UMass Boston’s Spring 2025 semester saw the debut of the university’s first-ever Filipino American Studies course.
The class, taught by professors Pratna Kem and Sơn Ca Lâm and teaching assistant Fasha Banson, who is also a nursing student and the president of UMass Boston’s Filipino cultural club, Hoy Pinoy! — focuses on the Filipino American Experience as a pilot course for Filipino American Studies.
The class explores aspects of Filipino American history and considers the local Filipino American diaspora in Boston, understanding their place in the context of the Greater Boston area. Students explored these concepts during trips to Panethnic Pourovers, a Filipino American-owned cafe and library in Quincy, which has a focus on activism, and Iskwelahang Pilipino, New England’s only Filipino cultural school.
Students applied their learning in personal atlas projects, which are a collection of abstract maps that integrate collections of personal stories to express a desired world through the Filipino concept of Kapwa, which thinks of humanity as a shared identity. The project is rooted in the concept of counter-cartography, a practice of creating maps that challenge the dominant narratives portrayed in everyday maps and uplift the stories of underrepresented communities.
Banson said working with Lâm in developing the project has deepened her understanding of her community. “Dr. Sơn Ca Lâm’s background in geography and counter-cartography has deepened the way I understand, define, and identify diasporic communities, in particular, of course, the Filipino American community in Boston,” she said.
Lâm said this project serves as a form of activism, something the course has been built around defining. “To challenge these erasures, students are engaging in a practice of counter-cartography by reclaiming these stories and spaces. Through a collective atlas—The Kapwa Atlas—students are producing maps of their lives and communities that not only reflect but manifest their desired worlds.”
Kem said Kapwa has played a factor in shaping the course. “I have seen the Filipino American Studies curriculum in Asian American Studies Program take shape in various ways throughout the generations. Through kapwa, we learned that the story of any one individual cannot be told without the story of a community. In the spirit of kapwa, this class was privileged enough to engage with many people who laid the foundation for this course to become a reality.”
The class also hosted a panel of guest speakers, including those from a New England-based Filipino community organization called Pamana, and Filipino mothers of students in the class who immigrated to the United States.
Alyanna Dusaban, a nursing student and panel moderator, whose mother was among the speakers, said it was special for her to hear her mother share her stories. “I’ll never forget the drive home. My mom missed three exits because she was so immersed in sharing more about her story, some of which I’ve never heard before. I wonder if I hadn’t been given this opportunity, would I have ever heard those stories?” Dusaban said.
The course came about after a Beacon Voyage Services trip to San Francisco during the Spring 2024 semester, during which a group of students connected with Filipino communities of the West Coast and visited universities with established Filipino American studies courses. This trip came to be after Kem saw the demand for Filipino American Studies in his Rise Up! Asian American Leadership class and approached students such as Banson about making that happen. Kem revamped his class for this semester to serve as a Filipino American Studies pilot course.
The trip also led to the birth of the Filipino American Experience initiative, started by Banson and Dusaban with a mission to establish Filipino American Studies within UMass Boston’s Asian American Studies curriculum and create space for more educational resources for Filipino Americans on campus, according to the group’s Instagram page.
Senior nursing student and Hoy Pinoy! Secretary Clare Alanguilan said the class gave her an opportunity to explore the history of her people. “This class made me realize how little I knew about my own history and specifically Filipino American history. I never knew about the Delano Grape Strikes in California or how Filipino American veterans did not receive their benefits under the G.I. Bill,” she said.
“The last time I took a history class was back in high school, so it was also very humbling to me when I realized I had to brush up on some of my American history as well. However, these were never explicitly mentioned in our textbooks,” Alanguilan said.
Alanguilan also said the class has allowed her to feel more connected with her roots as a Filipino American. “This class connected me back with my roots when we had my classmates’ mothers come to class who shared their experiences as nurses living in the US, as well as visiting Iskwelehang Pilipino, the Filipino school I grew up in,” she said. “Now that I am at the age where I can understand the complexities and challenges in life, I’ve found a new sense of respect and gratitude for my family members and the Filipino community that raised me. We are a resilient people in the midst of the chaos in the world.”
Senior nursing student and Hoy Pinoy! Historian Ina Tolentino said she was thankful to be part of the class and the potential long-term establishment of Filipino American studies at UMass Boston.
“It’s so cool that I get to tell my friends and family that I’m part of my university’s first Filipino American studies class. I don’t take for granted the space we’ve created for ourselves on campus, especially with what’s at stake under the new administration. I’m really proud to be learning, preserving, and honoring Filipino American history in this way at UMB,” Tolentino said.
Dusaban said she was proud to see the class come about while she was a student. “I never could have imagined this coming to fruition during my undergraduate career at UMass Boston, especially with this being my final semester, too,” Dusaban said. “I can’t even truly encompass in words how much hard work and strong advocacy went into the creation of this class. I truly owe it to those supporters and trailblazers who believed in this from the beginning.”
Banson, Dusaban, Alanguilan, Tolentino, and Trisha Obsequio, another senior, presented and held an in-class discussion after taking a spring break trip to New Orleans, where they learned about the Filipino community history there, as it was where the first Filipinos in America settled.
Hoy Pinoy! performed their cultural dance show, LVM, at UMass Boston that same day, where they explored themes of mixed identities, comparing it to the Filipino dessert, Halo-Halo, a cold snack mixed with numerous variations of ingredients.
Banson said she hopes to see UMass Boston strengthen ties to the local Filipino community and give Filipino American Studies a permanent place in the course catalog. She said, “I truly owe a lot of this steady, intentional progression to the support of the Asian American Studies Program and Dr. Peter Kiang. I am very thankful to be represented in this class. This is something my younger self needed so much.”
