Filipina art exhibit in Sacramento + Larry Itliong’s legacy in California: Your AAPI newsletter
It is Thursday, Nov. 5, and this is The Sacramento Bee’s AAPI weekly newsletter.
Here’s a recap of the stories I’ve covered and ones I’m following:
This weekend is your last chance to catch the Kapwa exhibition in Sacramento, a collection of artwork from six Filipina visual artists that celebrates and explores Filipina identity, representation and cultural history. It’s being shown until Sunday at 1810 Gallery, a warehouse-style space at 215 14th St.
The works are open to the public by appointment only, or through the virtual gallery tour, and they offer free virtual workshops with artists and performers.
“This is the kind of show I needed growing up,” 1810 Gallery curator Franceska Gamez said. “If it isn’t there, you just gotta build it yourself.”
Pieces line the walls of the airy gallery, paintings and sculptures created with lush, colorful detail and care. It’s a wide range of work, from a collection of scenes from a bustling town in the Philippines to dramatic, charged paintings of volcanoes and acrylic portraits of Filipina women.
“It was really important to showcase the role of the arts in ensuring that our communities ... see positive images of ourselves,” said Vince Sales, arts programmer for Philippine National Day Association and one of the exhibition’s organizers.
Larry Itliong was one of the most important Filipino American activists and a founding figure in the California labor movement. Yet his influence on the Central Valley is one that often gets lost in popular retellings of California history.
“Honestly, people didn’t want to learn about him,” said Marie Mallare-Jimenez, professor of ethnic studies at California State University, Sacramento.
Many know who Cesar Chavez is and have heard of the United Farm Workers union that he headed. What many are less familiar with is that it was actually Itliong who reached out to Chavez to create a labor union that would form the first major bridge of solidarity between Filipino and Mexican farmworkers in California, a power Itliong would eventually leverage to instigate a five-year labor strike in the Kern County farming community of Delano, ending in July 1970 with a victory for the farmworkers.
“Every community needs a hero,” said Major Alex Fabros, a Filipino American labor historian. “In this case, Larry Itliong was that hero.”
Understanding Filipino history, historians said, is to understand California’s history, America’s history and how inextricable America’s success stories are from Filipino communities.
“They’re part of the historical makeup,” Fabros said. “They’re the ones that helped build the economy up for everything that came after.”
“Our youth need to know more about what it is really to be Filipino American,” Mallare-Jimenez said. “What is my existence? Why am I here today, and how am I going to make my community better?”
In other news
‘Historic turnout in District 8’ celebrated by Sacramento City Council candidate Mai Vang [The Sacramento Bee]
Sacramento City Council candidate picks up endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders [The Sacramento Bee]
Frank Fat’s started as an immigrant’s dream come true. Can it survive the pandemic? [The Sacramento Bee]
Viet Thanh Nguyen on his ‘Sympathizer’ sequel and the “scarcity” of voices like his [Los Angeles Times]
Support for Trump is tearing apart Vietnamese American families [Vox]
Korean American business owners, among hardest hit by looters, feel victimized and alone [The Philadelphia Inquirer]
What It’s Like For Asian American Candidates During A Pandemic Marked By Racism [NPR]
New York elects first South Asian Americans to state Assembly [NBC News]
Voting for president felt pointless to my Indian parents. Here’s how I changed their minds [NBC News]
These San Francisco Pioneers Were the First Chinese American Women to Vote in the U.S. [The Bold Italic]
These are the Indian Americans who raised over $100,000 Each for the Biden-Harris campaign [Quartz]
This week in AAPI pop culture
“Grey’s Anatomy” and “Killing Eve” star Sandra Oh is teaming up with “Crazy Rich Asians” actress Awkwafina to launch a Netflix sister-comedy movie, according to a Deadline report.
The still-untitled film will be produced by Will Ferrell and Jessica Elbaum, and the script is written by Jen D’Angelo, who wrote the upcoming “Hocus Pocus” reboot. Oh is set to play a lonely recluse whose life is upended when her train-wreck sister vows to mend their relationship by helping her fulfill a lifelong dream — competing as a contestant on her favorite game show.
In the meantime, you can catch Oh in her Golden Globe-winning role on “Killing Eve” — which I would highly recommend — and Awkwafina in her Golden Globe-nominated role in “The Farewell.”
Got a story suggestion? Please reach out to me at awong@sacbee.com.
That’s it for this week’s newsletter. Take it easy this weekend — we deserve it. Thanks for reading, and see you next week!
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