"Ang Lipi ni Lapu Lapu" mural

On the corner of Bonifacio and Lapu Lapu Streets is an eight story building. Built in 1978 and formerly called the Dimasalang House (named after the the Caballeros de Dimasalang, a Filipino mason organization established in the 1920's), the building is now known as the San Lorenzo Ruiz Apartments which provides housing for low income seniors, many of whom are Filipino. It was funny but frustrating because we passed it up a few times while we were walking around taking photos of the street signs. I kept telling Bert, I know it's around here somewhere. It's a tall building. We felt so dumb! So as we turned the corner and looked up at the tallest building in this tiny area, we finally saw it...

Measuring 90' by 25', the mural's official title is "Ang Lipi ni Lapu Lapu" (The Descendants of Lapu Lapu). It was painted by Johanna Poethig, who is white but was born in the Philippines to missionary parents; she is also fluent in Tagalog! Commisioned by the Mural Resource Center of San Francisco in 1984, the mural was also painted with the help of Vic Clemente and Presco Tabios.

A bit of triva about Presco Tabios - He was a Filipino American Manilatown activist who was featured in a small role in Wayne Wang's landmark film, "Chan is Missing" (1982). Presco Tabios is in the scene where a young Asian American cabbie goes to a Manilatown senior center seeking information about a man who mysteriousl disappeared with all this money. The scene is very sweet and is a time capsule with all of the elderly Lolo's and Lola's dancing to Los Lobos' version of the romantic Mexican bolero, "Sabor a Mi".

Here's the top most portion of the mural. You can see the Philippine eagle; beneath it's right wing are the islands of the Philippines covering most of Apolinario Mabini's suit. The colors of the mural have faded with time but it was still awe inspiring to see this in person and to gaze up at all of this Philippine and Filipino American history depicted on a wall.

Detail of Manilamen "dancing the shrimp". Many of the images here were taken from archived photos, many of them featured in the groundbreaking book, "Filipinos - Forgotten Asian Americans, A Pictorial Essay" (1982) by Fred Cordova (Uncle Fred is the co-founder of the Filipino American National Historical Society, aka 'FANHS'). That book changed my life. I mentioned it during a post last year, "Sad News, Howard Zinn died today".

Back to "dancing the shrimp". This was a method used by Manilamen to remove the heads and shells of shrimp as they were prepared for sun drying. The Manilamen were descendants of those native Filipinos who were recruited as shipbuilders, sailors, and navigators, traversed the Pacific Ocean with Spaniards during the Manila-Acapulco Galleon Trade. Many of them jumped ship to escape the brutality of the Spaniards, ending up in the port cities of Acapulco and Veracruz in Baja California. Some of these escaped Manilamen crossed the Gulf of Mexico and ended up in Louisiana where they have over ten generations of descendants of the Manilamen. Manila Village as seen on the sign was the first and oldest established Filipino settlement in the continental United States and blew down in a hurricane in 1915.

Featured below are Philippine national heroes and the namesakes of the streets, Dr. Jose Rizal (in suit), Melchora "Tandang Sora" Aquino (shown tending to a wounded revolutionary),  Apolinario Mabini, and lastly Andres Bonifacio (with right up upraised). Below is author and labor activist, Carlos Bulosan ("America is in the Heart", 1946), a bride (maybe a post WWII war bride?), 1930's boxer Francisco Guilleda (aka "Pancho Villa"), San Francisco native, Vicky Manolo Draves who won 2 Olympic gold medals in diving at the 1948 London games. There is a nearby park named after her that we did not have enough time to check out. Below Draves are several professionals and the man with the flat top and glasses is Larry Itliong, leader of the Filipino Farm Workers, the AWOC, which later merged with Cesar Chavez's NFW to become the United Farm Workers (UFW) in 1965..

You can see the Filipino farmer in the conical hat, along with a Navy man, and a college graduate. Near the tree, an Alaskero, a farm worker, and a nuclear family (photo taken from the front cover of the Cordova book).

An interesting story about that photo (the original photo also includes about a half dozen men also sitting on those steps) which was taken by Frank Mancao, a manong from Stockton. The "little girl" in the photo, was the daughter of Frank and she was in her 80's when I met her at the 2002 FANHS National Conference in LA. She gleefully told me, "That's me on the book cover!". Sadly, I found out later that she died several years ago in a freak accident.  I met both her and her sister at that conference at their roundtable workshop. They, along with several other elderly Filipino Americans, spoke about their experiences growing up in the Central Valley and having to compete with "Arkies" and "Okies" for jobs. The older men talked about never having to go hungry during the Great Depression because, even though they were poor and literally lived on the "wrong side of the tracks", they survived by growing their own vegetables and fruits and by eating cuts of meat that white Americans didn't like as well as the "throwaway" parts. It was really cool listening to their stories. These manongs and manangs were the children of migrant workers, born and raised in the U.S. and had no trace of any Filipino or Ilocano accents. Many of my generation aren't used to seeing and hearing older Filipinos who've been here since the late 20's or early 30's.

At the bottom left corner of the mural is Lapu Lapu himself.

The artists' signatures:

One last look...

More info about the mural:

Johanna Poethig

Artist info and slides of the newly finished mural in 1984

A more detailed writeup on the mural:
History is Written on the Walls" by poet Barbara Jane Pulmano Reyes, one of Thane's grad school friends from Cal.

What a morning! One day TC will thank me for all of these historical forays!

Time for a snack!