everywhere shared their experiences dealing with misogyny. They tweeted about the constant hyperawareness of their actions in order to protect themselves, such as having pepper spray in hand as you walk to your car in a parking deck. There were tweets criticizing the patriarchal dismissal of women saying no, such as having to say that you have a boyfriend in order to stop a man from hitting on you.

Because when we say "no", we have to consider the repercussions of that. In every context. #yesallwomen

— Christa Desir (@ChristaDesir) May 24, 2014

A significant aspect of Rodger’s ignorance that speaks wonders about his twisted mindset is his view of women as one whole being. “You girls,” he repeatedly says, as if all the girls in the world conspired to give him a lifetime of loneliness. Perceiving women as all the same people with the same thoughts and same personalities will impact the way you interact with them. Rodger’s perception of love as the be-all-end-all is that a woman’s only purpose in life is to be attached to a man. The objectification of women puts that part of the population on a pedestal and if they fail to reach it, misogyny worsens.

"UNFAIR! NOT ALL MEN!" Imagine a bowl of M&Ms. 10% of them are poisoned. Go ahead. Eat a handful. Not all M&Ms are poison. #YesAllWomen

— Martin Wagner (@wagnerfilm) May 26, 2014

It’s true that not all men are like Rodger. No one with a functioning mind would think that a psychopath speaks for men all over the world. Not all men are alike. But at the same time, we need to start assuming the same for women.

Photo Credit: Anita Finlay

“They did their mission, we should do ours…for our lolos.”

“I want to be buried with that.” That’s what a Filipino-American World War II veteran shared with General Taguba in hopes that the sacrifices that he and thousands of his colleagues made during the conflict will finally receive the same recognition that Native American codetalkers and Japanese-American veterans have received: the Congressional Gold Medal.

It’s almost seven decades since the end of WWII. For the past few years, we’ve seen 70^th anniversary commemorations for events such as the Attack on Pearl Harbor, the Battle of Stalingrad, and the D-Day landings. In less than a couple years, we’ll see another one of those 70^th anniversaries, this time not for a battle but for a law: the Rescission Act of 1946. The words that opened the legislation was itself damning:

Service before July 1, 1946, in the organized military forces of the Government of the Commonwealth of the Philippines, while such forces were in the service of the Armed Forces of the United States pursuant to the military order of the President dated July 26, 1941, including among such military forces organized guerrilla forces under commanders appointed, designated, or subsequently recognized by the Commander in Chief, Southwest Pacific Area, or other competent authority in the Army of the United States, shall not be deemed to have been active military, naval, or air service for the purposes of any law of the United States conferring rights, privileges, or benefits upon any person by reason of the service of such person or the service of any other person in the Armed Forces.

The oath that a quarter million Pilipino recruits made years earlier by joining the United States Armed Forces Far East (USAFFE)—that pledge of "faith and allegiance...to the United States of America" and to "obey the orders...of the president of the United States"—seemed to have meant nothing in the eyes of the Rescission Act.

Thus began the decades-long fight for recognition, a battle that continued long after the war’s end. We’ve heard of the Fil-Am veterans who chained themselves in a park named after Douglas MacArthur, the USAFFE commander who led the initial defense and eventually the liberation of the Philippines. We’ve seen bills submitted to Congress over the years to bring such recognition only to end up not gaining traction.

Eventually some progress was made. The Naturalization Act of 1990 allowed veterans to become US citizens and one-time payments were delivered to them in the Filipino Veterans Equity Compensation Fund, which was embedded into American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

But even then such compensation ($9,000 to non-US citizens and $15,000 for US citizens) seems miniscule compared to what American veterans have received since the end of the war, with benefits ranging from medical to the GI Bill. And by then, thousands of Fil-Am vets have already passed away, thus reducing the number that needed to be compensated while 42% that are still alive and have applied have since been rejected.

As their numbers dwindle by the day, the imperative to act is immediate. Recently Hawaii representative Colleen Hayabusa introduced the Filipino Veterans of World War II Congressional Gold Medal Act. The latest attempt has spawned a grassroots movement called the Filipino American World War II Soldiers Recognition Project and is led none other than General Antonio Taguba, the closing speaker at this year’s UniPro Summit. Within that speech was a quote that struck a chord deep within, emotions that reminded me of my own grandfather who passed away shortly after the war…

“They did their mission, we should do ours… for our lolos.”

I recall ten years ago, when I’d envision General Taguba’s face every time I heard something about the Abu Gharib scandal. I was inspired to see a Fil-Am in the upper echelons of the Armed Forces. Now he’s leading the fight for another injustice, one that after seven decades is finally seeing progress -- but only after thousands of veterans have already passed away. Writing to members of our congress seems painless compared to the literal and symbolic battles that these individuals faced, but it’s powerful enough as a final gesture of gratitude before they pass on.

Fellow minority veteran groups received their recognition after years of constant lobbying. Now it’s time for our Filipino-American World War II veterans, our lolos, to receive theirs.

For updates on this important initiative, check out and like the Filipino American World War II Soldiers Recognition Project Facebook page.

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Photo credit: Filipino American World War II Soldiers Recognition Project