Organizer: BARYO BROOKLYN; Brooklyn Public Library
Type/Location: In Person / Brooklyn, NY
Description:
Join us for a special program in celebration of Filipino American History Month.
How do we tell the stories of communities erased from the physical landscape of a city? And what role can historians, artists, and community members play in recovering and reimagining their past?
Beginning at the turn of the twentieth century, Filipino seamen and their families settled in the working-class neighborhoods around the Brooklyn Navy Yard, most famously the rough-and-tumble sailors’ enclave of Sands Street. There, Filipino Brooklynites built communities and fought for civil rights at a time when the Philippines was a U.S. colony. In the decades after World War II, urban renewal and changing immigration policies all but erased this once-vibrant Filipino waterfront community.
Reimagining Filipino Brooklyn explores how contemporary historians, artists, and community members have worked to remember and reimagine this largely forgotten chapter of Brooklyn’s past.
Historian Michael Menor Salgarolo, Assistant Professor of History at Bard College and founder of UNASSIMILATED Walking Tours, shares how primary sources, oral histories that include those from his own family, and historical imagination shaped Blood and Water, his acclaimed walking tour of Filipino Brooklyn. Drawing on the Center for Brooklyn History’s collections, he will illuminate the lives and communities that once flourished along the waterfront.
Actor and filmmaker Claro de los Reyes screens Sands Street, his narrative short film set on the Brooklyn waterfront in the 1940s, where a Filipino steward and an African American welder form an unexpected bond. He will discuss what inspired him to bring this relationship and history to the screen.
The evening concludes with Caroline C. Pasion of the Filipino American National Historical Society Metro New York Chapter, who will share memories of growing up in Brooklyn’s Filipino community and reflect on how that history informs her work today.
About the Speakers:
Michael Menor Salgarolo is an Assistant Professor of History at Bard College. He holds a Ph.D in History from New York University. His research explores questions of race-making, empire, and migration in early Asian American history. Dr. Salgarolo is the founder of UNASSIMILATED, a walking tour company that tells a people’s history of Asian America on the sidewalks of New York City. His research and expertise has been featured on CNN, Buzzfeed, and the Huffington Post.
Claro de los Reyes is an actor, filmmaker, theatre artist, and public historian. Born in Metro Manila, Philippines and raised throughout the United States, Claro draws from his diverse upbringing and eclectic interests to make art that interrogates transnational identity and global culture. As an actor Claro is a proud member of SAG and AEA and has been featured in film and television projects produced by Lionsgate and Starz. Additionally he has performed with theater companies that include Pan Asian Rep, NAATCO, Leviathan Lab, Flint Rep, and Powerhouse Theater. As a filmmaker his films have been programmed in festivals that include San Diego Asian Film Festival, Urbanworld Festival, Asian American Showcase Chicago, and Seattle Asian American Film Festival. Claro’s theatre and public history projects have received support from organizations including: The Laundromat Project, Downtown Art, and the Network of Ensemble Theaters. He is the director of Atlantic Pacific Theatre, a Brooklyn-based indie theatre company committed to cross cultural exchange, pluralism, and decolonized creative practices.
Caroline Pasion is a lifelong New Yorker born in Brooklyn to Filipino parents with ties to the Brooklyn Navy Yard. Caroline has a passion for New York City history and architecture that is shared through her professional and volunteer work in all five boroughs and beyond. She works at the NYC Landmarks Preservation Commission, volunteers her time as an officer at Bakás Pilipinas and the Preservation League of New York State, as well as serve as a board member of the Filipino American National Historical Society-Metro NY Chapter and as chair of New York Public Radio’s Community Advisory Board. She graduated from St. John’s University with a Bachelor of Science in Finance and Columbia University’s Graduate School of Architecture, Planning and Preservation with a Master of Science in Historic Preservation.
Registration:
To attend the event in person, please register here.