Below is a wonderful narrative, recently sent to us by Darlene DeGuzman Tan, Esq. (SFS '90), the founder of Georgetown's Club Filipino, which describes in detail the origins of our club. We sincerely thank her for contacting us and sharing her story.
THE FOUNDING OF CLUB FILIPINO AT GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITYWhile on the Georgetown University web-site recently, I came across link to Club Filipino site. Out of curiosity, I clicked on the link, and was surprised and pleased to see the organization so vibrant and strong. It brought back many memories for me, and inspired me to dig up some old scrap books and pictures from the founding of the club. At the request of the current membership, I am writing this so that you can have it for your "annals". It was a different time at Georgetown. Taxis and private cars could drive in to Healy Circle and pick you up right on the steps, and there was no Leavey Center. We socialized in the basement of the Healy Building. Our bar was called the "Pub". It was dark and grimy, and we loved it! Saxa Sundries and Vital Vittles were down there too (very small and narrow cramped places), as well as the credit union, which operated out of a small room through a teller booth that looked as if it were home-made from scraps of plywood. It was fun walking the leng th of the basement. You would see your friends. People put out small card tables and blankets and sold items like jewelry or candles.
During my freshman year, I lived in New South. There was a student security guard who worked there at times (back then, they were called "GUPS" not "DOPS"), a year ahead of me named Lemuel Carlos. We still used the old id's with the punch holes in it. (Before I graduated we switched to the magnetic strip cards and a recent visit to the campus indicates that the old "student guard" job is obsolete with all of the doors having swipe or key card entrance features). I remember as a freshman, he had approached me and asked me in Tagalog, "Filipina ba kayo?" It turned out that he had just returned from a year studying at Ateneo, a prestigious university in the Philippines. He was from California, and Filipino-American, like me, and also like me, conversant in Tagalog. We spoke on occasion, and commented about how many Filipinos and Filipino-Americans attended the university, as a Jesuit school that is well-known and respected in the Philippines. We also discussed how it was unfortunate that there was no organization that would facilitate fellowship among the Filipino or Filipino-American students. We decided instead of talking about it, we were going to do something about it, while we were on campus. We met a couple times that year, and made informal lists of the students we had come in to contact with who might be interested. We also researched through the Student Activities Commission the procedure for becoming a "SAC" recognized organization on campus. Remember, at this time, although it was common to have your own computer in your dorm room, we did not have cell phones, wide spread internet access or regular emailing. We did our schoolwork and research, as well as anything for our extracurricular activities the "hard way": posting paper flyers, phone calls from land-lines, photocopying, snail mail, etc.
Lem and I "clicked" because we had similar upbringings. Like many of you, I am sure, although we were Filipino-Americans, but our parents had sent us to the Philippines on a regular basis during the summer and on long holidays so that we would not forget the language or culture of our heritage. We had gone to all the same schools and clubs in Manila, and we had fun talking about these things. That is why we named the club, "Club Filipino". In the 70's and 80's, this was a popular country club in the Philippines, and we thought it would be a fun little "inside joke" if we named the club like in this fashion. We didn't want to be another "FSA". We thought that was too boring! Of course, the Tagalog translation was "Samahang Pilipino", and we always used the two together back then, as we had, at that time a desire to push Tagalog proficiency among the membership.
Our first meeting was at Lem's dorm suite in Henle. We used the bar b que's outside and grilled inihaw na babuy. I prepared some lumpia and other Filipino food (my mother had taught me how to cook). More than 30 people showed up and we all had a great time. We knew we were going to have a great organization. We had undergraduates, graduate students, law students and medical students as members, as well as "foreign students" (Philippine nationals). At our most active, I recall a club list of 62 members. [Many of you probably might not realize that Theresa Miller DeGoia (Jack DeGoia's wife) was in the class of 1989. She was one of the charter members. Her mother is a Filipina. Other Filipinos (considered foreign students) at the college at the time included graduate student Robert Abad-Santos Suntay, a grandson of the national hero, Jose Abad Santos, and the Aboitiz sisters, Melissa (my year) and Maryanne Aboitiz, of the shipping family in the Philippines. Filipino-American, Benjamin Ignacio (from Hawaii) was also a member, his father was the Marcos family personal physician when they were living in exile in Hawaii). There was even a law student from Spain, Alvaro DeVicente, whose great grandmother had been filipina, and he was very active in the club.].
The visiting Jacobson Professor of Southeast Asian studies at that time was Dr. Carl Trocki. He is a well-known scholar and author of such works such as "Piracy and the Sea in Southeast Asia", among others. He was my professor for Southeast Asian History, and I asked him, and he agreed to be the charter sponsor. All of the officers met with him and his family for dinner at Manila at Georgetown, a restaurant on M street at the time that shared a kitchen with Candelais, another posh restaurant. Although quite expensive for a student budget, we often went to this restaurant. "Joey" the head waiter was familiar with us, and would always "garlic fry" our rice upon request, or humor us when we called in advance for crispy pata or kare kare. Another incidental benefit was that he would allow us to purchase San Miguel at the bar and drink it in the restaurant without "carding" any of us! When we wanted a more "homey" meal, we would get together in someone's car or share a taxi to "Nipa Hut" restaurant in Maryland.
We were very nervous and well-prepared for our SAC presentation. I remember that after our presentation and acceptance/approval, they told us we were the most prepared group they had ever seen make a presentation. We were very active that first year. We participated in the Bicentennial International Folk Festival that was held on Healy Lawn. We had a food where we sold lumpia, fried rice, pansit, and inihaw na babuy skewer plates as a fund raiser. I submitted a recipe for kare-kare for the Bicentennial Cookbook, and it was featured in the final published version. We performed tinikling on one of the stages, and although now I shudder to think of it, Lem and I sang "Dahil Sa'yo" on karaoke. My parents came from Florida to Washington DC on some previoius week-ends to give club members a crash course in Tinikling, and my mother knew a seamstress who sewed our costumes for the event. It seemed we were always tight for time or money, but it was a lot of fun.
We had many events that were similar to the ones that you must have today and were very active on campus, at the Embassy and in the Filipino-American community. We had our regular meetings, we participated in the Asian Forum (the umbrella organization for Asian Student Associations at the time) and sponsored or co-sponsored many events on campus. We also attended events and had close ties to George Mason, Univ. of Maryland, George Washington, Barkada (at the Naval Academy) and other nearby universities' Filipino student associations. There was no national umbrella organization at that time. In my memory, there are two events of which I am most proud. One is the club's participation in Sentro Ng Wika at Kultura. Back then the Philippine Embassy was in the old Mass/ Ave. location (where the Philippine American site is now). We began a strong tie to the organization, through embassy staffers at the time, Jimmy Yambao and Al Vicente. They had been regularly holding Sentro for school age children. We initiated a college-age group that met upstairs in the library every Saturday for Tagalog language and culture lessons. I myself (and I believe a few others) were able to use this as the "foreign language proficiency qualification for the school of foreign service. We participated in the Christmas show, "Ibong Adarna", Tagalog caroling and did our best to learn the subtleties of "balagtasan", under the instructors' wing. Back then, the ambassador was former Vice President Emmanuel Pelaez. We affectionately called him Tito Manny.
The other event of which I am most proud was our Winter "Pure Energy" Ball. This was a popular dance club song at the time (I am sure many of you have heard it, it is the one with Leonard Nimoy saying "Pure Energy" throughout the song), and we had a talented member do the graphic art for our poster. Little did we know that the Korean Student Association was also having a "Pure Energy" dance. We saw their signs up too! They used standard size black and white photocopies to advertise their dance, and ours were larger professionally printed posters (this is before the advent of desk top publishing availability). I am happy to report that there was no confusion between the events. We held our dance in Copley Formal Lounge and the turn out was fantastic. The room itself is beautiful with the hard wood floors and large fireplace. We received permission to light a fire and also serve food and alcohol. I remember, that I took a bus and subway to the DC local government office to get the liquor license, and when I got there, they would not issue it to me because I was under-age. At that time they recently raised the drinking age to 21, but to serve liquor, you had to be at least 18,which I was not. I remember panicking and calling Lem from a pay -phone to come get the liquor license, because we had all of this San Miguel and other liquor that we had purchased to sell at the "cash bar" at the dance. We had a professional DJ and several hundred people turned out from all over the area. We had advertised not only on our own campus, but through the other "FSA's" in the area, the Embassy, the community groups, the restaurants, and also the Asian grocery stores. One of our policies at the time for any of our fund-raising events was to send a few complimentary tickets to officers of any student or community group, or the owners of any business that allowed us to put up our posters or flyers. This always ensured a huge turn-out to any of our "open to the public" events. We not only had a fantastic time, we also successfully raised funds for the club. Another yearly fundraiser we had was Christmas "Candygrams". We sold "messages" and attached little bags of candies. As a group, we assembled them all, and then assigned delivery by dorm on campus (simply hang on the door knob of recipient).
I had a group of close- knit friends that I not only did Club Filipino activities with, but also socialized with at "non-club" events. We liked to go to Japanese or Korean restaurants such a Woo Lae Oak, or Thai restaurants like the Golden Axe. For other Asian cuisine, we took the metro to Chinatown. A recent visit this past summer really shocked me, It is so gentrified now, with very few of the old-timer Chinese venders. I had to really look hard for a roast duck (!), which twenty years ago would have been easy! I told my husband that the only Chinese thing about D.C. Chinatown now is the street signs for the tourists. We would also go to the Tombs on Lobster Night, or go get steaks at Orleans House across the key bridge. We played tennis, badminton, squash, or other sports and went to mass together. We always went out to eat when our parents were in town for any reason. We went dancing a lot. If it wasn't at some FSA or other college-sponsored dance, we loved to go to Tracks on Thursday nights (this is a traditionally "gay club" that had "straight night" on Thursdays, I think it is recently closed, which is a shame because it was a "D.C. institution for all the "clubbers" back then), Chicago/Mirage, or this club called "Cities", that was very modern and popular back then. Sometimes, if some of us were low on funds, we would go as a group to the hotel "lounges" and dance, eat and drink there because there was no cover. Of course, whether we were "of age" or not, we all had "id's" to get in to these venues. If you watch a lot of those movies from the 80's like Breakfast Club, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, St. Elmo's Fire, Less Than Zero, or films like the "Wedding Singer" , in many ways it was like that. While I was very serious about my studies, like most college students, I did not let DC's other attractions pass me unnoticed. I was one of those "club kids" who bypassed all the lines, and was on a first name basis with the bouncers. I never paid "covers" at da nce clubs, because I was also crazy about dancing, and had all those terribly glitzy short cocktail gowns the 80's is famous for that gained me free admission. I definitely followed the work hard, play hard philosophy while at Georgetown. I jokingly tell my nieces and nephews that I did not actually sleep in college, I only took occasional naps.
In 1989, I was chosen as Washington DC's Cherry Blossom Princess for the National Cherry Blossom Festival. I was the first Asian-American to ever serve in this capacity and the entire Filipino-American population in the area, and the Embassy were very proud. The mayor of Chinatown at the time (because I am part Chinese) insisted on personally driving me in a local D.C. parade, he was so proud. Many of the older generation would just walk up to me and give me a red envelope, they were so happy to see a young Asian-American being recognized. It was actually very sweet, and I took my obligations seriously. I was on the front page of the Style section of the Washington Post, and on the front page of the Filipino-Express newspaper. I did interviews on the local news (mostly defending the D.C. crime rate and Mayor Berry). While it is very common now, many in my generation consider those years the "break-out" time for Asian-Americans in the media and other venues. Kelly Hu had recently won Miss Teen USA and was second runner-up in Miss USA, and at the time I was Washington D.C.s Cherry Blossom Princess, Virginia Cha, a Korean-American had won the Miss Maryland Pageant. We saw each other at public events often. She is now a broadcast journalist for a CNN. While it might seem a bit silly now, back then, it was always a positive breakthrough for the community when any Asian-American was featured publicly in a positive light. In no small part as a result of relationships and networks I cultivated during that year, I was chosen as one of two interns for a competitive internship at the Mayor's Office of Asian and Pacific Islander Affairs, where I continued my work with the local Asian-American community.
I spent my entire summer between my junior and senior year in the Philippines. When I returned for my senior year, in 1989-1990, we had lost Lemuel Carlos, one of the founding members to graduation. I lived on the "Asian Awareness" Floor in Copley. We tried to get a "Filipino Floor" special interest housing group going, and we were approved by student housing, but there was not that much interest. By that time, many of us were upper classmen and wanted to live off campus. In addition, those of us from the class of 1990 out of necessity were beginning to focus on our lives "after Georgetown". We began to turn the reigns over to the younger members, and by the end of my senior year, with finals and plans and decisions regarding law school, my involvement lessened for the "passing of the torch".
I do return to the area occasionally as I still have friends and relatives in the area, and also, sometimes on my way to New York or Canada. I am always happy when people in the Filipino-American community remember me. Occasionally I will give a walking tour of the campus to a friend or relative. The next time I am in the area, I hope to meet some of you. I can't tell you enough how proud and happy I am that the seed we planted more than ten years ago has grown in to the strong and vibrant organization that you are today.
Post script:After Georgetown, I returned to my home state and graduated from Florida State University College of Law. While at FSU, I helped found the FSU FSA with Stephen Sapiera (my boyfriend at the time and charter president) and Pancho Garcia. After law school, I practiced law in the private sector (and a short time in the public sector early in my career) for almost ten years in small to mid-size Florida firms, before starting my own practice. I currently have my own law office, am happily married, and have two sons, who I adore.
Here is a brief time-line regarding the founding of the club:No events listed.