In 2021, 19-year-old Marissa Halagao, a Punahou School sophomore at the time, was struck by the fact that her Asian studies class emphasized only Chinese and Japanese histories, even though Filipinos make up the largest ethnic Asian population on Hawai’i’s islands. Moreover, Filipino students represent the largest ethnic group attending Hawai’i’s public schools, with nearly 24% of students identifying as Filipino.
“I felt like we deserve to have representation, and the fact that we were not getting that in our history classes, it communicated to me as a Filipino American that my history and my culture was not worthy to be explored,” Halagao, now a freshman at Yale, tells Teen Vogue.
Last year, Hawai’i made history as the first state to adopt a Filipino studies curriculum in its schools. This momentous approval was the culmination of a two-year campaign led by high schoolers and college students under the Filipino Curriculum Project (FCP) to integrate Filipino representation into Hawai’i’s education system. But the real-life impact of this achievement goes beyond school textbooks.
After Halagao worked with her teachers to update the school’s Asian studies course with a new Filipino history component, her ambitions grew to include the launch a stand-alone Filipino history and culture course, conceived through the FCP, that could be taught statewide. She teamed up with students at other Hawai’i schools and kicked off the initiative in February 2021.
The FCP team now has around 26 active students working to expand the campaign to more schools. Among Halagao’s earliest collaborators was Raymart Billote, a 20-year-old junior at the University of Hawai’i at West O’ahu. The desire to empower younger Filipino Americans like his sister and cousins, who were born in Hawai’i, motivated Billote to join FCP. “When my younger sister was born, that’s when I realized, Oh, she could benefit from this initiative, because I don’t want her to grow up not knowing about her Filipino side,” explains Billote, who immigrated to Hawai’i with his family when he was 14.
Beyond carving out a space for Filipino American students to learn about their heritage, the initiative is an important endeavor to combat the xenophobia that some immigrant students encounter. Eighteen-year-old Barnard College freshman Mariah Iris Ramo dissociated from her Filipino heritage after receiving discriminatory remarks from peers about her accent and skin color. “We’re all trying to decolonize our minds,” Ramo says. “I think, knowing our history through this project and just through all the connections that we've been making, it was very important in helping me reconnect with my identity.”
Creating Hawai’i’s first high school-level Filipino studies curriculum, officially named the Filipino History Culture course, took a lot of effort, patience, and collaboration. During the process — in addition to balancing the demands of the project with school responsibilities — a big challenge for students was navigating how to work with government officials and legislators as young people trying to change Hawai’i’s education system. Being in spaces where grown-ups typically take charge can be alienating, but the FCP’s success proves that young advocates have an important role to play in advancing such reforms.
“This is an initiative that was founded on student voice," Halagao says. "However, there was never really a blueprint or a guide for us. But because this course has gotten so much recognition… it shows that student voice can succeed.”
Students worked with an educator design team that helped calibrate the Filipino course they crafted to align with standards set by Hawai’i’s Department of Education (HIDOE), as well as refine its curriculum and create a syllabus through collaborative workshops. Says Halagao, a big component of the framework was to provide a critical representation of Filipino history.
Historically, Spain’s brutal colonization of the Philippine islands, spanning three centuries, culminated in its people’s struggle for independence from Spain in 1896, now known as the start of the Philippine Revolution. “It’s not the fact that Spain wanted to have a relationship with the Philippines," Halagao notes, "but they wanted to exploit and oppress the people, and that should be known. But we should also be able to celebrate history as well,” she adds. “Balancing historical criticism with empowerment is something that should always be kept in mind.”
In 2022, the Filipino Caucus within Hawai’i’s State Legislature passed a resolution urging the HIDOE to adopt the new curriculum, signaling strong legislative support. A proposal for the Filipino curriculum was officially submitted and subsequently approved by the HIDOE in 2023.
For Norman Sales, an educator and FCP mentor, collaborating with students to develop the new curriculum was nothing short of inspirational. “As an adult in the system, we recognize all the barriers and challenges that come with innovations like this,” Sales says. “But to see and hear kids who are very optimistic that they're making a change in the world… that is kind of inspiring and validating that we are in good hands of who our future leaders will be.”
The FCP has received a lot of community support since its inception. Still, the project also received negative responses, including accusations that it takes away space from other minority representation. Billote says those criticisms misconstrue what the FCP is about: “It’s not us trying to overshadow other groups; we’re trying to fight for our own representation. Like, we’re trying to put ourselves in the show, basically.”
According to Sales, that rhetoric demonstrates how others are hungry for representation too. “I think what [the negative commenters] are communicating is they hope that there is also representation for all other groups. And I think our students have shown what a successful model could be in terms of highlighting voices and narratives that are currently underrepresented,” Sales says.
Farrington High School and Waipahu High School — two public schools serving majority-Filipino student bodies — will be the first to pilot the new Filipino curriculum, beginning this fall. Sales, who serves as an educational specialist and program lead of Na Kumu Alaka'i at the Teacher Leader Academy, is building a professional development program around the new curriculum with more than 20 Filipino experts. The program will train educators on how to best implement the new Filipino History Culture course in schools, and it will be offered under the Sistan C. Alhambra Filipino American Education Institute.
It is a fitting setup: According to the Filipino American Education Institute, Alhambra was “the first Filipina teacher to be hired at a Hawai’i public school, who later developed a successful private kindergarten school in Hawai’i.” The educators program is expected to launch over the summer and applications are now open.
Despite the adoption of FCP’s curriculum into Hawai’i schools, team members say there is still much work to be done. Aside from an upcoming children’s books geared toward younger children, the team has outreach plans to encourage their younger peers to amplify its campaign as ambassadors.
Among its newer recruits are 14-year-old twins Lilyanne F. and Leala F. “This group has given me an opportunity to learn more about my Filipino culture,” says Lilyanne. “And I want to give my peers the opportunity to learn about their Filipino culture.”
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