Kuwento Kuwento

Loida Nicolas Lewis, business leader, part 2

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This week on Pinoy Pod, Part 2 of our two-part interview with Filipino American business executive Loida Nicolas Lewis, chairwoman and chief executive officer of TLC Beatrice LLC and TLC Beatrice China and Philippines. A native of Sorsogon, Philippines, Lewis recently became the first Filipino and the first woman to be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame in Seattle.
Lewis took over TLC Beatrice in 1994. That was a year after the untimely death of her husband, Reginald F. Lewis , who had built the company into the largest African American-owned corporation in America.
In this podcast with The Chronicle's Michelle Louie, Lewis talks about women in politics, particularly how she has joined Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign effort.
Also, she speaks about her love for Reginald Lewis, the fate of "Harry Potter" and how she successfully sued the Immigration and Naturalization Service for discrimination.

Loida Nicolas, business leader, part 1

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This week on Pinoy Pod, Part 1 of a two-part interview with Filipino American business executive Loida Nicolas Lewis, chairwoman and chief executive officer of TLC Beatrice LLC and TLC Beatrice China and Philippines. A native of Sorsogon, Philippines, Lewis was the first Asian woman to pass the New York State Bar without having studied in the United States.
Lewis took over TLC Beatrice in 1994. That was a year after the untimely death of her husband, Reginald F. Lewis , who had built the company into the largest African American-owned corporation in America.
In this podcast with The Chronicle's Michelle Louie, Lewis talks about how she overcame her grief, balanced the needs of her children and kept faith in herself despite skeptics who doubted her ability to run the company.
She also gives pointers on how to do business in China, offers words of advice to those who want to follow in her footsteps and talks about her recent honor of being the first Filipino as well as the first woman to be inducted into the Asian Hall of Fame in Seattle.

Pilipino Cultural Night: A rite of passage for FilAm students

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For thousands of Filipino American college students throughout the country, it's PCN season. PCN stands for Pilipino Cultural Night, a yearly ritual featuring Filipino ethnic dances and culture, and skits exploring such issues as family, identity and history.
For tens of thousands of Filipino American youths, being part of a PCN, either as performers or as members of the production staff, has been a rite of passage for about three decades.
In this episode of Pinoy Pod, Professor Theo Gonzalves of the University of Hawaii talks with The Chronicle's Benjamin Pimentel about the origins of the PCNs and why it has endured as a Filipino American genre.

Socially conscious capitalist Yobie Benjamin

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Published May 1, 2007

As a highly successful businessman, Yobie Benjamin followed a unusual path.
He grew up in the Manila suburb of Malabon where his family struggled to make ends meet. He went to the University of the Philippines, where he became an activist against the dictatorship of Ferdinand Marcos. He was arrested and tortured by the regime.
After he was released, he immersed himself in the world of computers and later moved to the United States where he has worked with many of Silicon Valley's pioneers.
Benjamin eventually made a name for himself as a businessman and technologist, one known for his emphasis on socially conscious entrepreneurship.
He is now CEO of GoodStorm.com , an e-commerce company he co-founded as a response to the damage caused by Hurricane Katrina. The San Francisco firm's slogan is, "Capitalism Done Right.''
In a recent interview with Pinoy Pod's Benjamin Pimentel, Yobie Benjamin talked about his life journey and what inspired him to create GoodStorm.

Pinoy Pod 48

"Heart in Two Places'' chronicles an immigrant's struggles, triumphs in America

This week, Pinoy Pod features an interview with veteran Filipino American journalist Gemma Nemenzo, the managing editor of Filipinas magazine. She talks to The Chronicle's Benjamin Pimentel about her new book, "Heart in Two Places: An Immigrant's Journey."

The critically-acclaimed book is, in many ways, a chronicle of the Filipino American experience told from different viewpoints - that of an expatriate, a single mother and an activist-journalist deeply concerned about the future of her homeland.

The collection of essays is about her life experiences since moving to America in 1988 when her marriage ended and she sought a fresh start.

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Pinoy Pod 47

Fil-Am novelist Peter Bacho captures experiences of war vets, immigrants

This week, reporter Benjamin Pimentel chats with novelist Peter Bacho, who has explored the Filipino American experience through books such as ''Cebu,'' about a young Filipino American priest, and "Dark Blue Suit and Other Stories,'' about the struggles of Filipino immigrants in the 1920s and 1930s.

His most recently published book "Entrys,'' is about the struggles of a young Filipino-Native American veteran who struggles to rebuild his life after surviving the horrors of the Vietnam War.

It's a sad tale that Bacho says resonates during these times when the country is wrestling with the social and psychological effects of another war. Bacho talks about how he started the book before the beginning of the war in Iraq.

MORE ON PINOY POD AT SFGATE.COM.

Pinoy Pod 46

New cookbook celebrates Philippine cuisine, history and culture

What started out as a dare turned into a cookbook that no only celebrates authentic Philippine cuisine, but also commemorates Filipino history and culture.

This week on Pinoy Pod, the authors of "Memories of Philippine Kitchens,'' restaurateurs Romy Dorotan and Amy Besa, tell The Chronicle's Michelle Louie about how the book started when a friend lamented about a dearth of good Filipino cookbooks.

The husband and wife team included their own memories of Filipino cuisine, and did extensive research, both in academia and in everyday households.

They talk about how Filipinos have adapted and borrowed recipes from other countries and down through time made them their own. They also talk about how Filipinos are "obsessed'' with food.

Besa and Dorotan are no strangers to the food business -- their upscale Filipino restaurant Cendrillon in New York's SoHo district celebrates its 12th anniversary in August.

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Pinoy Pod 45

Filipino American a hit on "YouChoob''

In do-it-yourself world of Internet video, Christine Gambito has become a star. And the Filipino America nurse and aspiring actress is this week's guest on Pinoy Pod.

Gambito is the creator, producer and cast of "Happy Slip,'' which has become one of the most popular channels on the Internet video site YouTube.com - or as she imitates her mother saying it, "You Choob.''Happy Slip, a series of short, humorous videos that draw heavily on her experiences as a Filipino American, this week had 29,700 subscribers, making it the 12th-most subscribed channel on YouTube. And she says she isn't sure how many more tune in through her own video blogging site, HappySlip.com .

One video, "Mixed Nuts," , in which she imitates her mother, father and a Filipino "auntie,'' has been viewed more than 2.7 million times on YouTube. That video finished second in voting completed last week for YouTube Video Awards Best Comedy of 2006 .

In another video, that same auntie tells her daughter to play piano with more "peeling." And in a video that has been viewed more than 800,000 times, Gambito sings a love song to an Apple computer .

On Pinoy Pod, Gambito tells The Chronicle's Michelle Louie and Benny Evangelista about the origin of the name Happy Slip, which comes from her mother's heavily accented pronunciation of "half-slip.'' She also talks about how her parents always encouraged her to imitate them and how she developed her spot-on observations of Filipino cultural characteristics.

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Pinoy Pod 44

Images from the Filipino Diaspora

Victor Bareng moved to the United States in 1986, at the height of the political upheaval in the Philippines during the final days of the Marcos regime.

As he began a new life in the United States, Bareng increasingly became interested in the history of Filipinos in America and in telling that story through photographs.

Some of Bareng's work, together with those of veteran documentary photographer Rick Rocamora, are on exhibit at the Manilatown Heritage Center at 868 Kearny Street.

Bareng is also a graphic designer and photogrpher at The Chronicle.

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Pinoy Pod 43

"Usaping Puki" 2007 - Staking a claim for peace

The Filipina community's production of "Usaping Puki,'' the Tagalog version of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues," created a firestorm when it debuted in the Bay Area in 2004.

The themes of women's rights and domestic violence awareness - and its unbridled expressions of women's sexuality - were startling to many who seldom spoke of the topics in private.
Since then, the annual performance staged by the Filipina Women's Network has drawn a growing audience as the community warms to the production that seeks to voice the unspoken and calls for an end to abuse of women in all forms.

But there are still many challenges as the 2007 production takes to the stage this month in San Francisco and New York with a bolder global theme.

Marily Mondejar, one of the executive producers, and Elena Mangahas, a co-director, talk to Chronicle Deputy Managing Editor Leslie Guevarra about the "Vagina Monologues," "Usaping Puki" and this year's theme of "Reclaiming Peace."

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Pinoy Pod 42

"Empire of care'' supplies steady stream of Pinoy nurses to U.S.

Go to any major hospital in America and chances are you'll find Filipinos on the nursing staffs. For decades, the Philippines has been a major supplier of Filipino nurses to the U.S. health care system.

That's been good for the Filipinos for whom coming to America means higher pay and better benefits, although many of them have also endured exploitation and discrimination.
Now, with the critical shortage of nurses in this country, more Filipino nurses are expected to come to America in search of a better life.

UC Berkeley Professor Catherine Ceniza Choy is the author of "Empire of Care: Nursing and Migration in Filipino American History,'' a book that traces the history of Filipino nurses in the United States, starting with the beginning of the 20th century when the Philippines was still an American colony.

In an interview with Pinoy Pod, Choy examines this history, along with a more recent - and some say alarming - trend of doctors who are enrolling in accelerated nursing courses in the Philippines to increase their chances of coming to America.

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Pinoy Pod 41

Part Two - Buffalo Soldiers returned to Bay Area with Filipino wives, customs

Vangie Canonizado Buell's memoir, "25 Chickens and a Pig for a Bride," tackled a little known chapter in the histories of the United States and the Philippines: The thousands of African Americans, known as Buffalo Soldiers, who served in the war between the two countries.

Buell's grandfather, Ernest Stokes, came to identify with the Filipinos so much that he decided to stay in the Philippines where he started a family.

In Part 2 of our interview with Vangie Buell, she talks about how Ernest Stokes returned to the United States, where he started a new life with his Filipino wife in West Oakland.

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Pinoy Pod 40

Buffalo Soldier came to the Philippines to fight, instead found new way of life

Pinoy Pod joins the commemoration of Black History Month with a special podcast on a little known chapter in the histories of the Philippines and the United States.

When Filipino revolutionaries resisted the U.S. occupation of the Philippines at the turn of the 20th century during the Philippine-American War, thousands of African Americans were recruited to crush the rebellion.

It was not an easy mission for the black soldiers, most whom were mistreated by their Caucasian officers and came to identify with the plight of the Filipinos. Some of them found it hard to shoot at the brown-skinned rebels fighting for independence. A few of the African Americans defected to the Filipino side.

Evangeline Canonizado Buell is the granddaughter of Ernest Stokes, one of the so-called Buffalo Soldiers who fought and later started a new life in the Philippines.

Buell, who lives in Oakland, recalls her grandfather's experiences in the Philippines in her book "25 Chickens and a Pig for a Bride."

In Part 1 of our interview, Vangie Buell shares her memories of her grandfather and the unusual path that led him to the Philippine islands.

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Pinoy Pod 39

FACES pushes for environmental cleanup in the Philippines

This week on Pinoy Pod, Michelle Louie interviews Galatea King of the Filipino American Coalition for Environmental Solidarity, or FACES, which is waging campaigns to call attention to ecological problems in the Philippines.

King talks about two of the Berkeley group's main causes - getting the United States government to take more responsibility for the cleanup of the former military bases and to get Chevron Corp. of San Ramon to take responsibility for the health problems of residents who live next to an oil depot in Pandacan.

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Pinoy Pod 38

The legacy of Nick Joaquin

This week on Pinoy Pod, we talk to Bay Area writer Tony Joaquin, who is writing a biography about his uncle, Nick Joaquin, one of the Philippines' most revered literary figures.

In a career that spanned more than half a century, Nick Joaquin wrote novels, poems, plays, essays and biographies, exploring many facets of Philippine history in the 20th century from the American colonial period to the Marcos regime.

Joaquin, who died in 2004, was named National Artist of the Philippines in the 1970s.
In an interview, Tony Joaquin recalls his uncle's passion for literature, his kindness and courage, and his impressive literary legacy.

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Pinoy Pod 37

No easy match for biracial Fil-Am toddler in dire need of bone marrow donor

This week on Pinoy Pod, we interview the parents of Harrison Leonardo, a 2-year-old San Leandro boy who is battling Acute Myloid Leukemia, a cancer of the blood.

Harrison is in dire need of a bone marrow transplant, but the search for a donor has been difficult because of his mixed heritage. He is half Filipino and half white and his donor will most likely share the same heritage.

Harrison's parents, Stephanie and O.J. Leonardo, and little brother Lucas.
According to the National Marrow Donor Program , of the 6 million people now registered as donors, only 34,000 are Pinoy, and even fewer are biracial.

In this podcast, Pinoy Pod's Michelle Louie talks to Harrison's parents, O.J. Leonardo - a San Francisco firefighter - and his wife, Stephanie Isaacson, who are trying to raise awareness about the lack of biracial donors on the national bone marrow registry.

They're hoping the more people who step forward to get tested, the greater the chance of finding a match for Harrison or others who await a life-saving transplant.

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Pinoy Pod 36

Tagalog on Site teaches language, fills cultural void

This week on Pinoy Pod, we spotlight a program that takes young Filipino Americans to the Philippines to learn Tagalog and find themselves in the process.

The program is called Tagalog on Site, which combines language instruction with lessons on history, culture and life in the Philippines. Pinoy Pod's Michelle Louie talks with new Tagalog on Site director Karen Villanueva, who says that like many young Fil-Ams, the inability to speak Tagalog used to make her feel she was missing something integral to her identity.

Villanueva says that while growing up in the land of opportunity has been a "rich" experience, it has also been a confusing one because she couldn't connect with the Philippines in a meaningful way. Last summer, she traveled to the Philippines through Tagalog on Site to not only learn Tagalog, but to, as she puts it, "decolonize" herself.

She was so transformed by the trip that she wanted to work for the 10-year-old program, which has served about 153 students. The seven-to eight-week program costs about $2,600, which includes lodging and meals, but not airfare. You don't have to be Pinoy to go - but this is not a tourist excursion.

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Pinoy Pod 35

The poet and his past - Part 2 of our talk with Oscar Penaranda

Oscar Penaranda tells Pinoy Pod about his personal journey from his boyhood in the Philippines to his coming of age in the United States and how his experiences shaped his writing.

Penaranda also reads from his book of poetry "Full Deck (jokers playing)." Often gently humorous and sometimes wickedly barbed, Penaranda's poems are like cards dealt from a fresh pack - and you can't tell how the hand will play out until the final turn.

"Full Deck (jokers playing)" is published by T'Boli Publishing & Distribution.

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Pinoy Pod 34

Penaranda's Principles

Storyteller, poet and playwright Oscar Penaranda has written compelling tales for more than 30 years. His characters and story lines are as rich as his own life.

Now a high school teacher, he's lived in the coastal town of Barugo on the Philippine island of Leyte, in cosmopolitan Vancouver and the San Francisco Bay Area. For many years, he was a follower of the seasons and joined the workers who toiled and trekked from the farmlands of California to the fish canneries in Alaska.

The short stories in his award-winning book, "Seasons by the Bay," are set in those places, but his characters and lots are drawn from imagination rather than reality, Penaranda tells Pinoy Pod. Find out more about the author and his secrets to good storytelling this week.
Next week: Penaranda, the poet.

"Seasons by the Bay" is published by T'Boli Publishing & Distribution. For more information, write: tiboli@comcast.net .

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Pinoy Pod 33

FilAm scientist warns faster Arctic ice melt another sign of global warming

A group of top NASA scientists led by Josefino Comiso said in a recent report that sea ice in the Arctic region in the Winter has been shrinking at a faster rate in the last two years.

The alarming trend is another sign of global warming, says Comiso, is leading expert on climate change in the Arctic.

This week, Pinoy Pod talks to Comiso, a senior scientist in the cryospheric sciences branch of NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.

Comiso, who was born and educated in the Philippines, has warned that the amount of Arctic sea ice reduction recorded has not been seen in the 27 years satellite data has been available.

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Pinoy Pod 32

FilAm Author Patricia Laurel

In this week's edition of Pinoy Pod, author Patricia Laurel talks about how she hopes her latest book, "Only If You Can Find Me," helps Filipino American youth appreciate their cultural heritage.

The book is the tale of a young Filipino American girl named Samantha Plum, who lives in San Francisco.

But when Sammy travels to the Philippines for the first time for her family's town fiesta, she encounters the spirits of her ancestors, learns she has inherited her family's psychic abilities and discovers her heritage.

Laurel is the great-grandniece of Philippine national hero Dr. Jose Rizal. In this phone interview from her home in Hawaii, Laurel tells The Chronicle's Michelle Louie about her inspiration for the book, which is the first of a trilogy, and hints at what's coming next.

Check out the Pinoy Pod page at SFGate.com .

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Pinoy Pod 30

Covering the People Power Revolution

Photographer Kim Komenich won a Pulitzer Prize for his coverage of the People Power Revolution that forced President Ferdinand Marcos from office 20 years ago.

At the time, Komenich was a photographer with the San Francisco Examiner and covered the story with then-reporter Phil Bronstein. Both are now with The Chronicle, and Bronstein is the paper's editor.

Komenich said they covered "heroes'' and "larger than life'' people on both sides of the revolution, from rebel priest Father Conrado Balweg to Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos. He survived getting shelled by Marcos troops and getting caught in a crossfire in Manila. They ate "off the earth'' one week and at Malacanang Palace the next.

This week on Pinoy Pod, Komenich remembers his travels and adventures throughout the Philippines, starting in 1984 when he first photographed Corazon Aquino.

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Pinoy Pod 29

The struggle for Little Manila

From the 1920s through the 1960s, Little Manila in Stockton was a center of the Filipino American community, a vibrant neighborhood where the likes of Carlos Bulosan and other prominent Pinoys lived and worked.

But by the 1980s, Little Manila was disappearing as developers replaced the historic structures with fast food joints and parking lots.

When the last buildings were scheduled for demolition, San Francisco State University professor Dawn Mabalon and other FilAms led a campaign to save the neighborhood. Today, Little Manila is an official historic site.

In an interview with Pinoy Pod, Mabalon talked about growing up in Little Manila, where her grandfather became good friends with Bulosan, the famous Filipino American writer and activist. She also recalled what made her decide to help preserve the neighbhorhood's colorful past.

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