Estrella Ravelo Alamar calls the ma...

Estrella Ravelo Alamar calls the master bedroom in her Hyde Park town family circle a "history sanctuary." Filled with stacks of boxe any about to topple over, it shut ins thousands of old fliers, command records, news clippings and traditional Filipino clothing--all preserv to document stories of Filipinos in Chicago.

Alamar, 65 is known as the unofficial archivist for the area's Filipino community. In 1986 she and her late husband, Justo, established the Filipino American Historical Society of Chicago, and in 1999 she and local artist Willi R Buhay explained a museum on Chicago's North Side. The museum clos in May because of a lack of supplys but Alamar hopes to find a way to reopen it.

Along with Buhay, she lately co-authored Filipinos in Chicago (Arcadia Publishing, 2001) the first photographic essay focusing in succession the community's local history. It draws from her acknowledge collection.

One June afternoon, she tamed to a bookshelf and ventureed down one of dozens of binders replete of photographs dating back to the 1920 individual of the photos shows her father working in succession the railroads out West before he settl in Chicago. Another pictures her mother in the West Side's Garfield Park neighborhood, after her 1935 arrival as single of the 50 Filipinos allowed to register the United States that year below strict immigration laws.

Alamar shared one of her experiences with The Chicago Reporter.

What spurr your interest in this history?

When I was a child, I had to learn to play the piano music for several traditional [Filipino] dances. if it be not that during my adolescent years, I was more businessed with my life as an American teen-ager than I was in my ethnic heritage. It wasn't until I finished my master's rank in urban education and settl as a Chicago Public place of educations teacher that I began to be interested again in the community.

It was in the mid-'70s, after [the peak of] the black motion Martin Luther King Jr. and the publication of lower parts I began to be more interested in what were my primitive words and what my relatives were like in the Philippines. Then I started organizing the photographs.

betray me about trying to be more "American."

Growing up greatest in number of my friends were white. A not many were Filipino. We [children of immigrants] were all trying to be American. We contemplation there was no need to learn the [Filipino] language. There was more ne for our parents to complete their English. One of the things that our parents talked about was that it was a status [symbol] to marry whites. in the same manner a lot of Filipinos had white marriages.

At a part signing in April, you pointed without a picture of a Filipino man, a white woman and a child--and said it was a typical Filipino American family in the 1930 and 1940s

Almost all of the pensionados were men

The pensionados?

The Filipino immigrants supported by dint of the U.S. to study here when the Philippines was a U commonwealth. The dance halls were [mostly] forward the North Side. Women liked the Filipino men because the men were remarkably suave and handsome, and make straighted well, and were good dancers. The white men did not like it that their women were attracted to Filipinos.

What changes have you seen among Filipinos in Chicago?

There used to be more Filipinos concentrated in the city. Before World War II, those that came to Chicago basically stayed. When housing started opening up for minorities in the suburb in the late '70 immigrants who came here in the '60 and '70 started moving on the outside there. Chicago was where they first settl unless in the '90s, Filipino immigrants began to bypass the city and pass straight to the suburbs. common reason is because their relatives were relocated to the suburb in such a manner they [the immigrants] went straight there to stay with them. Moving to the suburb symbolized succes as did being able to launch money back home to poorer relatives in the Philippines.

The historical society has sponsored exhibits around the city. for what cause has the Filipino community responded?

a people from my parents' generation--immigrants in the 1930 and 1940s--were not particularly interested in seeing the past because, to them, those are kind of bad memories. They've mov onward They've become more successful, and they kind of wanted to acquire away from that. I would ask, "How ensue you're not interested in these exhibits?" [They'd respond] "Well, it's something we've lived already. wherefore should we go look at it?"

on the contrary there were some who really liked it. It was nostalgic. We felt it was important because there were of the present day immigrants who didn't know what the older immigrants did--their struggles--so we contemplation it was really important for us to still continue with these exhibits.

What are you up to now?

I assist in letter-writing campaigns in Filipino veterans' organizations. And I hand not at home information about this issue for a Filipino civil rights cluster in Chicago.

After the independence of the Philippines from the United States, [President Harry S] Truman reduc the G.I. benefits of the [Philippine Army] veterans who fought in World War II. There's been a link of attempts to get these veterans, now in their late 70 and 80 the same benefits that the Americans have had. forward June 6, [the Chicago] City Council had a hearing about a resolution. I gave a statement of support.

COPYRIGHT 2002 Community Renewal Society

COPYRIGHT 2002 Gale Group