To the Editor:
I am a Filipino-American, Washington resident for the last 14 years and avid reader of Northwest Asian Weekly. I was intrigued by your recent article in the latest edition (Vol. 27, No. 48) regarding the addition of Maria Arcega-Dunn to the Q13 Fox News team in Seattle.
As a Filipino American, I am very proud of her storied career and accomplishments in the field of journalism. She is an inspiration to us all.
At the same time, however, I was dismayed about her comments regarding the Filipino community in Seattle. She asserts that she does not see her people on the street, that there are no Filipino restaurants or stores, and that Filipinos have no voice.
I do agree to an extent that the Filipino American community is largely apathetic to civic involvement and lacks in political clout. However, to say that we have no voice at all is a distortion of reality.
Seattle has such a rich history of Filipino activist and organizers — people such as Carlos Bulosan, Silme Domingo, Gene Viernes, David Della, Alma Kern and Bert Caoili. Seattle has also been marked by several firsts with regards to Filipino achievements. In 1979, Dolores Sibonga became the first member of the Seattle City Council of Filipino ancestry. Uncle Bob Santos was appointed in 1994 by the Clinton administration as the regional representative of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development. In 1992, Velma Veloria became the first Filipina in the continental U.S. to be elected to a state Legislature.
Washington is home to about 80,000 Filipinos. Filipinos make up the second largest Asian group in this state, behind the Chinese.
I, and I am sure many others in the Filipino community of Seattle, certainly welcome Ms. Arcega-Dunn’s desire to shed light upon our people and issues that affect us. I will be the first to agree that we would be well served to have our concerns brought to the forefront.
I would therefore like to offer an invitation to Ms. Arcega-Dunn to introduce her to the numerous movers and shakers of our community. Rather than being sad, I think she will be elated to see that our community does in fact have a voice.
— Florian Purganan, attorney at law, Hanis Irvine Prothero, PLLC, from SeaTac
Editor’s note: Mr. Purganan is referring to this story.
Thoughtful and interesting, thank you. I was brought up in the philipines but moved to australia at such a young age I barely remember anything apart from the delicious food. I finally found some authentic Filipino recipes if you want to take a look, I thought I’d share it with you!
I am also a Filipino-American, Washington resident for the last 12 years. However, I do agree with Maria Arcega-Dunns assesment of the Filipino involvement in the Seattle area (including the surrounding counties). Growing up in southern California, I took for granted how involved “Fil-ams” were in their communities, be it commerce or politics. When I first moved here, I noticed that the Filipino community was significantly large considering that Seattle is not one of the top 5 meccas in this country. One would assume that we (Filipino-Americans) would have a hand full of grocery stores, bakeries, and restaurants but that was not the case. As the old saying goes they were “too few and far between”.
During my early years in Washington I befriended many Filipinos, American born and Filipino immigrants. I also attended events that involved Fil-ams such as Pista Sa Nayon and Filipino night at the University of Washington, where I learned that Filipinos are the largest minority group enrolled. In fact, one year a Filipino food stand at “The Bite of Seattle” sold the most food and won an award during the event. So, my hopes were high.
12 years later, the closest Goldilocks is in Vancouver B.C. Not one Red Ribbon or Jollibees. If it hadn’t been for my recent vacation to California I probably wouldn’t have noticed. During my vacation, I visited San Jose, San Francisco, West Covina, Eagle Rock, Cerritos, La Puente Hills. All with strong Filipino showings. Some may even seemed to be overrun with Filipinos. I went to a Thai restaurant that put crispy pata on their menu just to compete with the neighboring Filipino restaurants. I do understand that there are many Fil-am activists and politicians that did great things for our community. However, what we lack is the obvious showing of Filipino owned businesses and commerce. The recognizeable stuff we see on a daily basis. On this point, I do agree with Maria Arcega-Dunn. Now please excuse me, as I am on the way to the Korean market while my Laotian wife gets her nails done at the Vietnamese nail shop before we have dinner in Chinatown.
Ron Cortez— not an attorney at law— just a concerned Filipino American citizen
“Not believing there’s a problem is the beginning of the problem” Ron Cortez