Nicole & the Third World Liberation Front

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I got married one year ago in June in a red dress with a Chi Pao style collar while my partner Duncan wore burgundy. Red is a lucky colour in Chinese culture. It never occurred to me to wear white, because being myself on my wedding day meant being proudly, unapologetically Chinese American. I started building my identity when I was five years old. When my late grandmother Hui gave me a Mandarin lesson in her son room. She drew the Mandarin characters: for mountain, for rain, for fire.

And she left a mark on me too. At my wedding, I wanted her to know that she passed down just enough pride in our culture to carry me to this day. I wish she could have seen me in my red dress, a little like the one she wore on her wedding day. Yes and witness. And I wish she could have seen her son, my dad, walk me down the aisle.

It was really emotional to see all these relatives from her side of the family, who came from where they were scattered all across the country to be here. At one point I didn't know them very Now I put in a lot of effort. Travel to visit them, to sit beside them as we eat and look through photos and they tell me their stories.

Everything you undertook. There was my auntie Linda at the end of the row with her immaculate silver hair who gave me back my great grandmother's ring. And my cousins, Xiao Ying Jong and Amy Wang. stood at the microphone, ready to lead a Chinese tea ceremony, a tradition which dates back to the Tang Dynasty, but isn't something anyone in my family had done in recent memory. For me and Duncan, it was a way to honor the people who raised us.

Sons and daughters serve tea to parents and elders in the family to express gratitude for their upbringing. 在华人婚禮中是一个很有意义的传统。 Next, we'd like to invite Emily's mom and dad to receive the cobblest. We served our parents tea in tiny red cups, and I wish grandma could have seen how my dad couldn't look Because he was too overwhelmed. Now my mom touched my forehead, something she did when I was a baby. Still taking care of me.

让我们共同众愿Emily and Duncan Our wedding was this declaration of what we wanted our life together to be about. And one of those priorities for me is maintaining this connection to my elders, to grandma, to this continuum of Chinese and Chinese American people who came before me. I want to receive what they passed down and make it my own. You may kiss the love of your life.

When I first met Nicole Saliver, one of the things we talked about was her wedding. How she wanted to make it her own too, to have her wedding reflect the values and the relationships that made up her life. She thought her wedding would be this big blowout party in the Philippines, a salivar family reunion.

And there was only one person she wanted to walk her down the aisle, her uncle, Patrick Salver. And every year he was like, Yes, of course, but then towards the end of his life, um he had a series of strokes. And he was like, I don't think I'm able to do it. I'm gonna cry. This is why I got the tissue. He was like, I'm I don't think I'm gonna be able to do it. So You know? Good luck with that. I'm probably gonna be gone.

And he said, Don't say that. Like I'm gonna manifest that you're gonna walk me down the aisle. But then in 2018, Uncle Pat had a really bad stroke. And it left him mute. and really unable to do a lot of things like walk. Like we don't know how long he's gonna live. The doctors are like maybe a month, two months. And when we found out, me and my um fiance at the time, I was like, shit, we need to get married. Like now.

Nicole and her fiancée Pierre quickly planned a small ceremony in Temecula, California, outside, overlooking vineyards and an ecological And a house they rented for their immediate families. Also, Pat could be there. And he wasn't able to walk me down, but he was on the front row. And even though he couldn't talk and it was really hard for him, you know, mentally and physically. There's even a video of Pat from after the ceremony.

Pat is sitting in his wheelchair. His eyes are scrunched together. affected by Nicole's presence. I'm so happy you came, Uncle Pat. We did this all for you. This is all for you. A few months later, Uncle Pat passed away. And at a celebration of life, Nicole was Amazed by who was there. Pat was important to her. His impact rippled through other people. Members of the Third World Liberation Front were there. Uh Bobby Luma touching speech about my Uncle Pat and the work that he did.

Civil rights in the nineteen sixties. Uncle Pat was one of the main organizers of the Third World Liberation Front. Which led the longest student strike in US history. It's the reason that colleges around the country have ethnic studies programs. Pat was so prominent in this radical movement in higher education.

That it was one of the reasons the FBI investigated him. But for being one of the most visible Filipino student organizers of his time, there's been very little written about Patrick J. Saliver. If you ask any Latin American person who is Cesar Chavez? If you ask any African American person who is Malcolmette? Who is MLK? Everyone knows who they are. Any American knows who they are. But if you ask a Philippine American or Asian American who is Patrick Saliver, they have no clue. And to me, he is

just as important as those people. And he sacrificed just as much as those people. Pat Salver made a difference in the world. And Nicole, his niece, wants the world to know that. This message comes from MIDI Health, a virtual care platform for women in paramenopause and menopause. CEO Joanna Strober shares the mission behind working with women in midlife. It's not just about hormones, it's not just about weight loss medication.

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Most of the Saliver family is based in the Bay Area in Northern California. But every summer, when she was a kid, Nicole would get on a plane to Southern California to stay with her uncle Pat, who had moved to Los Angeles. He basically took me in and was like a second father. So to me, he was just like my dad. Nicole's parents were divorced and her mom needed her older brother's help. Pat's house was like a summer camp.

He and his wife Marcy took in all the neighborhood kids too. Whose fathers weren't there or were too poor, you know, to have daycare or child care services. He would just take them all in, he would buy us all bikes. And we would just bike around the neighborhood. He would give us assignments to do every summer. Pat was that warm, welcoming, but get your ass in here type. If we got in trouble, he would give us the choice of okay, you're either gonna get spanked or I'm gonna lecture you.

And his lectures. Yeah, his lectures would be two hours long. Like no joke. And we would have to sit and listen. So by like the fifth or sixth lecture, we were like just spank me. What would he lecture about? Oh, he would lecture about like, you know, the importance of family and how we have to be there for each other. And then he would like bring in his own stories.

Pat's superpower was talking, and his life was this sweeping epic that stretched from the grapefields of Delano to the anti-war protests. the nation. We would just tell all of these stories to anyone, not just us in the family, but anyone. Often people would be like, is he telling the truth? So much so that there's this joke in the family. That my uncle is the Filipino forest gump of history.

You know Forrest Gump, the movie where he has like a million stories. When Nicole was in her early 30s, she started recording Pat's stories. She'd suddenly lost her father, and his death made her realize how precious time with Uncle Pat was. We would just be hanging out, smoking cannabis in his garage. And I would just bust out my tape recorder and start recording him and asking him questions. Can you talk about um app? Nicole recorded 15 hours of footage. When I was in high school, I said, oh.

My hands are starting to. Storytelling. Sometimes Nicole asked him for advice. How do you and Auntie Marcy do it? How do you get through like the difficulty? Well she makes me take a On this show we usually have a conversation between two members of a family. But since Pat is gone, we are going to use the recordings that Nicole made. Take it the best I have. Ha ha ha!

Pat was born in the Philippines in 1945. Lived briefly as a child on Guam, where his father was a military mechanic. And immigrated to San Francisco when he was seven years old with his parents and three younger siblings. His mom would later remarry and have three more kids. So Pat was everybody's big brother, a natural leader with a strong sense of justice.

He told McColl how a lot of their relatives in California were farm workers in the nineteen fifties, picking produce under terrible conditions. for long hours with little pay. The family got involved in the growing labor. And that's how Pat met visionary Filipino labor leader Larry Itliong, who led lettuce strikes in Salinas, asparagus strikes in Stockton, and in nineteen sixty five organized a grape strike in Delano.

I'm gonna be very frank with you. I have all kinds of guts, you know. I'm not scared of nobody. In terms of fighting for the rights of Filipinos in this country. Pat's mom, Estrella, gathered food donations at church and drove down to Delano to feed the striking farm workers. We go to the farms and they would load us up with fruits and vegetables. Pat was twenty at the time and quickly joined the cause, organizing great boycotts at supermarkets. We had ticket lines at several safeways.

And uh if I could find those pictures, you'd see some pictures of some young Filipinos who are just beginning to get into political activity. Hat, in Forest Gump fashion, was in the room when Larry Itleong and Cesar Chavez merged their unions. Mexican farm workers would join Filipino farm workers on the picket line. We were down there in that very auditorium where Larry et Leon gave ever the leadership of the UFW to

seeing this act of resistance from Larry It Leong, I think really lit a fire in him. That's like part of our legacy is in Filipino and Tagalog it's Laban, which means resist. In fact, Pat saw his mom resist for years. As a community activist, Estrella supported so many social causes that people in San Francisco's Manila Town neighborhood called her mom. Beyond activism, she had another family legacy. She encouraged everyone to pursue some kind of art.

Estrella was a prolific pianist and organist, led an all Filipino Methodist choir, and performed around the city. Nicole's whole family is created. My auntie Vita was a cartoonist and she did comic book art. My mother's a dancer, did samba dance for decades, danced for Carlos Santana. Um my uncle Orvi was also a musician and did comic book art. English jazz trombonus.

Pat took the family's tradition of the arts and passed it on to Nicole. So one summer he told me, Okay. You can take my VHS camera and create a television station. And so I even had uh my little baby cousin. I pretended to be like Jay Leno and I interviewed him from his crib. And he couldn't even talk. He was just babbling. I was like, so I heard all this gossip that you're dating this new hot model. What is she like? And he'd just be like

Da But he was like into it. What was Pat's reaction to these videotapes? Oh he loved it. When I realized I wanted to be an actress, it was a lot because of my Uncle Pat, because he gave me that VHS camera and I got to act for the first time and I got to direct for the first time and write. Chasing that dream, Nicole moved to New York City when she was thirty one years old and spent a decade working as an actress.

I think I might be sick. Uncomedian. What? I was hella thirsty! That's my taboo your taboo? Tybo? Are you having a Filipino? She played a surgical nurse in the movie Fruitvale Station, a nurse in law and order. She didn't waver from her path. Until twenty twenty. And the part she was playing on a TV show was yet again the Filipino nurse. And it was like, holy shit, I've been playing the Filipino nurse almost all of my career, just like 20 plus years.

the Filipino Asian hacker, the Filipino Asian girlfriend, but nothing of a lead role, nothing of my own writing being picked up. And I had pitched pilots. I had gotten to like meet with Amazon and Netflix. And still nothing. So just like when she got married, Nicole made a bold decision. She left New York. And her acting career and moved back to Northern California. Like, why am I working and literally killing myself? for the stream that Was not meant for me.

that may never be meant for me if I continue to work within a system that wasn't built for me. I don't need Hollywood to give me permission to do the things that I care about. Nicole thought about what she really wanted to do with her love of the arts, of activism, the Salivar family passion. She thought about her Uncle Pat, who had died a few years earlier. And Nicole had this stunning, irresistible idea. I should really just write a movie about my Uncle Pat. A feature film based on his life.

where she would write the script, cast Filipino actors, and bring a fictionalized version of that story to the big screen. And that's when it was like that aha moment too of oh, this is the whole reason why I went through all that bullshit in New York.

When Nicole got in touch with our show, we had never heard of Patrick J. Saliver, and we jumped at the chance to learn. So right now we are actually at Caesar Chavez and Malcolm X student center and to our Nicole wanted to take us to the heart of it all. San Francisco State, where both she and Pat went to college. As a sophomore, Nicole took a Filipino American history class.

And she was startled when she saw Pat's name in her textbook. The curriculum was her family's story. And so we would be taking these test, you know, and I would know every answer because a lot of the answers were either people I knew or my family members. or things that my uncle or my aunts would have talked about in the past as far as the Third World Liberation Front, the student strikes, just Philippino American history, the monongs and all the other students, all my friends

Swore to me that I was cheating, that I had the answers written somewhere. But the answers lived in her memory, in the stories Pat told her about San Francisco State and the late 60s. Pat stepped up to lead a movement that would change higher education forever. His leadership of Filipino students was like a stone in a pond, sending out waves. What happened at San Francisco State ignited a multi-ethnic, multi-racial protest movement on college campuses across the country.

Іславі да зпорим Нікол з мувізита Америка газ файл то хіра. last few years. For Pat, being a student in the summer of 67 meant being wrapped in political change. The civil rights movement was dovetailing with the anti-Vietnam War movement. The Black Panther Party had just been established across the bay in Oakland. And here, whether you know it or not, is where you start dealing with the Black Revolution.

And at San Francisco State, the Black Student Union was at war with the administration, fighting for more black students to be admitted to the school, for the school to hire more black professors and to establish a black studies department. Pat wanted to join the Black Student Union to support their cause. As a first generation Filipino college student from a working class family, he understood their demands. My uncle, because it was the sixties, understood that things needed to change.

And with the information that he received from the Black Panthers and the Black Student Union, they encouraged him to start a Filipino American organization. And so that's what he did. Pat started something called Pace in october nineteen sixty seven. PACE stood for the Philippine American Collegiate Endeavor. Around the same time, many other student groups were starting up at San Francisco State, led by other racial and ethnic minorities.

There was the Latin American Students Organization, El Renacimiento, the Mexican American Students Organization, the Intercollegiate Chinese for Social Action, and PACE. But there had never been an organization like PACE before at San Francisco State. So all these Filipino students were super confused by what Pat was trying to do. It was difficult because you know, I mean, I would have to organize and and and canvas people to

understand what the organization was all about. And that wasn't so easy because I Pat would walk up to students, ask if they were Filipino, and tell them, not invite them, but tell them, congratulations, you're now a member of Pay. Granted, many of them said no, I I I'm not interested. Some of them, when they saw me coming, they would run the other way.

Pace has a few co-founders, but Pat was the lead founder, the mobilizer, and he led Pace students to fight for Filipinos all over the city of San Francisco, not just on campus. Fight hard with us so that we can maintain the hotel from being demolished. This tape is from a San Francisco Chronicle video about the protest. Pace participated in the anti eviction protests at the International Hotel.

A three-story building in Manila Town that was home to elderly and low-income Filipinos, many of them from the Menong generation who immigrated in the 20s and 30s. The city wanted to knock the hotel down for urban development. At the time, Pat's mom, Estrella, helped Pace get a grant to tutor Filipino high school students in the Bernal Heights district. That meant Pace was helping neighborhood kids apply for scholarships and fill out college hours.

This was the height of the Vietnam War, and a disproportionate number of men of color were being sent overseas to fight. Pat understood that. Like the Black Student Union, Pace knew that getting their peers into college would also save them from the draught. They wouldn't be fighting in an unjust war. They wouldn't be sacrificing their lives to something they didn't believe in. And also so that they could have the opportunities that at that time only whites were provided.

in the nineteen fifties and sixties. And Pat wanted Pace to be in solidarity with all of the other student groups, pushing for the university to admit more non-white students, because the student body at San Francisco State was overwhelmingly white and middle class. And the curriculum reinforced a white Eurocentric view of the world.

so many of the students also felt it's not fair that we're being taught this European centered lens of history and our people are not included in these textbooks in the curriculum.

All this tension was building for months, and nineteen sixty eight was the break. Mm-hmm. That was the year Martin Luther King Junior and Bobby Kennedy were assassinated, when the Vietnam War showed no signs of slowing down, and the college wasn't changing fast enough. So the Black Student Union invited all of the other student groups to form a supernova, calling themselves the Third World Liberation Front.

Developed by the third world faculty, by third world students, and third world community people. We have had a struggle. And because of Pat, Pace was organized and ready to join the fight. Instructors on campus got on board too. Some of them taught a third world curriculum that was like a precursor to ethnic studies today. And one of them was a black grad student named George Murray. What happened to him would inflame the strike.

It began on September nineteenth, nineteen sixty eight, at a press conference that Murray organized. Murray was the Black Panther's Minister of Education, and he did not hold back on the Black Panther's analysis of the war. Heads up, he did use a racial slur while speaking on the microphone.

Our statement was that uh the war in Vietnam is racist, it is a war that uh crackers like Johnson ha are using black soldiers and uh poor white soldiers and Mexican soldiers as dupes and fools to fight against uh people of color in Vietnam who've never called black people niggers. Murray kept speaking out about the war and the curriculum with even stronger language. And San Francisco State suspended him. We're going into the buildings as a mask, and we're gonna ask people to come out of classes.

On November 6th, hundreds of students gathered, demanding Murray be reinstated and the curriculum be changed. Hatt and Pace were there, refusing to go back to class. Over the next few days and weeks, the protests grew.

Police in full ride gear sprayed mace and swung batons at students. More students quit class and join the strike. First it was really like crowded in the student strikes. And the strike leaders agreed the next time police tried to arrest a protester, they would all intervene. I am the San Francisco Police Supply. A person demonstrating here are until the side. The Secret Squad comes and arrests him there, okay, and picks him up.

How come nobody's doing it? How come no one's trying to stop this arrest, you know? And he threw something towards the police line. and it hit this cop on his helmet. And you can hear that whack through the entire campus. So I turned around to run and everybody was gone. There was nobody to hide behind He was the only one there. And so all these cops were descending on him with their batons out. These cops you know were gonna

I'm gonna have a beating party. And all of a sudden he said this nursing student jumped on his body and she was Caucasian. And that stopped the tactical squad from hitting me. Pat and students like him put their very safety on the line. And after a month-long bloody saga, the strike leaders reached a deal with the administration on March 21, 1969, and got some major wins.

The school agreed to admit more non-white college applicants in the fall and establish the nation's first ever College of Ethnic Studies. The students at San Francisco State inspired movements at bigger schools like UC Berkeley and Columbia University. Number one, that funds be allocated for the implementation of the Third World Trump. and saying the students of Columbia University will not be students in a university that exploits black... What Pat did was vision.

He was part of a generation declaring that the things happening in black, indigenous, and immigrant families of color were worth scholarship, and doing the work we call intersectional coalition building today. And it goes beyond Filipinos. Because of Pat and student leaders like him, there are now hundreds of ethnic studies programs in the U.S. But for someone so vocal in his beliefs, so effective in his organizing, the shocking thing about Pat Saliver is his invisibility.

There are no murals of him on campus. He's a hidden figure known only by members of Pace and Nicole's family. And that is why Nicole wants to make a movie about his life. Now I it's like my life's mission, not only to raise my son, but also have his story out there so that other Asian Americans and just Americans in general Can see the importance and sacrifice that my uncle laid his life for.

The Third World Liberation Front won their strike, but for taking a stand to make it happen, Pat Saliver would ultimately bear the cost. This message comes from Ali Yan's Travel Insurance. You wanted to take your travel adventures to new heights, so you decided to take on a hiking tour of the Dolomite.

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These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This message comes from NetSuite. Every business is asking, how can they make AI work for them? No more waiting. With NetSuite by Oracle, you can put AI to work today. Trusted by over forty three thousand businesses.

It's the unified suite that brings your financials, inventory, commerce, HR, and CRM into a single source of truth. That connected data is what makes your AI smarter, helping you make fast decisions. Right now, get the business guide Demystifying AI free at netsuite.com slash story. Pat poured every waking moment into the Third World Liberation Front. He was a mainstay on campus, an organizing force in the community, and he brought that energy into the Saliver family home.

Nicole's mom, Pat's baby sister, saw it all. Luna Salivor was eleven at the time. I was worried. You know, you go on TV and you see these police officers on horses. Swatting people with their nights sticks and you'd see people bleeding and you I felt my brother is going through that. During the strike, Pat held strategy meetings at the family's house.

The Salivers were based in Daly City, less than two miles from the school. Pat let Luna sit in. And me being a nosy, pesky little sister, I would lurk. And be in the background and and listen to what they were doing. I was so absolutely nosy. But Luna wasn't the only one listening. The FBI knew about the meeting. And started surveilling Pat, bugging the Saliver family phones. And this continued even after the strikes ended in March of 1969.

Pat dropped out of school that fall. His stepfather's health was failing, and the family needed his financial support, so he took a job as a taxi driver. He was the glue that kept our family together. But because Pat was no longer in school, he was not exempt from the draft. When he was called up to Vietnam, he didn't report for duty. So I was against the Vietnam War and I I refused uh induction into selective service.

I believe it was involuntary servitude and I I was intending into challenging it in court. Pat was arrested and charged with refusal to report for induction into the military. His trial took place in the summer of 1971. The FBI had handed the judge a three-inch thick binder about my uh political activity. And that the FBI had labelled me as a troublemaker.

So the judge decided to make my uncle uh example so that other students of color would not do what he did. I was not given even even opportunity to uh anything. All you were concerned was that I had broken the law. And he put him in federal prison for two years. There were plenty of draft dodgers during the Vietnam War. Roughly half a million men were classified as draft offenders. But only 1% were ever convicted, and only half of them ever saw any jail time. Pat is in that half a percent.

Luna says Pat's imprisonment broke the Saliver family. Without the money Pat was making as a cab driver, Pat's mom and stepfather couldn't keep up with the mortgage. So we lost our household home and that kind of devastation of having one home and then having the family split apart really affects you. So I spiraled as well during my teenure. I think if he had stayed in the family life would have been a little bit different for me as a youth.

I was away at music camp and when I came back they had already had moved. This is Tim Saliver, Luna and Pat's younger brother. Tim was ten years old when Pat was sent to prison and the family split up. So I was moving into a new house that I didn't even know. To make sense of this time in their lives, Tim has done all of this research into Pat's life, digging up documents. Like the letter that Pat wrote from prison that was published in Rolling Stone magazine. I asked him to read Pat's letter.

By birth I am Filipino, a native of Southeast Asia, and all too aware of the imperialistic and racist nature of the war. I am also aware as a human being of the nature of oppression that kills people and their culture, babies, women, old men and all. It is the same oppression that keeps third world people in the ghettos of the cities.

My crime was not a violent act. It had no victims, other than myself, perhaps. My crime was confronting a brutal system that denied me and others around the world the right of self determination. This is the tenth year of our participation in the war in Southeast Asia, and it has been clear for some time to many that it was wrong. This being an election year, many politicians will at least say it was wrong, yet I suspect that many of us will still be in jail this Christmas. Set us free.

So he wrote that in nineteen seventy-one. Yeah, there were no victims of what Pat did. And he also didn't want to create any victims. He didn't want to go to war and kill other people. Both Tim and Luna are still brokenhearted by what prison did to their big brother.

Pat was released in October nineteen seventy two, and Tim says when he came back from prison He was a totally different person. Awesome. He was uh less activist and more angry. I think um more personally angry. I think uh in that He took on the responsibility of taking care of the family and because he had to l go away.

He couldn't be there for the family again. I think he really considered that his primary responsibility. He was taking care of the family, which meant that Pat was left behind by his peers. So many of his fellow organizers were on an illustrious career path to become lawyers and professors, but Pat was a college dropout and a felon. Tim says Pat took out his anger on his siblings. He got triggered by even the slightest thing.

And I think that caused a large amount of suffering for him and he ended up having to move away from the family. So he got a job in Southern California while the rest of us were all in Northern California. I think he did that s in order to separate that anger that he had of being responsible for us.

After moving away, Pat married Nicole's aunt Marcy and started his own family. And this is the Pat that Nicole came to know later in life. The one whose house was like a summer camp, the one who made his living working in IT. But as the tech industry changed, Pat was phased out. So like by the late nineties, they didn't need him anymore. That started a deep depression for him, like feeling unwanted and so he would

constantly for ten years be like, I'm not gonna make it. This is the last time you're gonna see me and I'm like, You're fine.

Nicole wanted Pat to know in life that he mattered. So much so that in 2003, when she was going to graduate from college, she convinced San Francisco State to give Pat an honorary degree for all his foundational work at PACE, for co-leading the Third World Liberation Front. But Pat refused to go.

And I really had to convince him, like people want you to come. People are so proud of you. People are so thankful and grateful for you. And he really was like, that is a part of my life I just want to put behind me. I didn't think he was gonna show up and finally like his very last minute. He thanked everyone. And it was amazing to be witness to that moment because all of his hard work, all of his sacrifice, this graduation was specifically Filipino American students.

And it was 300 of us. And he got to see all of us in that room together. And it was because of him and his sacrifice. I don't think he'd ever seen something like that before. Sure, this moment it was Nicole's graduation, but she reached backwards, pulling Pat into the spotlight.

I've never met someone quite like her, who talks about past, present, and future in the same sentence. Her graduation, her wedding, her movie. She's all about collapsing time and building spaces where generations can coexist. A few years ago, Nicole gathered all of her interviews with Pat, all of the research her Uncle Tim had done, and finally finished her movie scroll.

Now she's raising money to make the film and looking for other artists to help her bring it to life. And one of the places she's gathering inspiration is Soma Pilipinas, the Filipino Cultural Heritage District in San Francisco. Her day job is at Balai Creative, a studio that provides grants, space, and support for Filipino artists in the Bay.

The outside windows are covered with murals of famous Filipinos as comic book superheroes. So we got Philip Vera Cruz, Larry Doulai Itliong, Dr. Don Mabola. Nicole lets us in. This is the studio. As you walk in you see on the left our ancestor altered to Marco and he was one of the Nicole's the studio's program manager and it's dazzling inside. There's space for all of these different artists and residents. puppet masters and painters and musicians.

So Belai Creative, I would describe my job as a Filipina hype woman, a mama bear, a supporter of all artists and mediums. Nicole waves me and our producer Anjali over to the streaming hub. where people can record and stream their work. It's filled with vinyl, plants, and custom woodwork by artist Sira Sayak.

It's like the TRL booth, but Filipino, Nicole explains. It's important that we have these spaces because we didn't always have these spaces, and even currently we don't have a lot of spaces like this. She's truly in her element here. And I realize Nicole has kind of put her family legacies together, art and activism. Through Bilai, she's providing structural support for Filipinos to be professional artists. Just like Pat fought for structural support for college students.

And the reason Nicole knows how to do this work is maybe because of all the time she spent with Uncle Pat.

Long before she wanted to make a movie about him, the had this instinct to gather his oral history and just to have like a connection. And so whenever I was there, I made a point, okay, Uncle Pat, we're gonna record. I feel like that's exactly what we're trying to do with our show. Actually. I want this podcast, Inheriting, to be like Nicole's movie.

To make this bold declarative statement that the stories from within our own families are worth our time. So people talk about being a good descendant. And it requires the younger generation to look backwards and be willing. Yeah. To be a good descendant is to ask questions and to connect with our elders. And it doesn't even have to be that old of an elder. Like it can be an older sister or older brother.

liberating others through storytelling, through oral history in Capua, which is a Filipino um saying of togetherness. And interconnection with others and empathy, seeing yourself in other people. Empathy is the quest for closeness with another human being. And to me, that requires a rigorous practice of seeking to understand. One of the ways to do that is really slow and old-fashioned. Ask questions and listen.

In the last year, I've been interviewing Asian American and Pacific Islander families, helping them interview each other. If anyone asked why, I'd say that if you want to understand the history of the U.S., you have to understand Asian and Pacific Islander communities. How are our stories connected to each other, and to the stories of other groups: white, black, Latino, Indigenous, immigrants?

But that is not how the show started. It started because I just wanted to feel closer to one person. My grandma, who died when I was five. Hui Chen Kuang was an exceptional listener. When her attention was on me, I felt safe and understood. It was like sitting in a patch of sunlight, bright and warm. And lately I've been talking to her like she is still here. I told her about the difficult stories on this show.

In those moments, I conjure up her face, picture her neatly arranged hair, and Rose lipstick, and say, Grandma, give me the strength to learn about this past and let it in. She would encourage me to keep going. To keep asserting that Asian American and Pacific Islander family stories are more than stories. They are historical narratives.

As valuable as any family heirloom, passed down or put in a museum, each generation has the right to know where they came from, to hold that truth with both hands, and decide for themselves what it means to inherit.

Inheriting is entirely funded by supporters like you. If you want to hear future seasons of this kind of in-depth storytelling, Go to LAS.com/slash inheriting and click the orange button to donate. Generous supporters Jeehe and Peter Ha are offering to match your donation dollar for dollar. So please show your support now. Thanks so much. If you want to learn more about the Third World Liberation Front or any of the historical moments we've talked about this season, we have resources for you.

Visit our website laas.com/slash inheriting that includes links to lesson plans from the Asian American Education Project. Inheriting is hosted, reported, and co-created by me, Emily Kwong, and this incredible team of people. Honestly, thank you to everyone who listened, supported, and spent time thinking about this show with us. We are deeply indebted to you. and could not have made this without you. The show is a production of LAS Studios

and is distributed by the NPR Network. And our team is the following people. Anjali Sastri Kurbach is our senior producer and co-creator of the show. Minju Park and James Chow are also our show producers. Sarah Sarrison is our senior editor. Catherine Mailhouse is our executive producer and director of content development at LAS Studios. And Shana Naomi Krockmail is our vice president.

Mixing and Engineering by Donald Paw. Original theme music composition by Escott Kelly. Jens Campbell is our production coordinator. Fact checking by Caitlin Antonios, our intern is Tony Morales, podcast Tile Art by Christina Chung, visuals by Samantha Halou Hernandez, social media and video by Christine Malixi and Josh Latona. We have some thank yous to Easy Video Production for the audio recording of my wedding. Also, thank you to Nicole for the audio recording of her wedding.

Our gratitude to NPR Member Station KQED for the archival tape of the student strikes provided by San Francisco State University's Bay Area Television Archive. Also, to NPR's Morning Edition, all things considered and tell me more programs for all their archival tapes. If you want to learn more about the history behind the Third World Liberation Front, check out Code Switch and KQD's past reporting on it. Also thanks to NPR's Aida Porasad for research support.

Endless thanks to LAS marketing, social media, and digital teams, including Patricia Toomong, Maren Tate, Sophie Chapp, Christine Malixy, Andy Cheatwood, Sabrir Brara, and Brandon Cotton. This podcast was also supported by Gordon and Donna Crawford, who believe quality journalism makes Los Angeles a better place to live. Elias Studios operates within the homelands of the Gabriel L.

Tongva people. We recognize the painful history of displacement, settler colonialism, and erasure of the people, their language and their sovereignty. Visit alias.comslash land for more information. We encourage you to get curious about the land on which you live and work. This message comes from MIDI Health. Co-founders, Dr. Kathleen Jordan, and CEO Joanna Strober discuss why they started a virtual care platform for women in paramenopause and menopause.

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