By: Jun Nucum
This year’s 30th annual celebration was another successful Pistahan Filipino festival that was held in Yerba Buena Gardens in downtown San Francisco featuring a premiere celebration of Filipino and Filipino-American arts and culture that was started with the largest Filipino parade on the West Coast.
The free 2-day outdoor event proved to be fun for the entire family and features hands-on and authentic cultural experiences in eight pavilions: Art, Culinary, Dance, Health, Heritage, Innovation, Sports and Tavern.
San Francisco Entertainment Commissioner and President of the Filipino American Arts Exposition (FAAE) Al Perez. Al Perez saw this year’s festival as a success with emphasis on the value of volunteerism as no one was paid to do this.
“I love going to Pistahan every year as I see a lot people that I don’t really see normally but we see them here for reconnection and reunion,” shared Perez. “Our theme this year is celebrating our legacy and empowering our future. In that sense we gained by learning from our past we stand by the shoulders of the people that came before us and learning from their struggles, mistakes and their triumphs and that is how we empower ourselves for the future.
Perez stressed that this was about sparking cultural pride and fostering community empowerment especially since Filipino history is not in textbooks, not readily available in schools, making Filipinos very much underrepresented in movies, on TV and pop culture.
This year’s Hermana Mayor Melanie Ramil, a volunteer Board Director for the Asian Pacific Youth Leadership Project, a nonprofit organization dedicated to increasing Asian Pacific Islander representation in public service, community leadership and advocacy cannot explain that gratefulness she felt first of all and it is honestly one of the biggest honors of her life.
“When I was at the state Capitol in Sacramento, I see no Filipinos. I asked where is our voice? We need to be in this place in Sacramento the state capitol in politics and I said we need Filipinos to be in this place, to be in elected office. We need to help make decisions, bring our stories, struggles.”
On a crucial role as this year’s Pistahan Community Grand Marshall is Janet Alvarado, the executive director of the Alvarado Project.
“We are here with a lot to confront and it is our dream to have a better understanding of promoting what our kids have been told to come here be educated, we are representing the elders of the next generations.”.
For his part, San Francisco Consulate General Neil Frank Ferrer regard the Pistahan as a very meaningful that “even if we are no longer the residents of the former Filipino community meeting at this very place where we are standing now, the Yerba Buena Gardens.”
“Still the community is here showing that the Filipino community has grown and has contributed immensely to the prosperity and progress of California and this country in general. So we celebrate our being Filipino,” Ferrer noted.
Among the other notable guests in the Pistahan was immigration lawyer Lou Tancinco who was already in there in the first few years of Pistahan and is so happy to see a group of same Filipino now increased in numbers.
“With the next generation now we have an intergeneration of Filipinos getting together and that is something to be sustained for another 30 years. I am really hopeful that it is going to continue,” Tancinco observed.
Head of Operations of GMA International Joseph Francia took the opportunity to be in the Pistahan “to reengage with the Filipino community. San Francisco and the Bay Area holds a special place in GMA Pinoy’S TV’s heart.
“It is where we first launched eighteen years ago on August 1 2005. We were welcomed warmly by the community back. We hope that we still continue to work together in the face of many challenges we are facing even today in the post pandemic era. I hope we can continue to help and be with one another,” Francis imparted.
South San Francisco Mayor Flor Nicolas admitted that the pandemic has done a lot of mental health setbacks for everybody and coming out here at the Pistahan and feeling like Filipinos are one really lifted up Filipinos’ emotional spirit.
“To all Filipino let us continue to be proud wherever we are in the world,” Nicolas urged.
El Cerrito Council Member Gabe Quinto reiterated that he has to be in Pistahan as he has to be in his community and feel proud to be back here.
“It has been a few years because of Covid but to see this great crowd and to see our community together. There are things that are not happening but still should need to be mindful of as Filipinos,” Quinto uttered.
