Kodiak Kids, Making History

“How do you separate the audio from the video clip?”

RJ Roy and Hunter Blair film an interview at
the museum.

“When did Filipinos start living in the Aleutian Homes?”

“How has the fishing industry affected the Filipino population?”

“Will this work for b-roll?”

These are a sampling of the questions that have flown around the second floor of the Magazin over the last two weeks. The museum has been a hive of activity as the 7^th-12^th grade students enrolled in our Kodiak Filipino Community Stories history and film intensive conduct interviews, frantically do research, and intently edit their short films.  

This project, the brainchild of Curator of Education Marie Acemah, all started when Filipino Fulbright scholar Joefe Santarita came to the museum to research the history of Filipinos in Kodiak, only to find a small folder with a few pieces of paper inside. Considering that the population of Kodiak is around 30% Filipino and that the community has had a presence in Kodiak since around 1900, we saw our lack of information as a critical gap to be filled. Marie knew we needed to gather more information- and figured that it would be the perfect opportunity to engage students. As a result, the museum, Media Action, and the Filipino-American Association of Kodiak, partnered together to create this class, which was graciously funded by the Alaska Humanities Forum.

Dr. EJR David from UAA flew to Kodiak for the day to
lead a workshop on Filipino American identity during the class.

Nine students will receive one high school history credit for their work. In less than 2 weeks, the students have collected over 20 interviews with community members about the history and legacy of Filipinos in Kodiak. They have done research within the museum’s archive and at the Kodiak Daily Mirror office. They’ve Skyped with family members back in the Philippines and today will have a video teleconference with Senator Mark Begich to ask him about his position on the J-1 visa. And now they are working like mad to complete their films, which will be premiering at the Teen Center on Friday night and on exhibit at the museum, beginning in October.

You are all invited to a potluck and celebration at the Teen Center on Friday, June 15, from 6-9 PM to view the films for the first time. Beyond the films, a break dancing group and Visayan youth music group will perform. Please bring a dish to share! Come congratulate our Kodiak youth filmmakers and learn about the history of Filipinos in Kodiak.

Stay tuned for information on the opening of the Kodiak Filipino Community Stories exhibit in October! Please be in touch if you are interested in finding out about exhibit sponsorship opportunities, too. Thanks to everyone who has already supported this amazing project!

Filipinos on Kodiak: Celebration and Inquiry

For the last 100 years, Kodiak's story is very much an immigrant story. The most current US census data lists Kodiak as 7% Latino and 20% people of Asian descent, and those numbers only reflect Kodiak residents, not seasonal workers temporarily living on the island. Fulbright Scholar Joefe Santarita spoke at the Baranov Museum on Filipino Kodiakans, and jokingly emphasized the question of why people from the tropics immigrate to Alaska by quoting an article on King Crab fishing that states "Alaska has cold, frigid, eat-into-your-soul weather." On a more serious note, Mr. Santarita spoke about a variety of socio-economic reasons that Filipinos have immigrated to this island. His talk helped inspire Baranov Museum staff to launch both a celebration and inquiry into Filipino culture on Kodiak.

Our first celebratory event was a Family Fun Night hosted with the Filipino American Association of Kodiak (www.filamkodiak.org/). Members of FilAm Kodiak prepared a veritable feast of foods ranging from bibinka to lumpia, and highlights included dressing up in traditional Filipino garb and learning how to dance. FilAm Kodiak President Mary Guilas-Hawver took the lead to engage the variety of participating community members in Filipino culture, and fun was had by all.

FilAm Kodiak's support of the Baranov Museum did not end with family fun night; they are now our partner in a project called Kodiak's Filipino Community Stories (KFCS) that received $8,500 of funding from the Alaska Humanities Forum. The Baranov Museum, FilAm Kodiak, and Media Action (www.mediactionproject.org) planned KFCS to engage high-school students in ethnography and digital storytelling about the history of Filipino Americans on Kodiak, culminating in an exhibit featuring these digital stories during October 2012, National Filipino American History Month.

While we will keep you posted about how the KFCS project unfolds, we hope that you consider the family photographs and family objects in your life that shed light on Kodiak's Filipino history and consider sharing them with the museum and this project. Even the most seemingly trivial items can contain a world of stories; an old, tattered pair of extra tuffs your grandpa wore in a cannery, a western union receipt documenting money sent home, a recipe handed down through the generations.