Just found this great article in the Philippine Inquirer.net, which describes how Abe Ignacio, one of the founding authors of The Forbidden Book, became interested in the representation of Filipina/os in American newspapers. Abe’s discovery helps us to reconstruct how Filipina/os were perceived in San Francisco during the early 20th century. Check out the article: “Filipinos in San Francisco a Century Ago.”

Filipina/o students in Berkeley and San Francisco were painfully aware of how they were perceived in the U.S., and they were moved to write about it in The Filipino Student magazine, especially after the 1906 earthquake, when they realized that Filipino victims of the quake were not going to receive any help. General Frederick Funston was in charge of bringing order to the City after the quake and restoring communications infrastructure. Funston was made Brigadier General for his leadership in capturing General Emilio Aguinaldo during the Philippine-American War. Read more about that in the Editorials & Essays section of this website.