by Gennette Cordova

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As Filipino American History Month comes to a close, I find myself possessed by a nagging impulse to remind the people of Seattle that this celebratory month came to be thanks to the efforts of a woman in Seattle who is still doing the work of documenting and sharing the history of Filipino Americans to this day.

My grandmother, Dorothy Cordova, is the executive director of the Filipino American National Historical Society (FANHS), which she founded in the early ’80s in Seattle’s Central District with my late grandfather, Fred Cordova. In 1992, they began recognizing October as Filipino American History Month, long before it was federally recognized as such.

“That’s Filipino American History Month, not Filipino American Heritage Month,” my grandma reminds me emphatically. It’s a time, she says, to honor the history of Filipino Americans — their work and advocacy and cultural output — that has contributed to and shifted American history as a whole.

When I was a child, my Grandpa Fred would grab any of his grandchildren who he happened to see walking through the upstairs hallways and test our knowledge of the family photos on the wall. Without fail, he’d recite the names of our deceased elders, giving a brief oral history for all of them. “This is Valeriano Laigo, your grandma’s birth father. He died when she was a little girl,” he’d say of my great-grandfather Valeriano, who was one of a group of businessmen who’d contributed seed money to start Seattle’s Filipino Community Center, before he was tragically murdered.

Life in the Cordova house was peppered with these quick and constant bits of history, continuously updated family trees, and glimpses into the many projects our grandparents were working on at any given time. The value of history both written and oral was drilled into all of us early on.

In 2021, I got the opportunity to contribute the entry on my grandparents and their work to the The SAGE Encyclopedia of Filipina/x/o American Studies, a first-of-its-kind academic source for all things Filipino American. To execute this task, I began researching published articles, poring over the interviews my grandpa had done before he passed, and conducting new interviews with my grandma. The experience was invaluable. In addition to the quality one-on-one time I got to spend with my grandma, these interviews allowed me to deepen my understanding of her life and work, immortalized across hours of recordings.

Some of the knowledge I gained was precious insights into our family history and straight-from-the-source details about grandma’s work, her goals, the obstacles she faced, and her process for overcoming them. I learned that the Filipino Youth Activities (FYA), a bastion for Filipino youth growing up in Seattle in the ’60s and decades after, was funded after my grandma and a group of her friends successfully wrote a federal grant proposal that advanced the idea of using colloquial English, or slang, to help get Filipino children better acquainted with the English language.

The interviews also gave me a crash course in Seattle history over the better part of the past century — what the social politics were like, who could live in which neighborhoods, and how that evolved through the decades. She shared with me how, as a teenager, she’d help organize big community events and mixers for the Filipino Catholic Youth, a club her older brother Sonny had started.

“We thought big,” she told me. “We had a basketball team. Eventually, our own printed newspaper. We had dances. … One of the dances, we had live music from a guy named Bumps Blackwell, and in his band was a kid named Quincy Jones,” she recalled casually, speaking about the two Seattle music legends.

FANHS, which now has over 40 chapters, houses the National Pinoy Archives (NPA) at the Seattle headquarters. The NPA, which is one of the largest collections on Filipino American history anywhere, began from my grandfather’s belief that all Filipino American stories are important to the whole of Filipino American history. Though we weren’t gifted with great wealth or resources, it becomes increasingly clear to me what an absolute privilege it is to be the progeny of historians who’ve done the grueling work archiving their rich family history for the younger generations and the community at large to keep forever.

My grandpa passed away in 2013, and my grandma is now in her 90s. Although their focus was always on the Filipino community, the legacy they leave behind is a representation of the lessons they shared indiscriminately with people of all backgrounds. Be proud of your history and heritage. Take the time to learn the stories of elders. Be the keepers of your own history.

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The opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints expressed by the contributors on this website do not necessarily reflect the opinions, beliefs, and viewpoints of the Emerald or official policies of the Emerald.

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Gennette Cordova is a writer, organizer, and social impact manager. She contributes to publications like Teen Vogue and Revolt TV and runs an organization, Lorraine House, which seeks to build and uplift radical communities through art and activism.

📸 Featured Image: Dorothy and Fred Cordova. (Photo courtesy of Gennette Cordova.)

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