Finding Identity and Family through Culture

By Emily Cristobal

March 9, 2020

Students in the Rizal Class learn how to make Kwek Kwek, a popular Filipino street food. Photo by Emily Cristobal

The melodic strums of the Filipino rondalla rings through the hallways of a pale yellow community center in Bedford, Massachusetts. Small brown children run around a mirrored room in excitement for school on a Sunday. At 1:30 p.m., an elderly man walks around ringing a loud bell throughout the building, signalling the start of the day.

For two Sundays a month, the community center becomes a cultural hub for Filipinos. The school, known as Iskwelahang Pilipino (IP), is the oldest, longest continuously running Filipino school in the country. Unlike other Filipino schools in the United States, IP has never closed its doors to Filipinos in the Greater Boston area. Members say that the programs that are offered here are so welcoming and special that families from nearby New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Connecticut make the commute to Bedford to be a part of this community.

“It feels a lot like home,” says Aaron Rippin, a high school senior who attends IP. “ Home is where the heart is and IP has the same sense of community and belonging that a home embodies.”

In Bedford, a town that is 78.8 percent white, children from kindergarten to high school attend classes depending on their age group: Ilang-Ilang (K-Grade 1), Sampaguita (Grades 2-5), Bonifacio (Grades 6-8), and Rizal (Grades 9-12). They start their day singing the Filipino national anthem and then split off to take classes that cover topics ranging from cultural dance, cooking traditional dishes and discussing life as a Filipino American.

Executive Director of IP, Myra Liwanag explains that it is important to have a space like this for Filipino American children to learn about their culture.

“The programs we provide are very performance based. Students are able to learn something and then show it off at the end of the year on stage through music or dance. This is confidence building and all children need confidence building, but children of color in America need confidence building that is tied to identity. I think that it is helpful for them to have a community to fall back on, and something to be proud of,” says Liwanag.

Children learn to dance Tinikling, a traditional Filipino dance where performers elegantly jump between bamboo sticks and avoid being caught in the middle. Photo by Emily Cristobal

In 1976, a group of parents and educators opened IP to create an environment where their children would have an opportunity to learn about their Filipino heritage. Today, IP consists of activities for children, parents and grandparents of a variety of backgrounds. Some children in the organizaiton are full or half Filipino while others are adopted or come from same-sex family households. Liwanag says, “The organization is multi-generational, but the main driver should be focused on the children first.”

Julia Stearns, a student that has been attending IP since the third grade says, “IP is like a breath of fresh air.”

At her high school, Stearns says that she is the only Filipino in her grade and is often mistaken as Hispanic. She says, “There are plenty of other Asian people, but because there's not a lot of other Filipinos who are from Massachusetts, people don’t really know or understand my culture.”

Although Stearns is only half Filipino, she finds pride in her Filipino heritage. She says, “Filipinos exist, we are here. We don't just fall into the other categories of the stereotypical Asian like being from China, or Korea or Japan. We are our own culture, and we are very diverse.”

She says that compared to growing up in a predominantly white area, attending IP is refreshing. “It's very liberating to know that there are other people who are like you and go through the same things as you do. They know what you're talking about without you having to explain.”

Stearns says that she found out about IP through her mother Erica Stearns who is an alumna of IP and is a current board member. Erica says that her parents were one of the founders of the organization.

Erica explains that the importance of being rooted to Filipino culture is connection. “It's nice to have a community that I've grown up with,” she says. “As life happens, it's nice to be able to reach out to somebody who knows you and knows your family and can appreciate the same values that you do.”

Similarly, Emi Bague, an IP alumna and friend of Erica, says that friendship is the core of this organization. “The culture draws us together, but the friendships keep us together.” She says, “I look at the younger generations, and I see how they just trust each other and how they just play with each other like they are siblings, but they're not related. It truly is a family here.”

Erica says, “I'm just really glad that we have this community and I'm so thankful to our parents that they had the foresight to put this together for us. I hope we can keep it going for generations to come.”